Jake Bellissimo returns at the end of this month with a brand new album. Titled Swansongs, the record comprises of 24 songs that Bellissimo says aim to forge “melodrama into melody…[exploring] love, loss, and all of the moments in-between.” Ever the maximalist, the album again focuses on big arrangements, and features choirs and string quartets and even a carillon.

Jake was kind enough to answer some questions on the new record, so read on below for an in-depth look into the album’s conception, their creative process and the value of art in these tumultuous times.

Your new album Swansongs is released on November 29th. How long have you been working on it, and what was your initial inspiration to start writing?

Truthfully, I finished writing the album in 2017 and the mastering was done (by Alessandro Paderno) in 2018. So, it’s been a few years in the making, but the last 2 years were spent just making sure I could release it in a way that did it justice. I began writing the album shortly after I met the man who is now my husband. It was a weird time, I was touring around the US frequently, but whenever I was in the area I would play a show and drive to him in New York City to spend the night. However, this relationship forced me to confront complicated feelings that I had never had to face before. John (my husband) is 34 years older than me – I had usually dated men who were significantly older than me, but this was the first time that the relationship seemed like anything but temporary.

After realizing how strong our connection was, I became overwhelmed with feelings about mortality and our age gap. What does it mean to love someone who will likely not always be there to love you?

Writing this album was my attempt at processing those feelings. Not all of it has to do with John, but all of it has to do with mortality. At the time I knew others who were passing, friends who were hopeful about their futures, and ways in which I was scared about the uncertainty of living. But what I learned is that – though nothing is guaranteed – there’s an immense power in saying how you feel when you feel it, even if you don’t know exactly what it means yet. These songs kinda function in that way, describing moments that I experienced while processing the situation.

A “swan song” technically refers to the last, most beautiful song that a swan sings before dying. This isn’t my last album by any means, but given the feelings I was dealing with at the time, I wanted to see if I could write each song like it was my last.

Your press release says that the record has an emphasis on storytelling, and I was wondering where these stories come from. Is it a direct reflection of your own experiences, or were you spinning fictional stories as you wrote the songs?

In general, all of the stories I talk about are things that have either happened to me or people I know. The emphasis on storytelling is more just to secure what I believe my role as a songwriter is – to describe things.

Although the album is a “solo record,” released under your own name, but like most of your music there is still that orchestral approach that sees you involve a string quartet, choirs, etc. What is the importance of these grand arrangements in your songwriting? What do they provide that is impossible say with just guitar and vocals?

I think one of the things I love most about music is that it can allow you to mythologize your own life. Stories about mundane, everyday things can become profound statements if you find the right way to tell them. In high school I had a lot of trouble writing music because I thought that you had to have some big mission statement to communicate to others. However, I later found out that just telling stories about things that have happened gives them meaning and serves as a reminder that existence isn’t meaningless.

That’s a bit of an abstract way to say that I like big arrangements, but yeah, I think adding more and more instruments to recordings that are ultimately done in my bedroom add a sort of fantasy to the whole thing. Though there are moments where I just play guitar and sing, they’re typically meant as moments of contrast. I’m sure my penchant for large arrangements also comes from my interest in campy showtunes and early 20th century pop music, but I think at this point it’s also just how I express myself. I’m eternally grateful to all of the friends who have shared their musical talents to make many of those arrangements possible!

You mentioned that the album is a “more refined” sequel to floral and I’m interested in how your songwriting has changed since then. What did making floral teach you? And is it difficult to move on after such a mammoth project?

It’s hard for me to look back on floral in a positive light, to be honest. Though I think it set me up for what I do now, in retrospect it feels like a cry for help. I was dealing with a lot of trauma, mental illness, and substance issues at the time and it shows for me both on the album and how it was made. Simply put, writing over 200 songs and producing an 100-song album in half a year does not give you time to do much else!

That being said, I think I did learn a lot from it. By making floral I essentially taught myself how to produce music the way I wanted to and how to write arrangements. There were also over 60 people who helped out with that album and I definitely learned during that process about how many wonderful, kind friends I had at the time.

However, the most important thing I think I learned from floral is that I love large, long-format projects! That’s why I’ve been thinking of Swansongs as a sequel to floral in a way. Similar to books of poetry, I love long albums that you can listen to in one sitting just as easily as you can shuffle through them, digesting each piece slowly. After writing floral, I made The Good We’ve Sewn as a way to tighten up my production and arrangements. However, after that, I realized that it was once again time to use my new production methods to once again make a longer album, resulting in Swansongs.

Is it strange to be releasing an album during these uncertain times? What role do you think music/art plays in times of struggle?

Yes and no! The strange part is mainly just that there are no shows to promote the album with. Though we’ve been doing small shows in Berlin since August, after carefully curating this album for years, I just happened to choose a release date that would be during the city’s second lockdown (the entire month of November). Oh well. But a lot of things have also changed since August and even if I rescheduled it for December, I wouldn’t feel comfortable asking people to come out to a gig. So, we’re making it an online gig, which is definitely a sign of the times!

The not strange part is that – like I said – this is an album about mortality. I had always planned to release the album in 2020, but as the pandemic began happening and I cancelled plans to tour the album, I decided to wait a bit. However, since it’s been clear that this “new normal” will be here for a while, I wanted to keep with my plans and release it. In a way, it feels fitting – even outside of the pandemic, there’s a lot of worry infiltrating cultural discussions. That’s why releasing this album now is my treatise on embracing hope.

Swansongs will be released on 29th November and you can get it now via the Jake Bellissimo Bandcamp page, including in a bundle with a Swansongs tote bag.

The post Jake Bellissimo – Swansongs appeared first on Various Small Flames.

However, this isn’t just some throwaway schmaltz for the holidays. Instead, Bellissimo takes their childhood letter and uses it as a jumping-off point for self-reflection on themes of love and identity. The single is an attempt “to disentangle my queerness,” they explain, “and how that’s factored into my relationships.”

Bellissimo has written an essay which explores these themes in much greater detail, and today we have the pleasure of publishing it. So click play and scroll down to learn more.

This essay was originally written on August 11th, 2019

Love, Queerness, and Jolly Old Saint Nick

by Jake Bellissimo

Growing up and understanding my queerness has always felt like an issue of linguistics. Had I known of the different types of LGBTQ subcultures (i.e. bear culture), perhaps I would have realized I was queer before the age of 13 as opposed to comparing myself to the twink-oriented mainstream gay culture of the early 2000s. On a similar note, if I had already been familiar with the term nonbinary from a young age, I likely would have come to terms with my gender identity before my junior year of college.

However, one of the most damningly queer pieces from my childhood is a letter I wrote to Santa Claus that included a drawing of him in the center:

to: santa clause

            from: jake bellissimo

            TAKE IT HOME!

            I love you Santa. do you love me? i am 7 years old. how old are you? Santa.

 In response, the elementary school teacher collecting the assignment assumed the role of Santa, answering in short responses of “yes” and “94 years old”. At the bottom of the note, “Santa C.” wrote “I love the picture, but I want you to keep it. It looks like you worked really hard on it!”

Without context, this letter might simply read as a typical childlike note to Santa, but I’ve always thought of it as an indication of what was to come. Though I didn’t begin actually dating and meeting men for romance or sex until I was 17, I have spent my whole life wrestling with love, gender identity, and sexuality.

For example, I didn’t realize I was even gay until 13 years old. I had an attraction to men, sure, but I didn’t have the vocabulary to even know that was attraction. I liked some girls more than others, so I took that to be the indication that I was “straight”—the only word I knew surrounding sexuality. Growing up in a conservative, Roman Catholic environment didn’t help either, with the church consistently viewing gender identity and sexuality to be harmful life choices. However, once my friend B came out to me as bisexual in 8^th grade, it all clicked—I was definitely attracted to men. It felt like placing the last few pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together and suddenly recognizing the image.

The only way I can describe that feeling (a feeling that I believe is distinctly queer) is that it manifested in a wave of relief followed by a wave of tension. My whole life made sense at that moment, but I also knew it would become more difficult to navigate. I would come to terms with that difficulty when I was outed during a particularly threatening and tumultuous time at the end of 9^th grade.

Coming out didn’t solve my sexual confusion, though. I went through a period of self discovery that involved a lot of self deprecation, exploring my interest in more masculine-presenting individuals while harboring a lot of internal queerphobia for those who didn’t fit that established archetype. This became more complicated throughout the years as I realized my attraction was mainly towards men over the age of 35, but I tried to suppress this. There was no term for being attracted to older men in my vocabulary, so I assumed it was something to be resolved, something to be analyzed in therapy and subsequently dealt with.

Throughout college, a majority of my friend circles and dating pools ended up being filled with people significantly older than me. Because I also dealt with sexual trauma during this time and began to unearth that I had been repressing similar traumas from my childhood, I assumed that my sexuality was not me, but rather a coping mechanism. Despite the fact that it was not purely sexual or relating to paternal security (both typical reasons as to how people explain inter-generational relationships), I would treat my sexuality as something to be ashamed of and drown it out with various substances.

A lot changed in my life when I moved to Prenzlauer Berg (Berlin) in the summer of 2015. I ended up seeing a guy who was 30 years older than me, coming to the realization that I shouldn’t worry about the way in which I love. Instead of spending time worrying about why I loved him, I was able to focus solely on the fact that I did.

That relationship would change, with power dynamics introduced that would eventually lead it to failure. However, the fallout caused many family members to agree with the relationship’s demise. I was frequently told that the age difference was the reason why the relationship did not work out, returning me back to the viewpoint that my sexuality and way of loving was something to be ashamed of.

Though I believe the potential for a relationship to have uneven power dynamics greatly increases when two individuals are at different points in their lives, I consider it to be a more nuanced issue than simply “age gaps are dangerous”.

With this knowledge and a lot of coping to do, I went back to school in the states to finish the last two years of my Bachelor’s. I dated freely, looked for love in many places, and ended up dating someone much closer to my age (2 years younger than me). However, after a few months I realized that my attraction to this person was more akin to a friendship, causing me to break it off and continue to be friends with them, a dynamic that has stayed strong to this very day.

I proceeded to deliberate over my sexuality, wondering why I felt so lost. By then, I was out as queer, nonbinary, etc., so why did I feel so confused? Even though I had a sense of direction, I felt as if there was no map to begin with. What does it mean to be a nonbinary person in a relationship with a man? Does that make me gay? Or am I not gay because the person I’m with isn’t the same gender as me?

Because there isn’t a large vocabulary to describe who I am and the relationships I’ve had, I still usually opt for using queer and gay interchangeably, acknowledging that both are still blanket statements that leave more unanswered questions than one might think. Instead of saying what I am, they usually just say what I’m not: not heterosexual and not cisgender.

On a family trip to Hawaii in March of 2017, I ended up telling my father nonchalantly (read: not sober) at dinner that I broke up with my then-ex because I “[couldn’t] be with someone younger than twice my age”. Though this wasn’t a direct comment on my sexuality, it was an accurate re-telling of my love life up until that point.

A few days after this, I found myself being driven up Mt. Haleakala by a guy I met off of Growlr. A man with a glowing white beard juxtaposed against the Hawaiian sun, R was someone who not only had a past life as a Santa Claus impersonator, but a prestigious one (it was then I also learned how deep the world of Santa Claus actors goes, politics and all). We spent the afternoon at his house, talking about life and exploring each other. Though it was good sex and a good experience, it became clear to me that he was more romantically interested than I was, leading me to tell him a few weeks later that I wasn’t interested.

In December of 2017, I was 22 years old and John (my partner) was 56. One night while walking back to our apartment in Inwood, John was asked by a friend of a friend if anyone had ever told him that he looked like Santa Claus. When he assumed it was a joke and replied “no”, the person handed him their card—they were a representative at a casting agency for mall Santas. She said he could make $100 an hour and to call him if he’s ever interested in appearing next season. All he had to do was purchase his own Santa costume and then become a local staple of the Christmas festivities.

At of the time of writing this, the business card still sits on a shelf in our NYC kitchen, being more of a humorous callback than a serious career opportunity. I’m also now once again based in Prenzlauer Berg, but spend a good deal of time in the states, with John and I fully accepting that, since the premise of our relationship isn’t “traditional”, why let worries about that dictate our lifestyle now? We don’t need a dictionary for our love, as we’re creating our own vocabulary. I used to think that having no map was an issue, but I now know better than to think that feeling love in a way you’ve never seen could ever be a bad thing.

Though John has no future plans of wearing a red suit and becoming the local Saint Nick, our relationship has blossomed since meeting in August of 2017—we’re getting married tomorrow morning.

The post Jake Bellissimo: Love, Queerness and Jolly Old Saint Nick appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Blood Warrior – Wooden Shade
Rosie Tucker – How Sad, How Lovely (Connie Converse cover)
Fran – Company
JAYA – Learn To Swim
Taylor Hamilton – What Is Real?
Carver Baronda – If Nothing Else Comes Along
Rose Dorn – Deathwish
Milly – Crazy Horse
Guidon Bear – Washing Machine
Joey Nebulous – Pride Month
Dorio – Shortcuts
Special Friend – Before
Sarah Pagé – Lithium Taper
Old Amica – Condensation
Blushing – Dream Merchants
Patient Hands – Stasis
Bryce Kepner – Chances
Jake Bellissimo – why fit? (Jordaan Mason cover)

The post September 2019 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

To celebrate the album’s birthday, it has been reissued on limited edition double LP, and Mason is also hitting the road. One of the support acts on the tour is our friend Jake Bellissimo, songwriter and head of Drunk With Love Records. To further celebrate Mason’s influence, Jake has organised a compilation of covers on Drunk With Love that will be sold in benefit of an LGBTQ refugee shelter in Berlin.

Titled Comfort in the Question Mark: Songs of Jordaan Mason, the compilation brings together nine artists with their own takes on some of Mason’s best songs. It plays like both a celebration of and an homage to an important figure in the DIY music and queer communities. “Their music was important for me coming to terms with my gender identity,” Bellissimo explains, “a feeling I’ve noticed that’s shared among many other queer people.”

Although the release comprises of covers of just one artist, there is still considerable diversity across its nine tracks. It begins with a piano cover of ‘wild dogs: divorce’ (from divorce lawyers i shaved my head) by Providence, RI songwriter visibilities, taking the hectic emotion of the original and smoothing its edges without losing any of the feeling.

Bluffs replace the accordion of ‘Pink’ with shimmering curtains of synths, while Zurich’s Debutante initially maintains the hushed intimacy of ‘Static’, just lonely guitar and subtle effects that crawl at the edges like anxious thoughts. But soon the track thuds into life with drum machine and grainy distortion. There’s plenty of lo-fi fuzz too on Kowareta‘s ‘Avalanche’, juxtaposing nicely with the aching clarity of ‘It Does Not Get Better’ by Lady Queen Paradise.

The final track belongs to Bellissimo, a beautifully simple take on ‘Why Fit?’, quiet guitar and stirring strings buoying the expressive vocals which deliver lines that sum up the ethos of the compilation and Jordaan Mason’s music in general.

So why do we still want to fit
when the world
just just just just
rejects us?

Comfort in the Question Mark: Songs of Jordaan Mason is out now and you can get it on a name-your-price basis from the Drunk With Love Records Bandcamp page.

Cover art by Ammy

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Claire Cronin – What the Night is Thinking
Michael Cromier – Foghorn
Ylayali – little caterpillar graveyard
Forrest Moody & Jake Bellissimo – Selige Sehnsucht
Grotto Terrazza – Was Leben Will Muss Sterben
Trying – If I Don’t Get a Job
Giant in The Lighthouse – Sprinting
Soften – Iridescent
Champ Major – Abbeville
Grebes – Plum
Jack M. Senff – Old Days
Sam Lynch – Not My Body
Tyler Key – Change My Mind
Ē – Afraid of the Ocean
Dehd – Wild
Pancho and the Wizards – Rot
TV People – Healthier Days
Plastic Cactus – Mystery Boy
Bibi Club – Jean Rene
It’s Sunday – Comme Un Fool
Little Slugger – Impossible
runnner – fan on
Hostxess – Time
omes – wyd
Oliver Ray – Ol’ Coyote
Will Johnson – Cornelius
Merival – No Brakes
My Father’s Son – Dust to Rust
Jordan Klassen – Virtuous Circle
Ditty – Deathcab

Check out our previous Monthly Roundup playlists, and be sure to read or Reviews and Previews throughout the month.

The post June 2019 Roundup Mix appeared first on Various Small Flames.

In the summer of 2017, Forrest and I bonded over worry. The result of supposedly teenage emotions regarding romance and progression, this worry inspired us to start embracing our impulse as opposed to burying it away as invalid. We began meeting every once in a while in front of a piano to catch up, talk about how things are going, and write songs, intending to write and record songs as they came, not allowing ourselves to edit the immediacy of our emotions.

Wertherlieder comprises of three originals and a take on a Charles Ives song, and promises to focus on the grand themes of “death, love, and the beauty that can happen in-between.” In preparation for the EP’s release, today we present a video for one of the tracks. ‘Selige Sehnsucht’ is a richly evocative piano-based song that sounds like it’s been beamed back from a bygone era. It’s minimal in terms of set-up, just piano and vocals, but there’s something maximal about it too, as if Moody and Bellissimo have poured every drop of syrupy feeling into it. Check out the video below:

Wertherlieder will be released on June 23rd. Head to the Drunk With Love Records website for more. Forrest Moody & Jake Bellissimo are playing two release shows, one in Berlin and one in Munich. Check the poster below for details!

Album artwork by Carinn Candelaria, header photo by John McDermott.

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The album, In My Dreams: Songs of Bill Vuono is a personal project. Bill Vuono is Bellissimo’s great-grandfather, who wrote songs “back when you had to sell sheet music to sell songs,” producing a series of 78s before stopping his writing career to raise a family. Several years ago, Bellissimo inherited the records and became invested in the music,  covering ‘Think of Me’ on the first Gay Angel album places i’ll eat, people i’ll meet, before several of tracks appeared on their epic floral project. To celebrate the third anniversary of Drunk With Love Records, Bellissimo decided to revisit the records and curate an album of their favourite songs, a Best of Bill Vuono, and plans to release it as an album accompanied with modern covers, featuring the likes of Emperor X, Devon Mello, Karen Walker (of The New Tarot) and Bellissimo themself.

In My Dreams will be released this month, and Drunk With Love have put out a video of the first single in preparation. Check out the video below. It uses footage from the wedding of Jake Bellisssimo’s grandmother Rachel, and features Bill Vuono playing the piano, set to one of his songs, ‘Think of Me’. The song captures Vuono’s 1940’s style perfectly, the gentle piano supporting vocals that quaver with love and emotion, feelings that if anything seem advanced when beamed 70 years into the future.

“In my dreams
I see a face sleep can’t erase”

As the project is such a special, personal endeavour, we decided to speak with Jake Bellissimo and their grandmother Rachel in order to get a better understanding of the music and the man behind it.

Have you always been aware that your great-grandfather / father was a musician? When was the first time you heard his music?

Jake: I can’t remember exactly when I learned he was a musician, but my grandmother shared a CD of his recordings when I was in high school and later gave me the original 78s. I don’t think I really processed/appreciated the music until I started playing the songs, after which I covered “Think of Me” on the first gay angel album (places i’ll eat, people i’ll meet).

Rachel: My father used to play them on the piano, in fact. Growing up I would sing them in exchange for a quarter, which I would then take to the park to spend on a Creamsicle ice cream.

Rachel, how do you feel when listening to them? Do they bring back specific memories? Does the voice you hear have a resemblance to the man you remember?

Rachel: Well, he never sang his songs, but on the album in places you can hear his voice in the background. These songs in general make me sad—years ago I couldn’t listen to them, but as time goes by I enjoy listening to them and they remind me of him. In the song “Dreaming at the Keyboard”, I can hear my brother Irving talking with my father in the background.

Jake, you never met him, so the closest you get to him as a person is listening to these recordings. How do they make you feel?

Jake: It’s weird, because I feel a connection to him through his music, despite having never met him. His songwriting, and the way he (and his wife, Barbara, who wrote lyrics sometimes) made songs all resonate with me. When I first heard his music I was surprised at how similarly I aligned with it despite starting my own songwriting with no prior knowledge of it.

How has his music influenced your own?

Jake: I started diving deeper and deeper into the recordings (about 1.5hrs worth) when I was making the 100 piece album floral, and I’m sure that influence was running through. There are also two songs that were just put on the album (‘I Have a Flower’ and ‘Dreaming at the Keyboard’) after unsuccessful tries to re-record them.

Why do you feel that now is the right time to release Bill’s music? What about them do you think appeals to a twenty-first century audience?

Jake: Drunk With Love Records was started with Bill’s music in mind, that it would be published when the time was right. Since over the past few years DWL has come to represent a celebration of emotion in many facets, beginning with a connection between the melodrama in modern emo music and early 20th century pop, it’s always made sense. I also think it’s a shame how long-lasting these songs feel as opposed to how few people knew of them, so to publish them for the first time is a pleasure. And, based on the people who have talked to me about him when I cover his songs at shows, it seems that other people want to hear them as well.

How do you feel about Jake re-releasing Bill’s music to a modern audience?

Rachel: I’m thrilled that Jake is releasing these songs, as now that they’re published people have an opportunity to hear Bill Vuono’s music, giving (at last) his songs a chance to live on.

Would you like to say something about the covers album? How did you recruit the bands? And how did they choose which songs to cover?

Jake: All songs on the covers album are either artists who are associated with Drunk With Love or close friends. The songs were chosen through a list I gave that included all of the songs on the album plus some outtakes ranging from songs to lyrics without music to just abandoned song titles. The goal was to not just re-record the songs but re-interpret them, so I feel grateful to have such wonderful musicians and friends as collaborators who more than added beauty to this release with their covers.

You can find more info on the Drunk With Love website and pre-order In My Dreams: The Songs of Bill Vuono now via the Drunk With Love Records Bandcamp page. Each album comes with a super cool calling card from the late 1800s/early 1900s

It’s worth noting that 50% of all proceeds will be donated to the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America and the other 50% to Bill’s family for the preservation and storage of related mementos and sheet music. So what are you waiting for?

The post Drunk With Love Records presents In My Dreams: Songs of Bill Vuono appeared first on Various Small Flames.

And, of course, being comprehensive is impossible these days, so let us know if we missed your favourite and maybe we’ll add it to the collection.

If I Die in Mississippi – Artless
(RIYL: bedroom pop, ambient, Sam Ray, sad)

In Love With a Ghost – Let’s Go
(RIYL: electronic, chillwave, dream pop)

Jake Bellissimo – Piece of Ivy
(RIYL: indie pop, Gay Angel)

Jemima Coulter – lampshade ep
(RIYL: bedroom pop, chilled out, Volcano Choir)

Joyride! – Half Moon Bay
(RIYL: pop punk, indie rock, All Dogs)

Julia Brown – An Abundance of Strawberries
(RIYL: experimental, indie pop, Elephant 6)

Lake Michigan – Gleaming
(RIYL: bedroom pop, late night vibes, Arrange)

Lance Bangs – Lance Mountain
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie pop, Colin Thibodeauxxx)

Lazy Legs – s/t
(RIYL: shoegaze, noise pop, feedback)

Little Kid – Flowers
(RIYL: fuzz pop, bedroom folk, reflective thoughts)

Long Neck – Spring Cleaning
(RIYL: bedroom pop, Cyberbully Mom Club, Jawbreaker Reunion)

Max Gardener – Memory Lounge
(RIYL: dream pop, bedroom pop, slacker)

Mineral Girls – Seven Inches of Release
(RIYL: noise pop, emo, indie rock)

Moin Moin – Dawn
(RIYL: folk, bedroom pop, delicate, quiet)

MOLAR / Pale Kids – Split
(RIYL: pop punk, riot grrrl, The Courtneys)

Molly Drag – Tethered Rendering
(RIYL: bedroom pop, experimental, dreamy vibes)

Monarch Mtn – Everyone is Here
(RIYL: grand melancholy, nighttime)

Monster Rally – Mystery Cove
(RIYL: experimental, hip hop, tropicana)

Moving In – Sunburn
(RIYL: bedroom pop, lo-fi, teenage heartbreak)

Naps – Happy All the Time Forever Always
(RIYL: ambient, experimental, tape hiss)

No Museums – The Drifting Knives
(RIYL: basement rock, indie pop, lo-fi)

Nice Try – s/t
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie pop, Frankie Cosmos)

Nikolas Escudero – 100
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie pop, slacker)

No Dice Tapes – 2016: the year all bad things went away and everything turned out to be fine
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie pop, good causes, ironic titles)

Noname – Telefone
(RIYL: hip hop, rap, courageous poetry)

Be sure to check out the previous sections of our favourite free music list here.

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Jame’s debut album as kitchen, titled town, will be released early next year on Drunk With Love Records, a partnership that arose due to a mutual appreciation between Jame the DWL’s Jake Bellissimo. Despite the name change, the main features of his music remain, although thematically things are a little different. The label describe it thusly, “[the music of kitchen] feels reactionary, instead of looking at life events directly… [it] focuses on the moments in-between”. The album sounds very much intimate and personal, inspired by the day-to-day life of coming of age in Rochester, New York. As Jame described to us,

“Everything I write is about people I know and being upset about relationships with my friends. The weather is a big influence too and really affects my productivity. Everything is an influence in some way probably.”

Today we’re really happy to unveil the first single from the album. ‘November Prayer’ opens with gently strummed acoustic guitar and a plaintive piano line, all enveloped in a soft hissy fuzz. Jame’s vocals are understated but sincere as he sings:

“All I need is a fog machine
all eyes away from me
Find my way out

All I need snow on the dead brown leaves
cold that won’t let me be
hold my heart down”

There’s also a moment of beauty just past the minute mark, when a great warm drone swells, giving the whole thing a deep texture, and hinting at a nostalgic poignancy despite the slow and downbeat atmosphere. Envelop yourself below:

The post Song Premiere: kitchen – November Prayer appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Remember, we’re on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr, so don’t hesitate to get in touch and let you know your favourite tracks from June. Or July. Or whenever.

Tracklisting:

1) Gofer – Yucky Duster
2) The End Parts One and Two – Paper Bee
3) Pas De Deux – Brenda’s Friend
4) Mostly Homely – Exam Season
5) rosy – Long Neck
6) Cool It! – Terry vs. Tori
7) best thought – Honeyuck
8) buttery sprouts – Trace Mountains
9) Green Ennui – Flying Circles
10) Memento Mori – Jake Bellissimo
11) Same Light – Tim Lannen
12) Golden Car – Tincho
13) Can’t Take My Mind – Skyjelly
14) E.V.I.L – Medicine Boy
15) Bike Thief – Frederick Squire
16) Oh Well – Adeline Hotel
17) Offering – Loone
18) Something Profound & Meaningful – See You At Home
19) Bowl of Plums – Ben Seretan
20) Muted Colours – Chain Wallet
21) Little One – Aaron Holm
22) Fear O’ the Light – Katie Dey
23) Protracted – William Ryan Fritch
24) Dizzy – Danielle Fricke
25) Uncanny – Sister Grotto
26) Hands in Our Names – Karima Walker

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