Tracklisting:

Restorations – Nonbeliever
Goshen Electric Co. – The Grey Tower
Horse Culture – Follow
Yowler – Where Is My Light?
Desert Liminal – Gauze Cave
Anamon – In 3
Adeline Hotel – Lightning
Lea Thomas – Upstream
Scott Orr – No Phone
Advance Base – Christmas in Nightmare City
Blue Wilson – Golden Eyes
The Sofas – Nothing Major
Lazy Legs – Nosebleed
All Boy/All Girl – Bomb
Strange Ranger – New Hair
Elly Swope – Idea
Dweller – Running
Will Henriksen – Halo
Knuckle Pups – Bottom Baby
Ian Wayne – Guessing
Massage – Crying Out Loud
Recluse Raccoon – Mother America
Interbellum – Ink
Marc Ferrino – Like a Spark
Katie Kuffel – As the Crow Flies
Emily Brown – Sometimes
KASHKA – Holding Steady
Philippe Bronchtein – Me and the Moon
Spencer Segelov – Sacred Songs
Annie Dressner – Fades Away
Belaver – Grave Robber
Of The Valley – Ride Alone
Hour – Give thanks in a special way

The post October 2018 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

House seems able to conjure its own atmospheric patterns, unseen forces called forth from homebrew hexes, leaving the listener dazed and amazed, like a torn page that’s been swirled around and left strewn on the ground.

Again released by our friends at Furious Hooves, new EP Follow sees Horse Culture develop this aesthetic, delving further into the dark and moody corners of indie rock. From the opening salvo the title track the tone is set, like the stomping approach of some great black beast that stops for nothing and no one. The tempo might drop for the sludgy vocals, though the beat remains, taking on an ominous, creeping quality that soon finds a new level of frantic zeal.

The only sub-six minute track on the release, ‘Anteo’ blooms from uncertain beginnings into demonic fury, like the howls of some reluctant entity exorcised from its host. ‘Angels’ sees a return to the lurching horror of the opener, the unrelenting cadence like some hellforce on the warpath. Indeed, there’s something Brueghelian about this iteration of Horse Culture, and closer ‘Blue’ only reinforces the feeling. There’s a repetitive, hypnotic quality to the music, a sense of inevitability in the reiteration. Darkness rising from the earth, darkness metastasising. Darkness as compelled by marching drums. A triumph of darkness through its sheer conviction, some terrible looming thing determined to make itself known.

Follow is out now via Furious Hooves and you can get it from Bandcamp, including a nice cassette edition.

The post Horse Culture – Follow appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Various Small Flames’

Songs of 2017

Anamon – Kneel Old
Android Automatic – Dark Roads*
Angie McMahon – Slow Mover
Basement Revolver – Johnny Pt. 2
Baxter Roy Long – Paribanou
Bea Troxel – Let Them Know
Big Thief – Mary
Black Belt Eagle Scout – Soft Stud
Bully – Running
Cayetana – Mesa
Charly Bliss – Percolator
Chastity Belt – Different Now
CHUCK – Happy Birthday
The County Liners – Maria
The Courtneys – Tour
Craig Finn – God in Chicago
Crumb – Locket
Crushing – Emery Board
Cut Worms – Like Going Down Sideways
David Bazan – Care
Distant Reader – First Try
Emperor X – God Save Coastal Dorset
Fits – Ice Cream on a Nice Day
German Error Message – 2017*
Gleemer – Soothe Me
Great Grandpa – Favorite Show
Haley Heynderickx – Oom Sha Lala
Hiccup – Teasin’
Horse Culture – Texaco
Illuminati Hotties – ‘(You’re Better) Than Ever’
Japandroids – No Known Drink or Drug
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit – If We Were Vampires
Jay Som – The Bus Song
Jeremy Squires – Night Cars
Katie Ellen – Drawing Room
Lizzie No – Monuments
Lomelda – Bam Sha Klam
Mike Pace and the Child Actors – Audits & Surveys
Meursault – The Mill
Mount Eerie – Crow
Nice Legs – Mighty Three
Oceanator – Nowhere Nothing
Ohyeahsumi – Daisy
Old Earth – Pit Dynamics
PASTEL – Stammer
Peter Silberman – New York
Phoebe Bridgers – Motion Sickness
Pope – Talk Me Out of It
Protomartyr – Windsor Hum
Rainwater – Place
Ratboys – Elvis is in the Freezer
Rick Rude – Bald & Fat in Houston, TX
Roadkill Ghost Choir – Classics (Die Young)
Rose Dorn – Dirt
See Through Dresses – Lucy’s Arm
Shannen Moser – A Funeral, A Friend, My Sanity
Sinai Vessel – Died On My Birthday
Slaughter Beach, Dog – Phoenix
SOAR – Fort Funston
Soft Fangs – Jordan // Jackson Elementary
Spartan Jet-Plex – We Believe
Strange Ranger – House Show
Strawberry Runners – Garden Hose
Timid, The Brave – Alice
Us and Only Us – Bored of Black
Vagabon – Cold Apartment
Viewfinder – Instant Moonlight
The Washboard Abs – Veil
Waxahatchee – Never Been Wrong
Wild Pink – Albert Ross
William Ryan Fritch – In Our Blood
The Wooden Sky – Swimming in Strange Waters
Ylayali – Cherry Tomatoes

*Strictly released in 2016, but barely, and we covered it in Jan. 2017.

If you missed it, you can see our Favourite Albums of 2017 list here. Also, the curious can find such lists from previous years here.

The post Favourite Songs of 2017 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

Basement Revolver – Johnny Pt. 2
Ramonda Hammer – Too Much, Too Recently
Nana Grizol – Photos From When We Were Young
Blood Cultures – Detroit
Spartan Jet-Plex – All the World Pt. 2
Why Not – Ground
Horse Culture – Ruins
Devon Sproule – Trees At Your Mom’s
somesurprises – Late July
Midwife – Song for an Unborn Son
Alder & Ash – The Merciless Dusk
Matt Paxton – Baby Don’t Go
Captain – Hotel Room
Decoration Day – Palms
Magana – Inches Apart
Lizzie No – Monuments
Wilt – Pane of Glass
Blaketheman1000 – Blake
The Wooden Sky – Black Gold
Phoebe Bridgers – Motion Sickness

Be sure to check out our previous monthly roundup mixes, and stayed tuned in August for yet more of the good stuff.

The post July 2017 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Opening track ‘Ruins’ slides from mirage-like serenity to epic, stormy peaks, McKagen’s vocals the only element that remains on something resembling an even keel—acting as the song’s focal point, it’s eye of calm. The title track is altogether more hectic, veering with manic energy as McKagen wails and cries, the vocal anchor cut with a maelstrom awaiting.

‘Augustine’ is another example of how Horse Culture build dense, shadowy punk rock from sparse and spacious beginnings. The track begins in relative hush, but the somnambulant rise eventually tears right down the middle, unleashing a squall of guitar and pounded drums. ‘Witchy’ on the other hand has a post-punk schlock, kicking and twitching like a possessed body as the lyrics speak of pacts with dark forces.

“You know the wind whispers
it hollows your bones
at night when you’re trying to sleep,
that God won’t touch you
but I will hold you dear,
i tried to love you the best that I could
your floating weary dying body
the devil’s at the window
he’s calling you closer to him”

‘Waxy’ is short and oddly catchy, Hawks adding distinctively deadpan vocals during the  tumbling chorus. But it’s with ‘Texaco’ that Horse Culture hit their peak. The band save the best for last, a smoky, shadowy Gothic pop song that builds and builds before ending with a thunderous crescendo, McKagen’s vocals whipping up into a desperate frenzy.

The track is a suitably heavy and imposing end to an album that has a very real weight. House seems able to conjure its own atmospheric patterns, unseen forces called forth from homebrew hexes, leaving the listener dazed and amazed, like a torn page that’s been swirled around and left strewn on the ground.

You can get House now on Smoky Haze cassette via Furious Hooves.

The post Horse Culture – House appeared first on Various Small Flames.