A standout of the release was ‘Time Machine’, a song which stamped with “the frantic and cutting tone which marks the Anthropocene,” as we put it in a preview, “where the sense of impending doom is matched only by a desire to go back to better times, though one complicated by the nagging doubt we’d do things exactly the same over again, no matter how costly.” Only Daisy the Great didn’t quite feel the song was frantic and cutting enough, because when working on their new release, Tough Kid EP, they invited Sarah Tudzin (AKA illuminati hotties) to help them reimagine the track as something more intense.

Hence ‘Time Machine 2’, what the band call “the evil twin sequel to our song ‘Time Machine'” that raises the stakes. “We’ve always had a dream to make a grittier, faster version of the song,” they continue, “so when we got the opportunity to collaborate with indie punk legend Sarah Tudzin of illuminati hotties, we knew it would be the perfect moment to realize that vision.”

The song serves as the perfect foil for the other tracks on the EP, from the delicate folk croon of the title track to the sunny laidback rendition of Sleigh Bells’ buzz band classic ‘Rill Rill’. Or indeed the sultry swoon of ‘Looking U Up’, where the mood flickers between alluring and disinterested, and the understated vibe is the entire point of the sound. Daisy the Great are a versatile outfit, and Tough Kid EP suggests any number of directions they might go next, all within a handful of tracks.

Tough Kid EP is out now and available via streaming services.

The post Daisy The Great – Tough Kid appeared first on Various Small Flames.

We decided to expand things slightly this year, giving ourselves a chance to write a little something about the albums we wanted to cover but never got the opportunity. Albums which meant something to us at various points through 2021. The list was still incomplete, of course, and we were left with a big list of great songs from great records we didn’t get a chance to mention.

So here are some songs we really enjoyed in 2021. We hope you enjoy them too.

Arooj Aftab – Mohabbat

A take on a piece by Hafeez Hoshiarpuri, Aftab’s multilayered masterpiece is suffused with the patience, sadness and meditative inner wandering of Sufi devotional poetry.

Anjimile – Stranger

As fragile as sandstone, tougher than rock, ‘Stranger’ packages a nuanced assessment of identity as a folk pop hit of which Sufjan would be proud.

Bea Troxel – Getting Where

An empowered anthem for the introverted, slowly circling towards a more truthful self.

Ben Seretan – Cicada Waves 1

Measured and patient piano embedded within an organic field recording, ‘Cicada Waves 1’ plays like a slow day passing in all its quiet details, all its hidden weight.

The Bird Calls – Ritual Crash

With satellites falling from the sky and the burning underworld breaking the surface, ‘Ritual Crash’ presented the most tender, intimate end of the world you were likely to hear in the year of our Lord 2021.

Bria – Buffalo Ballet

Travel to Abilene, TX with this take on John Cale’s “European version of the Old West,” from an EP of covers that both subverts and celebrates country music.

BRNDA – Perfect World

Stable job, accolades, friendly dogs and affirmation. “You’re in the perfect world and doing ok,” sings Leah Gage, voice flat and sardonic as the track eventually tips sideways and falls into an unhinged sax outro.

Canary Room – Lake Effect

Bittersweet folk captured in its best setting, supported by warm lo-fi textures and an ambient embrace of birdsong.

Carson McHone – Hawks Don’t Share

The lid peeled off artistic collaboration, showing the tug of war tension underneath, as well as the lingering regret that results.

Daniel Davies – Spies

On streets as dark and foreboding as this, the question isn’t whether you are paranoid, but whether you are paranoid enough.

Doran – Old Moon

A new song cut from ancient cloth, like a small scrap torn from the drape of the heavens and earth and old moon itself.

Dusted – Not Offering

“I have given up. I’ve given enough,” Brian Borcherdt sings on this tender lesson in regret and letting go. “I was so sure. So it goes, I am not anymore.”

Etran de L’Aïr – Toubouk Ine Chihoussay

A suitably joyous number from Agadez’s premier wedding band, drawing you into its infectious momentum.

Fog Lake – jitterbug

A typically aching and overcast pop song from the master of them.

Frances Chang – eros the love creator dividing chaos

Cosmic spoken word which finds universes within interiors, a daydream transportation away from these sorry lands.

Fust – The Last Days

A song for hard times made warm by the fundamental fondness gained only through shared suffering.

JOHN – A Military Alphabet (five eyes all blind) / Job’s Lament / First of the Last Glaciers / where we break how we shine (ROCKETS FOR MARY)

Some latent thing awoken by our way of living, rising in the name of revenge.

Heka – (a) wall

Anger simmered down to a velvety caramel, coating the tongue on a slow walk through nocturnal alleys.

Hilary Woods – I

One of Hilary Wood’s wordless hymns, to be sung in dark chapels deep underground.

illuminati hotties – Pool Hopping

Working on the logic that slowing down might equal admitting truths or figuring things out, ‘Pool Hopping’ grabs you by the hand and runs.

Indigo De Souza – Pretty Pictures

“I’m always trying to embody a balance between the existential weight and the overflowing sense of love I feel in the world,” Indigo De Souza explains, capturing the bummed-out brightness better than we ever could.

Johanna Samuels – Sonny

With its long shadows and golden light, it’s not clear whether the sun is dawning or setting on ‘Sonny’, but it heralds a new day nonetheless.

JOHN (TIMESTWO) – Return to Capital / Šibensko Powerhouse

The reek of ozone as thunderheads slowly gather / The unleashing of the storm. “I see an opening in the sky, high, wide.”

Keith Secola – Intaglio

Just one of the portals on Keith Secola’s latest record. Looking to the heavens, rooted to the ground, tied to everything in between.

Lael Neale – Blue Vein

“Guardian angel / Gather my losses / Keep them all safe / ‘Til I come to my cross”

Le Ren – Dyan

As warm as a mother’s hand, with all the clarity of an empty room.

Lewsberg – The Corner

Perfectly minimal, just guitar, percussion, and incense-scented violin. All backed up by monologue-like vocals that ring with pure patience.

Loretta’s Museum – The Rodney Ave Garage Sale

Instrumental folk and the ambient sounds of a garage sale combine to evoke one of those perfect glittery springtime days when the sky is blue and the leaves are green and the sun isn’t yet too hot to bear.

Lucie, Too – スーパームーン Super moon

A slice of big, radio-ready indie pop from a Japanese duo that seem destined to blow up.

Mal Devisa – Deja playing guitar

With slow guitar and lilting rhythm, a track which isolates the tenderness and patience within loneliness, yearning for connection with plainspoken charm

Marie/Lepanto – Gramps and Grandma

Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster on reliably emotive form with the picture of familial love and heartbreak, and Jason Isbell shows up to shred some guitar for good measure.

Maxine Funke – Quiet Shore

A quiet meditation on the mundane aspects of a traumatic moment (a tea tray, a snatched umbrella, a slammed door) that illustrates the potency of memory and how a whisper is often louder than a shout.

Merpire – Heavy Feeling

Has an anxiety attack ever felt so cathartic?

Midwife – God is a Cop

“Am I heartless, or am I soft?” The pressing question at the heart of a track suspended between earnest confession and violent conflagration.

Myriam Gendron – Poor Girl Blues

Gendron combines a traditional Québecois folk song with an old blues one to distil their shared meaning, a lament for the lost, lonely and displaced.

Ovlov – Baby Shea

A 97 second eulogy to Brooklyn’s Shea Stadium played at breakneck pace.

Quivers – Gutters of Love

Ageless Aussie pop that’s a little bit 80s, a little bit 2010s, and a whole lot of joyous reassurance that heartbreak passes and things will be just fine.

Reiko and Tori Kudo – The Deep Valley of Shadow

A soft soliloquy on isolation grows quietly unsettling as warped strings whisper at the edges like anxious thoughts.

Sand Duney – Shadow Outside

Ramshackle country-tinged psych pop built on layered backing tracks thats equal parts meditative and energetic.

Space Mountain – Night Sky

A slacker jam.

Spread Joy – Kanst Du

Just one no wave pop nugget from a record that’s full of them, like pulling a weird sweet and sour German candy from a bag of pick ‘n mix.

Talons’ – Vampire

Talons’ tackle the experience of living through the pandemic in typically raw fashion, centring on an anxiety dream of being maskless in ALDI “between the meat, the fake meat and the gluten-free.”

Tiny Deserts – Wild Mt. Thyme

This beautifully unfussy and intimate take on an old Scots/Irish folk song captures that uniquely summertime feeling where the slow sunny evenings feel at once sorrowful and jubilant.

Trace Mountains – Eyes on the Road

The sound of a late-night self-reckoning while flying down the highway

TV Priest – Lifesize

A slurred and snarling assault on the patriarchal “strongmen” of politics and culture.

Typhoon – We’re In It

A band known for orchestral maximalism hone things to a razor edge in this emotional gut-punch on isolation, drifting friendship and, ultimately, persisting.

Valley Palace – Patch

Sky-blue guitar pop washed in hazy nostalgia that will have you dreaming of summer.

Weakened Friends – Quitter

A very nineties marriage of confession and catharsis, confronting fears over life’s direction by attaching heart to sleeve and blazing on ahead.

World Record Winner – Pockets of Nature

An honest-to-goodness ode to the joy of rooting around in the dirt and leaf litter away from worries and cares.

Wormy – Hungry Ghost (feat. Samia)

A whirlwind tour through the banal and heartbreaking details of life, gathering enough momentum to convince yourself everything might just be alright.

Yellow Ostrich – Timothy

“What’s a man? I’m just as soft as I can be” sings Alex Schaaf on this rumination on connection and the fallacies of masculinity.

If you enjoyed anything on this list, you may also be interested in our list of albums we missed in 2021. And of course, there were lots of amazing songs that we did write about in the last year, so have a look back through our Reviews and Previews sections to find more.

The post Songs We Missed in 2021 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

New single ‘Too Much Feeling (Not Enough Screaming)’ is born from this logic. “This song was born out of a moment of sheer desperation,” Kaufman explains. “Before I really committed to my mental health journey, I was fully in the throes of anxiety and depression. A lot of it was exacerbated by my relationships with others – I had a tendency to become overly involved and empathetic, and spent much of my time carrying the weight of other peoples’ burdens, anticipating and overthinking all the time.”

The song was written as a remedy to this headspace. A way to shake free of the accumulated emotions and achieve a lighter state of being. “I wanted this to be a feel good song, because I wanted to feel good,” Kaufman continues. “I was fed up and needed a respite and reset—a moment to scream and really let go of everything I’d inadvertently absorbed.”

The post Yes Kid – Too Much Feeling (Not Enough Screaming) 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.

“It’s not to say that I’m unfortunate
or that I haven’t been succeeding
but I’m a hushed and quiet resonance
when I wanted to be screaming”

The single comes complete with a suitably summery video from Mark Lammerding. Consisting of one continuous take enhanced with animation from Kat Bingley, the clip finds Tudzin skating through a neighbourhood with all the carefree momentum of the track. As the song progresses, she’s joined by an array of people, the gathering soon becoming something akin to a parade, giving the whole thing a new triumphant edge.

‘(You’re Better) Than Ever’ is available now from the Illuminati Hotties Bandcamp page on a pay-what-you-can basis.

Photo by Alexis Bonin

The post Illuminati Hotties unveil first single, ‘(You’re Better) Than Ever’ appeared first on Various Small Flames.