2nd Grade – Favorite Song
Adeline Hotel – Lightning
Adrianne Lenker – Cradle
Allison’s Gate – Traces
Anna McClellan – Heart of Hearts
Advance Base – Christmas in Nightmare City
Badlands – Slow it Down
Bambara – José Tries to Leave
The Beths – Whatever
Bodega – Jack in Titanic
boygenius – Me & My Dog
Camp Cope – UFO Lighter
Campdogzzz – Sorceress
Cave People – I Shall Believe
Damien Jurado – Percy Faith
Dead Painters – Fool on Fire
Dear Nora – Simulation Feels
Dehd – Dying For
Devon Welsh – Vampires
Diva Sweetly – Detox Island
Doe – Heated
Dusted – Outline of a Wolf
Field Report – Every Time
Frankie Valet – Something to do with a mouth
Gia Margaret – Birthday
Goodbye Max – Old Photos
Good Good Blood – Cannot Be Yours Forever
Gorgeous Bully – Patience
Great Health – Lazarus
Hop Along – How Simple
Hour – At the bar where you literally saved me from fatal heartbreak 
Houses – Fast Talk
Hovvdy – Brave
Hypoluxo – Kentucky Smooth
IAN SWEET – Hiding
Kal Marks – Today I Walked Down To The Tree, Read A Book, And When I Was Done, I Went Back Inside
Katy Kirby – Juniper
Kevin Morby & Waxahatchee – Dark Don’t Hide It
Kississippi – Easier to Love
Kraków Loves Adana – The Day the Internet Died
Lala Lala – Destroyer
Lisa/Liza – Tea Kettle
lowly loverboi – Graveyards in Space
Lucy Dacus – Yours & Mine
Mike Pace & the Child Actors – Escape the Noise
Miranda Winters – The Futuristic District
Mitski – Nobody
Moonface – Minotaur Forgiving Pasiphae
Moon Racer – Friendly Ghost
Nap Eyes – Every Time the Feeling
Nice Try – Micah
Nicole Dollanganger – Uncle
No Age – Drippy
Oceanator – Mistakes
Of The Valley – Ride Alone
Pale Kids – St. Theresa
Pat Moon – I Belong
Pema – Depend
Petal – I’m Sorry
Pink Navel – born-100.dev
Pizza Girl – Body Part
Protomartyr – Wheel of Fortune
Remember Sports – Dripping
Restorations – Nonbeliever
Rivulets – Everything Goes
Ryan Von Gonten – Fabrique
Sabriel’s Orb – Holding
Saccharine – Pumpkin Guts
Sam Moss – Snap
Sara Renberg – Take the Summer Off
Sobs – Sundae
Spartan Jet-Plex – Sweet
Strange Ranger – The Wires
Sun June – Slow Rise II
Swearin’ – Dogpile
Talk, Tired Thanatoid – Everything’s Cool
Tomberlin – Any Other Way
Trace Mountains – Salty Sweet
Trust Fall – Wild Fire/Flowers
TVU – All For Nothing
Weakened Friends – Blue Again
Whitney Baleen – Rainer
Why Bonnie – Stereo
Wild Pink – The Seance on St. Augustine Street
wished bone – reasons
Yellowfront – Cool Breeze
Young Jesus – For Nana
Young Statues – Somebody Else
Yowler – Where Is My Light?

If you missed it, we have also posted our favourite albums list, so check that out too.

The post Favourite Songs of 2018 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“Their EP, ▲ S N O W B E A S T ▲, is swirling concoction of musical styles that is hard to pin down. There are relaxed surf rock baselines (‘Backyards and Alleyways’), Vampire Weekend-esque African influences (‘No One Wants to Live in the Ghetto’), electronic beats and fuzzy repetitive choruses (‘A Howl Like a Wolf’) and in-your-face shouty bits (‘Snowbeast’ and ‘Somewhere, Ontario’)”

Well the band aren’t back but we might well have the next best thing. The new project of SNOWBEAST frontman Riun Garner, Hoshifo have extracted the tropical vibes from the SNOWBEAST carcass and expanded upon them to make shimmering pop single ‘I’m Not There’. The song toes the line between blissed-out haze of summer days and the sentimental melancholy of summer nights, sounding like Dexter Tortoriello’s vacation jams. Have a listen below:

There’s not much in terms of information about Hoshifo, but be sure to ‘like’ their Facebook page to ensure you don’t miss a thing.

The post Introducing Hoshifo appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“I’ve spent years with these songs when they were only mine, and I emptied myself into them…So if you’re going to listen, please know that this is all of me. A flawed and destructive mess of good intentions. A still life.”

The album is an emotional mixture of futuristic electronics, lo-fi bedroom pop and heart-on-his-sleeve lyrics. It’s also magnificently produced, sounding like a cinematic, widescreen version of the genre. Those of you who like Houses will love Dawn Golden, as will fans of Youth Lagoon, Arrange and the newer stuff by The Antlers. This is an album to be listened to on headphones, or on lonely nighttime drives. Tortoriello has similar ideas:

“I hope you will listen to it on your headphones and keep someone that maybe you miss a lot in your mind while you do. Maybe you will see them soon and I hope that you do.”

Lead single ‘All I Want’ (which you can hear in the player above) is a slow-burning epic, which climaxes in a chaotic, but triumphant, breakdown. The track has recently been given the remix treatment by Diplo too, which you can hear over at Soundcloud. We also featured the video (an excellent sci-fi love story directed by Tyler T. Williams) ‘All I Want’ over at Beatclash, so check that out too.

You can buy Still Life right now via Downtown Records / Mad Decent.

The post Dawn Golden – Still Life appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The two Jurado covers are from Slowcoustic’s fantastic Covers Project, the Rufus Wainwright one is from Pickwick’s Fuel/Friends Chapel Session and the Dire Straits cover was included after reading an article on the late Matt Ryd on Cover Lay Down. I have no idea what is going on in the Mac DeMarco track.

Tracklisting:

1. Falling (Twin Peaks Theme) – Field Mouse
2. You Took Your Time (Mount Kimbie Cover) – Julia Losfelt
3. Talamak (Toro y Moi Cover) – Houses
4. Thinking About You (Frank Ocean Cover) – Typhoon
5. Heysátan (Sigur Rós Cover) – Leif Vollebekk
6. No Other Love (Jo Stafford Cover) – Night Beds
7. Foolish Love (Rufus Wainwright Cover) – Pickwick
8. Beacon Hill (Damien Jurado Cover) – Small Houses (w/ Kevin Killen)
9. We All Make The Flowers Grow (Lee Hazelwood Cover) – Siskiyou
10. Father and Son (Cat Stevens Cover) – Johnny Cash & Fiona Apple
11. Indie Queens Are Waiting (Dan Mangan Cover) – Will Driving West
12. Fade Into You (Mazzy Star Cover) – J Mascis
13. Fit (Windmill Cover) – Snob Dylan
14. Don’t Let Them See You Cry (Manchester Orchestra Cover) – Ted Monday
15. Isolation (Joy Division Cover) – If Thousands
16. Medication (Damien Jurado Cover) – Wes Tirey
17. Drive All Night (Bruce Springsteen Cover) – The Swell Season
18. Romeo & Juliet (Dire Straits Cover) – Matt Ryd
19. Gypsy He-Witch (Jason Molina Cover) – Will Oldham
20. Medley (Various Covers) – Mac DeMarco

As always, the mix is intended as an introduction to these artists. I have put links in the tracklisting so you can explore a bit further. Enjoy!

The Covers Mix: Volume #9 from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

The post The Covers Mix: Volume #9 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

As the concept suggests, the album is highly cinematic and is doused in melancholy, while neatly side-stepping the epic bombast that would have been easy to create handling such an emotive theme.The album also avoids going too far in the opposite direction. Far from a series of unlistenable dirges, it has a soothing ambience, with much of the violence that is usually associated with such post-apocalyptic scenarios left to the imagination. Think McCarthy’s The Road minus the explicit brutality, all doomed love and snatches of painful sentiments. This is all captured much better than I am able in the beautiful trailer below:

The resulting sound lands somewhere between the emotionally charged aesthetics of bedroom pop artists such as Arrange and the male-female vocals of Stars or A Weather. I have seen some criticism in reviews regarding the album’s length (around 55 minutes), but I think this is unfair. It is very hard to find an album that so successfully engages the listener in its concept and I found myself lost in this crumbling world for what was almost an entire hour. Listen to my current favourite track, the post-rock influenced ‘Beginnings’, below:

A Quiet Darkness is out now on Downtown Records and you can buy it now from most good retailers, or, if you live in North America, get a copy directly from the band during their upcoming tour. Check the dates here.

The post Houses – A Quiet Darkness appeared first on Various Small Flames.