And it’s a pretty impressive list, what the label call “an often-stunning gestalt of generational talent paying homage to one of the most gifted but underrated American songwriters.” Some of our very favourite artists feature, including Advance Base, Friendship, Trace Mountains, Sadurn, Hand Habits and a whole host more, reimagining a selection of songs from across Molina’s oeuvre.

Only two tracks have been released so far, but if they are any indication it’s going to be a pretty special release. Opening proceedings is MJ Lenderman‘s pretty faithful take on Songs: Ohia’s ‘Just Be Simple’, before Sun June put their own spin on Magnolia Electric Co. track ‘Leave the City’, moulding it into what could sound like a new Sun June track if you are not familiar with the original. It also features what is, in a particularly crowded field, one of Molina’s best opening lines.

Broke my heart to leave the city
I mean it broke what wasn’t broken in there already

I Will Swim to You: A Tribute to Jason Molina will be released on 5th September and available to pre-order via the Run For Cover Records Bandcamp page, including the fittingly titled Coxcomb Red, Comet Dust Red or Old Hen Black vinyl editions. 10% of profits will be donated to MusiCares® Mental Health and Addiction Recovery Fund.

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Here is a list of songs from 2020 that we liked but didn’t get around to writing about.

If you find something you like, follow the link in the embed to support the artists and labels on Bandcamp. And of course, there is a whole year’s worth of pieces on releases we did manage to write about, so have an explore through our reviews, previews and interviews from 2020.

The post Music We Missed in 2020 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“I Sleep Alone is a beautifully human, sounding simultaneously hushed and impassioned, delicate and raw. The negative space that intersperses each guitar note has an emotional heft, an almost tangible substance that snakes around like fog. The lyrics are superb, and the whole thing has a depth that requires repeated listens to even begin to appreciate.”

Obvious + Unafraid is the latest release from Psalmships, which sees Britton enlist the help of Chelsea Sue Allen and Brad Hinton. The album is comprised of Psalmships originals and a handful of cover song, all of which hit that same note of resonant melancholy, the vocals as raw and powerful as ever.

If a man is judged by his influences then Britton is pretty much impeccable, with his choice of covers pretty much matching the dream lineup for the genre. From his noirish and grand version of Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s ‘Death to Everyone’ (which we featured on our Haints Stay playlist), to a beautifully composed take on ‘Old Black Hen by Songs:Ohia. As if those two weren’t enough, there is also a Damien Jurado cover and a wonderful piano-led rendition of Phosphorescent’s ‘Cocaine Lights’.

But of course Psalmships is by no means just a covers project, with Britton’s songwriting holding its own even in such great company. From the subdued opener ‘Eulogy’, where his vocals are sometimes barely more than a strangled whisper, to the slow-burning ‘Revocation of the Elk’, each original song is suffused with a sense of pain and sorrow. Perhaps my favourite track is a song that originally appeared on I Sleep Alone, though this rendition of ‘Patience to Undo the Patience’ sounds of lot warmer and upbeat than the original. That said, the track still has shadowy and almost mystical Molina-esque imagery.

“Hardly ever does the moon not shine for me
and, rarer still, that he sings like a priest
so what kind of dreams are the best to have?
what if I never wake up again?”

There are similar themes on ‘Yven’, the song which gives the album its name (“What if I was just a cliff side, obvious and unafraid? Would I travel through the tremors as they made the hills separate?”), while ‘Impossible’ is perfectly gloomy and morose, just soft guitar and Britton’s vocals and wide open spaces. But things aren’t entirely dark either with a thread of something bright running through (at least some of) the tracks. Let’s revisit ‘Patience to Undo the Patience’ for an example, one of my favourite lines from the album.

“If you find heartbreak don’t come undone
because there are these shadows in everyone
what kind of light should I hold onto?
There is the moon, shining off of you”

Obvious + Unafraid sees Psalmships doing what Psalmships does best. Britton’s style is sometimes referred to as “ghostfolk” and I couldn’t come up with a better tag if I tried for a hundred years. This is folk music in its most distilled form, coalescing from the shadows on a moonlit night.

You can get Obvious + Unafraid on a name your price basis from the Psalmships Bandcamp page.

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The EP was written in one city and recorded in another, born during a time when Knishkowy was packing up and settling down and dealing with all the emotional stuff that comes with moving home. This feeling certainly comes across on ‘Red Coat’, a song all about the mixed feelings of moving on, a buzz of excitement and far-off regret bathed in a nostalgic sepia-toned light. Channeling Blood on the Tracks-era Dylan as well as Jason Molina and Small Sur, the track exists within that small and fleeting pocket in time and space that opens just before you take off from a familiar location, everyday objects taking on new importance as the seconds tick away and your surroundings can be seen outside of the context of your own unimportant worries and wishes:

Wore your red coat on the balcony
A little light for this time of year
If I keep answering all these questions about why I’m leaving,
I’ll probably be the last one here

L train’s not running late again
It’s every other weekend now right?
Probably rather walk it anyway
I told you I love this city at night

And I was thinking over it again
Not satisfied with what I find
These months alone are better spent
In the present, not on your mind

The EP will be released digitally the first week of August, so expect a full review later in the summer.

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We’re huge fans of Joshua Britton’s Psalmships output (I Sleep Alone was one of my favourite albums of last year) and therefore very excited to hear that he has recently put together Old Waves Pt. 2. An assortment of B-sides, demos, out-of-print songs and live recordings, this is a collection of so-called oddities and rarities which most artists would be proud to put out as a full release. Indeed, the nature of the release actually works in it’s favour: Psalmships’s music is always honest and intense, so slightly rough recordings and live performances just makes things seem even more stark and sincere.

If you’re not familiar with past Psalmships releases, you probably want some kind of idea of what sort of music we’re talking about. Well, in my review of I Sleep Alone I wrote this (and stand by it):

[The album is] beautifully human, sounding simultaneously hushed and impassioned, delicate and raw. The negative space that intersperses each guitar note has an emotional heft, an almost tangible substance that snakes around like fog. The lyrics are superb, and the whole thing has a depth that requires repeated listens to even begin to appreciate. It’s a bona fide “slowcoustic” album, with parallels to all of the modern greats (Molina, Tillman, Jurado et al.).

That should give you some idea of the tone of the music, certainly on the gloomier side of the spectrum – but all the best songs are sad songs right? And I can’t think of many contemporary songwriters who do sad as well as Britton. ‘Demise’ takes this to its limits, with lyrics such as, “I’ve been dead since you have left, but it’s not the beautiful death, where you run out of breath and slip beneath the grass. It’s the worst kind of demise and it’s left me paralysed, though i tried i tried, to wait for it to pass”. However, hushed sadness is not Psalmship’s sole strength. His music also displays a sense of self confidence, not in an arrogant sense but a simple defiance against the things that have hurt him. See for example his repetition on ‘Apocryphal Babe’ of the line, “Who cares if I can’t get over all the things that have fucked me up?”

The release also contains several instrumental interludes, such as ‘Western Mountains’ (which is as poppy a track I’ve ever heard from the band) and ‘Ocean Floor’ which sounds like giant soft-bodied sea creatures pulsing through the murk, or the crushing water pressure thumping blood through your ears like syrup.

This is not music to get a party started (although maybe I’d go to more parties if it was), but it is the genuine artistic expression of one man (with help from lots of talented friends), an exploration of loneliness and personal anxiety which speaks to the listener in a very important way. It seems somewhat paradoxical that an album which deals heavily with sadness and loneliness can actually have the opposite effect on the listener, doing something only really good art (of any kind) can. It shows that even if you do feel sad and lonely then you’re not the only person feeling that way, beaming an all important message which says “YOU ARE NOT ALONE”.

You can buy Old Waves Pt. 2 on cassette via Hope For The Tape Deck, or as a digital download from the Psalmships or Hope For The Tape Deck Bandcamp pages.

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Future Islands – Seasons (Waiting on You)

“It’s heartening to know that a band who have been toiling away at their craft for years can go from relative obscurity to flavour of the month with one astounding T.V performance. It’s also heartening to know that within the loose circles of pop music, there’s still an appetite for the surprising and the unusual. When I first saw Samuel T. Herring’s chest beating, lateral chicken dancing and unexpected bellowing during Future Island’s performance of Seasons on Letterman, I was bowled over—it violated every expectation I might have had of a synth pop band within the first thirty seconds and left me wondering what the hell I’d just watched by the end. It’s catchy, it’s refreshingly different, and Herring’s performance absolutely demands your attention in a way that few other songs have this year.” Dave 

Field Report – Pale Rider

“Every year I seem to fall for an album that demands to be played front to back (see: Hospice, Spectral Dusk, White Lighter) and 2014 was no different. It’s difficult to settle on a single song from Marigolden but I’ve plumped for ‘Pale Rider’, a track which exemplifies what Field Report are all about. The song deals with the pressure of meaning so much to another person, a blend of sadness and regret illuminated with sparks of intense emotion and a fierce hope. I’ll leave you with my favourite lyrics of the year: ‘now you’re cantering crooked and screaming at the wind / and shooting off flare guns in memory of the kid / his birthday was yesterday; he would have been six / oh my god, I am so sorry.’” Jon

Strand of Oaks  – JM

JM is Tim Showalter’s tribute to the late Jason Molina, and more generally to the consoling and healing power of music. The lyrics are comprised of a (presumably autobiographical) list of struggles and difficult times – “And I hated all my friends, I wouldn’t let them in”, “I was sitting in the bath, cleaning off the ash” – followed repeatedly by the caveat “but I had your sweet tunes to play”. Describing how Showalter (and every single one of us) finds solace in songs, the track smoulders in a flickering twilight before igniting in a storm of wailing guitars and thundering drums, ending with: “I won’t let these dark times win, we got your sweet tunes to play”. It’s big and triumphant and sincere and it’s my favourite song released this year. Thanks for the sweet tunes, Tim.“ Liam

Photay – Reconstruct (Feat. Seafloor)

I have a theory that Photay must have stumbled on the formulae for the perfect song. Reconstruct has absolutely everything. After battering in your ears with a raw as hell bass riff, it journeys successively through a dreamily singalong chorus, a ponderous breakdown and a jazzy jam-ending. I haven’t stopped listening to it for months.” Matt

Flying Lotus – Never Catch Me (Feat. Kendrick Lamar)

“Never Catch Me sees two of the finest bring out the best in each other. FlyLo’s rhythm and grooves are matched every inch of the way by Kendrick Lamar’s flawless delivery. As songs about death go, it’s as upbeat as possible. Lines like “Looking down on my soul now, tell me I’m in control now, Tell me I can live long and I can live wrong and I can live right,
And I can sing songs and I can unite with you that I love, you that I like,
Look at my life and tell me I fight,” focus on our desire to affirm our time as worthwhile, the fear of wasting it and eventually being forgotten. Matched with a charming video, it’s been on regular rotation for a fair few months now.“ Will

The post Wake The Deaf’s Top Tracks of 2014 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

So my plan is to write about some of my favourite of Molina’s songs in the hope of inspiring you to delve deeper into his back-catalogue yourself.

Firstly, a quick bit of background info. If you’re not already familiar with his work, you should know that Molina recorded under various guises, leading bands under the names Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co., and also recording solo records under his own name. He also released a really good album with Will Johnson (of Centro-matic) and also released a one off record under the moniker Amalgamated Sons of Rest with Will Oldham and Alasdair Roberts. The vast majority of his records were released by Secretly Canadian.

Unsurprisingly for a career which spanned over 15 years, Molina’s music morphed and modified, filling a variety of niches and casting the man himself in a variety of guises. There is the stark and haunting folk music of his earliest Songs: Ohia releases, the blood-and-thunder indie rock of later ones and even country-inflected classic rock on the later Magnolia Electric Co. albums. But every album also has something in common, something unique to the man himself. Much of his music deals with life as an outsider, the constant struggle with feelings of inadequacy and isolation. But there is also something else, a sliver of beautiful glittering hope in the darkness. This is illustrated by Molina’s refusal to simply give in, his determination to persevere, his emphasis on how important it is to “try”.

I’ve chosen a collection of my very favourite Jason Molina tracks. It is in no way intended to be definitive, and a second person could easily choose an entirely different set of songs. For example, ‘Hold on, Magnolia’, ‘Just Be Simple’ and ‘Don’t it Look Like Rain’ have not made it on the list, despite being songs that I love more than most. Anyways, here we go…

Honey, Watch Your Ass

My first choice is taken from Pyramid Electric Co., a solo album released in 2004. To me it displays some of the finest lyricism, not just in Molina’s vast discography, but in music in general. See for example:

“She nearly burned the town again
With the look that she gave him
She covers her heart
With her hands and says a little useless praying
Never hurt anything”

And, in what I think must be one of my favourite lines of all time:

“That must be her up there
Perfume and cigarette smoke in her wild hair
She smells a little like a train
Hauling lilacs through the rain”

Darling…

‘Darling…’ appeared on Hecla & Griper, an EP released by Songs: Ohia way back in 1997. It’s not actually a Molina song, rather a cover of country artist Conrad Twitty. The beauty for me is that there is not a shred of irony in this cover. It’s a raw and lonely-sounding break-up song, a desperate plea for reconciliation from a lost love:

“Hello darling, it’s nice to see you
It’s been a long time
How’s your new love are you happy
Hope you’re doing alright
Just to know this means so much to me
What’s that darling, how am I doing
Guess I’m doing alright except I can’t sleep
And I cry all night till dawn
What I’m trying to say is that I love you and
I miss you and I’m sorry that I done you wrong”

Hecla & Griper was reissued on its 15^th anniversary (plus bonus tracks). Get it via Secretly Canadian.

Didn’t It Rain

Another Songs: Ohia track next, this time from the 2002 album of the same name (which has also recently been reissued as a deluxe package). ‘Didn’t It Rain’ is a heartfelt ode to both the hope and the hopelessness of existence. It opens with a consolation:

“No matter how dark the storm gets overhead
They say someone’s watching from the calm at the edge”

And continues as a kind of empathetic pep-talk.

“If they think you got it they’re going to beat it out of you
With work and debt whatever all else there is
You got to watch your own back
Try to see the light of goodness burning down the track
Through the blinding rain through the swaying wires”

This is Molina addressing things head-on, saying to his listeners, “yeah things are tough but here’s what we can do about it”. Emphasis on the “we”. There is solidarity here, a we’re-all-in-this-together call to arms to just keep going.

Whip-poor-will

This track didn’t appear on a proper album until a re-worked version was included on Magnolia Electric Co.’s 2009 album Josephine. But the version I am including on my list is a demo played by a lone Molina on his guitar (which you can hear on the bonus disc of the 10^th anniversary edition of Magnolia Electric Co.). ‘Whip-poor-will’ is wonderfully simple and full of a certain sense of resolute melancholy. With lines such as:

“So all of you folks in heaven not too busy ringing the bell
Some of us down here ain’t doing very well”

And:

“Still waiting
For you to sing that song again
The one you were singing at the very fall of man
It ain’t hallelujah but it might as well have been”

O! Grace

‘O! Grace’, from Josephine, is the latest of my choices and is included mainly to illustrate the deviance in sound from the earlier Songs: Ohia albums. What we get here is almost a traditional country song, complete with a pseudo-sing-along chorus of:

“Oh Grace, if you stop believing
That don’t mean that it just goes away
It’s a long way between horizons
And it gets farther every day”

Farewell Transmission

This is the opening track on Magnolia Electric Co., the album which many regard as Molina’s magnum opus. ‘Farewell Transmission’ is a rock song of epic scope, in which Molina threw together all of his friends and creative energies in seven and a half minutes of pure searing force. It begins with a swagger, and immediately sounds bigger than anything Molina had made before. The real highlight is the lyrics, which are jam-packed with stark, forlorn imagery of dying moons and strange shamanistic rituals. With passages such as:

“After tonight if you don’t want us to be a secret out of the past
I will resurrect it, I’ll have a good go at it
I’ll streak his blood across my beak and dust my feathers with his ashes
I can feel his ghost breathing down my back”

And:

“Mama here comes midnight, with the dead moon in its jaws
Must be the big star about to fall”

The song also contains some lines which relate back to Molina’s favourite lyrical themes, and turns out to be one place where he expresses himself particularly eloquently:

“The real truth about it is no one gets it right
The real truth about it is we’re all supposed to try”

It is lines like this which created the adoring fandom, which turned people from casual listeners to zealous followers (including Strand of Oaks’s Timothy Showalter). And the reason? Because they offer comfort. Here is a man who spent his artistic career documenting his life’s struggles, beaming out his thoughts to thousands of lonely people around the country. And his message (in these two short lines at least) was a powerful one. He’s saying that we should all just keep going, that we are all doing okay.

Long Desert Train

To conclude I have chosen what is perhaps my favourite Jason Molina song of all. ‘Long Desert Train’ is another solo track, the shattering terminus of Pyramid Electric Co.. This is a very, very sad song, even for a man who made a living writing sad songs. It looks the sensation of inadequacy and a complete lack of self-worth straight in the eye. It feels like an outpouring of vulnerability, a rare faultering in the noble intentions of resilience and perseverance. It is a sad song with sadder end, and one which has added poignancy after Molina’s premature demise:

“Said you’d never be old enough
Or young enough
Tall enough
Or thin enough
Or smart enough
Or brave enough
Rich enough
Pretty enough
Strong enough
Good enough
Well you were to us

You wanted silence by itself
Just the word
You wanted peace by itself
Just to learn
There were things you couldn’t change
You got the dull pounding rain
You got the last car in the long desert train

You almost made it”

You can buy the vast majority of Jason Molina’s music via Secretly Canadian.

P.S. The last year or so has seen various Jason Molina tribute albums, including Farwell Transmission: A Tribute To Jason Molina from Rock The Cause and a collection of tributes and compilations from The Wave Pictures.

The post No Matter How Dark: Jason Molina appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The point that I immediately noticed was, despite being labelled with tags such as minimal and slowcore, there is actually some pretty electrifying rock music on display. A good example is opener ‘Reinforced/Delicate’, which starts with some sparse guitar, but eventually blossoms into a fully-fledged rock song. Amundsen and backing singer Margo May offer the repeated refrain of “Are you ready now?” as some kind of plea and guitars swirl around everywhere and big drums come crashing in as the track hits a crescendo around the 2:35 mark. It sounds “big”, almost like the loudest moments of Hospice-era Antlers, or something Strand of Oaks would have shredded his way through before aiming at more conventional indie rock.

Another great track is ‘Ride On, Molina’, presumably a tribute to the great man which is primarily a really good rock song, seven and a half minutes of catharsis. The second half is almost devoid of vocals, an entirely instrumental guitar jam. But despite these louder, rock leanings, the song never strays from what Amundsen has carved out so far in his career. There is a sense of patience and of space, and this is perhaps a testament to the confidence of a musician who knows exactly what he is trying to do in his music. Imagine one of Molina’s Magnolia Electric Co. tracks beamed through the prism of the whole minimal/slowcore canon, and you come close to describing it.

‘My Favourite Drug is Sleep’ is a hibernation anthem for the oncoming winter, in which Amundsen sings, “Now that night is getting cold enough, to go to bed with all the windows shut, under blankets I can burrow deep, and be reminded that my favourite drug is sleep.“ And this goes some way to describing Amundsen’s work as a whole. I Remember Everything always maintains that wistful air of sadness, but often in a glorious, life-affirming way. It’s melancholy as comfort, be it through kinship or catharsis or both. It’s an album that you could play to tap your feet and silently rock out on the train, but also one to listen to when your soul is hurting and you just want to stare out of a window to make things seems okay. This is a difficult combination to achieve and one which signals a very, very good album.

You can buy I Remember Everything from the Rivulets Bandcamp page, either as a digital download or on limited edition 12” vinyl. Europeans can get it via Jellyfant Records.

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Be sure to check out the other volumes which can be found here. Enjoy.

Tracklisting:

1. Thirteen (Big Star cover) – The Point
2. Time After Time (Cyndi Lauper cover) – GRMLN
3. Sofia (Mannequins on 7th Street cover) – Spark Alaska
4. Sunflower (Low cover) – T E Morris
5. Hideaway (Kiesza cover) – Eliza Shaddad
6. It’s the End of the World as We Know It (R.E.M. cover) – Free Cake for Every Creature
7. Peach, Plum, Pear (Joanna Newsom cover) – FemFemFem
8. Fake Empire (The National cover) – Thad Kopec
9. No Lion (Boom Forest cover) – PHOX (Fuel/Friends Chapel Session)
10. Last To Swim (Strand of Oaks cover) – Our Griffins (Root Down in the Shadow Covers Club)
11. Unfucktheworld (Angel Olsen cover) – Nadia Reid
12. You’re Not the Only Monster (R.L. Kelly cover) – DIY Scarves
13. I’m on Fire (Bruce Springsteen cover) – Low
14. You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (Bob Dylan cover) – My Bubba
15. Tugboat (Galaxie 500 cover) – Finnmark!
16. Frog Went a Courtin’ (Traditional) – Eef Barzelay
17. Lost on the River (Hank Williams cover) – Radiator Hospital (Birdtapes compilation)
18. Just Be Simple (Songs:Ohia cover) – Water Liars (Out of Town Films)
19. Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory (Guided By Voices cover) – Arms
20. Can’t Help Falling in Love (Elvis Presley cover) – Eels (KCRW)

Covers Mix #12 from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

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I Sleep Alone is a beautifully human, sounding simultaneously hushed and impassioned, delicate and raw. The negative space that intersperses each guitar note has an emotional heft, an almost tangible substance that snakes around like fog. The lyrics are superb, and the whole thing has a depth that requires repeated listens to even begin to appreciate. It’s a bona fide “slowcoustic” album, with parallels to all of the modern greats (Molina, Tillman, Jurado et al.).

This is an album that deals with isolation and sadness in a way that is admirably honest. It also has that all-important quality that offers a glimpse of something more, something better. This means that the pervading sense of melancholy and isolation never becomes overbearing, and in fact the listener can find comfort in these tales of spiritual solitude.

‘Flesh Turn’ starts with some atmospherics that wouldn’t have been out of place on Hospice, and then develops into a intimate lament, bristling with a quiet intensity (until this restraint cracks rather spectacularly). One track that came to my mind was Damien Jurado’s ‘Amateur Night’ (from Where Shall You Take Me?) which was similarly hushed and pregnant with raw emotion.

‘Heart Carries the Blame’ is slightly more upbeat, with some nice electric guitar. It also contains the stand-out line, “I’m full of shit, but I mean it”. ‘Stars Pt. 2’ is yet another slice of sublime sorrow, and serves as a tribute to Jason Molina (the second one we’ve covered recently, after Strand of Oak’s ‘JM’) and even sneaks a line of his in there. Molina himself would have been proud of album closer ‘Ships and Stones’, a real slow burner with languid electric guitars and emotive delivery. It’s a fitting end to a truly fine album.

I Sleep Alone will be released tomorrow (the 8th of July). You can pre-order it now via Big School Records in a variety of formats and assorted bundles. This is one of my favourite albums released this year, I highly recommend you get it right now.

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