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.

So when we heard they we putting out The Most Beautiful Place on Earth / Commercial Music, a split release with fellow Floridians Yikes on their own label Viridian Sounds and the excellent It Takes Time Records (who put out this from Boosegumps), we were excited. So excited in fact we decided to ask them some questions about it.

So, Naps/Yikes…Why did you decide to put out a split release with Yikes/Naps?

Ryan: There are a ton of great bands from Tallahassee that we could’ve done a split with, but I think at least for me Yikes was an obvious choice — we have a lot of love for their musical endeavors, both in and out of Yikes, they’re great people, and they had a lot of great songs that I was really interested in producing.
Katryn: We want their coolness to rub off on us, that’s the true end goal here.
Laura: They’re the bee’s knees.
Jeremy: We’ve played so many shows with them and their songs are so good it feels like a privilege to release ours alongside theirs. They’re the goodest boys.
Yikes: Because they’re our talented Tallahassee homies! Also we love Naps because they helped yikes get a lot of shows when we were just starting out and our sounds mesh well together.

The first single, ‘Social Skills’, is something of a departure from the sound on You Will Live in a Cool Box, is this a sign of things to come on the record?

Ryan: This new EP is a different type of record than our first one was for sure — a little less representative of our live show but maybe a little more realized in terms of where we could take things. But I would say it reflects a different side of the band rather than an intentional departure from where we were at when we recorded Cool Box. We just got into the studio to start working on our full-length and I don’t know that either EP is more indicative of how that’ll end up sounding than the other.
Jeremy: Yeah, in terms of production it’s definitely a huge difference—the first EP was very lo-fi and was recorded full-band. Our side of this split is more assembled of individually or separately recorded tracks—I don’t think all four of us actually play on any one of the songs.
Laura: I think the split is just one version of the way we want to hear our songs, a version that wouldn’t lend itself well in our live setup.

What are the prevalent themes on The Most Beautiful Place on Earth / Commercial Music?

Ryan: I didn’t think of You Will Live In A Cool Box as a break-up record when we were making it, but it centered a lot on the experience of falling out of love and feeling kind of out of step with the world as a consequence of that experience. I think The Most Beautiful Place on Earth to me is partially about having that out of step feeling even when the variable of love loss is removed.
Yikes: The most frequent theme on the split is probably insecurity, social anxiety and getting used to adult relationships.
Katryn: The song I wrote on the split is actually the first song I had ever written, and it’s also about falling out of love and how much it sucks to be stuck in close proximity to someone who has hurt you, which is definitely a very prevalent theme in a lot of what I’ve written for Naps thus far. Stanley and I recorded it two and a half years ago, before Naps even existed, and it was our first time really hanging out and also how we became friends! We went to a party later that night and made a bloodless blood pact to be friends forever. Sorry this isn’t super related to the question but it’s a cute story so YOU’RE WELCOME.
Laura: Why wasn’t I a part of this bloodless blood pact?
Katryn: Because you are the queen of my life and I am the Vice President of the Laura fan club so I think it goes without saying that we are never going to not be friends, you fool!

The release is being put out by It Takes Time Records, as well as Naps’ own Viridian Sounds. Would you like to explain how the partnership with It Takes Time came about?

Ryan: Jordan from It Takes Time actually got in contact with us way back in 2015 about putting out Cool Box, but we weren’t able to go through with it in the end because of scheduling reasons — we ended up just doing it ourselves so that we’d have tapes to sell on tour, and that’s how Viridian ended up getting started. We still really wanted to work with ITT, plus they put out a bunch of great stuff in the time between our two releases, so we hit Jordan up when we were working on the new stuff.
Yikes: Stanley said he had the plug and he delivered.

The single is also being released on a new digital single imprint of Viridian Sounds called Lavender Sounds. What can people expect of this new venture?

Ryan: Lavender Sounds is an idea that came out of my love for single-oriented music, especially older twee imprints from the 80’s and 90’s that put out an enormous amount of great pop music on 7” and flexidisc singles. It’s still in the early stages of being a thing, but ultimately we’d like to be able to use it to foster an artistic community that can interact by contributing to this ongoing collection of music.

Could you describe Naps in three words?
http://tinyurl.com/ztux95q

What is Naps’ spirit animal? Why do you say so?

Orca Whale because of their humble power and compassion.

If you could arrange to put Naps on a split release with any other band (alive or dead) then who would it be?

Beat Happening mainly because I know Ryan loves them and they are definitely a noticeable influence on naps

In your humble opinion, who is the best band ever to arise from Tallahassee?

T-Pain

Finally, could you name five acts that we’d be fools not to listen to?

-Poster (Tampa)
-Swept (Tampa)
-Woolbright (Davie)
–Honeyuck (Tallahasse)
-Annacrusis (Tallahassee)
-Souljaboytellem.com

Could you describe Yikes in three words?

Ryan: Tite spicy memes
Laura: what I want
Jeremy: Double Bacon Cheese
Katryn: Stephen Joseph Malkmus

What is Yikes’ spirit animal? Why do you say so?

Ryan: Yikes’ spirit animal is an exeggutor coz they have many faces. And they love plants.
Laura: A porcupine – yikes! look out for those spikes
Jeremy: A Dry Bones from the Super Mario series— dry, skeletal, and almost obliviously cool
Katryn: Stephen Joseph Malkmus

If you could arrange to put Yikes on a split release with any other band (alive or dead) then who would it be?

Ryan: The Brian Jonestown Massacre
Laura: Why?
Jeremy: Deerhunter
Katryn: Stephen Joseph Malkmus

In your humble opinion, who is the best band ever to arise from Tallahassee?

Ryan: Hmm, there’s a few directions you could go with this. I feel like the obvious lol answer is Creed, and the obvious legit answer is T-Pain… that being said almost anyone who is involved in the scene here will tell you that Ex-Breathers is the greatest Tallahassee band, which is pretty much objectively the right answer.
Laura: I’m a huge fan of Lauren Morgan’s voice, who used to be in USA-Holes from Tally before she started up SALES in Orlando. Also Cleats <3
Katryn: Ex-Breathers are the most talented sweethearts, and there are a lot of other great Tallahassee bands worth mentioning too, like Night Witch, Nostradogmus, and Blemish!
Jeremy: Yeah Ex-Breathers is literally the best band in the entire world. Shouts out also to Echo Base, Lingua Franca, orangesoda, Capital 6, Silt, Surface to Air Missive, Melt Channel, too many to list honestly, and Katryn covered my other favorites already.

Finally, could you name five acts that we’d be fools not to listen to?
Ryan: Future, Young Thug, Teen Suicide,
Laura: GRIMES!!
Jeremy: To pick just five right now…….. Carly Rae Jepsen, BOOSEGUMPS, JANK, Long Neck, Kississippi.
Katryn: NEW FLORIST NEW PORCHES NEW JAWBREAKER REUNION NEW TALL FRIEND <3

You can pre-order The Most Beautiful Place on Earth / Commercial Music via It Takes Time Records or Viridian Sounds.

The post Interview: Naps & Yikes appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Luckily for us, Lauren Rearick from The Grey Estates seems out to disprove the Bad Winners/Good Losers notion. After fighting through the formidable gauntlet of macho vanity and arrogance that makes up the music industry (see also: college, school, life), she has made her blog into one of the best, most consistent sites covering independent music right now. Mirroring her own attitude, she covers music made out of necessity, bands fighting a multitude of prejudistic blindspots because to not-fight is not an option. It might not be overtly militaristic or political, but the very act of persevering in the effort to create/promote such music is a strong statement. This sort of quiet commitment might be often overlooked but the importance of recognising and celebrating it cannot be underestimated. As if to mark her achievement and symbolise what it stands for, Rearick has teamed up with Negative Fun Records to put out Sugar Rush, a compilation of covers featuring female and gender-neutral musicians. The aim of the album is simple – to try to address the balance (or lack thereof) represented in contemporary music. As she explains:

“A glance at festival lineups, year-end lists and favorite bands are often missing a huge ingredient – female and gender-neutral acts. Sugar Rush was spurred by the idea of giving these individuals a voice, and introducing listeners to their sounds in a most unique way – with cover songs.”

Sugar Rush features contributions from some WTD favs, including Boosegumps, PONY and Kississippi, as well as a whole host of bands and artists that we’re unfamiliar with, just waiting to be explored. Claire Morales and Jena Pyle kick things off with a saccharine rendition of Pasty Cline’s ‘Strange’, the heartbreak flowing thick as molasses, while Kississippi’s cover of Sixpence None the Richer’s ‘Kiss Me’ is minimal and spacious, dreamy as a lovestruck gaze. Boosegumps reinvents Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Everywhere’ as a pretty and understatedly resplendent bedroom pop song and Seattle-based dream pop band Sundae Crush provide a quietly sweet take on ‘Unpretty’ by TLC.

The B side sees a change of mood, as Rearick puts it:

“We thought of the A-side as the sugar-y side, the sweet candy you enjoy before the B-side, when all that sugar begins rushing through your veins, leaving you ready to dance, party and load up on more sugary goodness.”

PONY begin the transition into upbeat danciness, updating Blink 182’s ‘Feelin This’ into a sharp and dynamic shoegazey pop song, before Susan take on The Violent Femmes’ ‘I Held Her In My Arms’, stumbling across a verse which could be used to sum up the compilation as a whole: “I will not kill /  the one thing I love / In this world of wreckage, I look above / Help me, Lord, help me understand / What it means to be a boy and what it means to be a man”. Next, Pearl Earl offer a brash take on Devo, Mommy Long Legs bring their familiar energy to The Cramps and Alright race through a Bouncing Souls number. The penultimate track sees Philadelphia’s The Pretty Greens cover Lucille Mathis’ ‘(I’m Not Your) Regular Woman’, before Daddy Issues finish on a cool, dreamy version of ‘Riot Grrrl’ by Keel Her.

It’s likely there was no small amount of anxiety, doubt and stress involved in the making of Sugar Rush and The Grey Estates as a whole, so it’s no exaggeration to consider the whole time-draining, energy-sapping endeavour a noble quest indeed. While nobody is naive enough to think that one compilation and a dozen artists will ever be enough to win the big fight, it’s just possible that an accumulation of such small victories could eventually build into the coup de grâce for this discriminatory industry. So, if you are in a position to strike a blow of any size but need some reassurance and motivation, take a look at Rearick and then rush head-on into an attack of your own. Because make no mistake, a fight this certainly is.

Sugar Rush is out today (the 29th February) and you can buy it now via Negative Fun Records’ Bandcamp. If you need further convincing, the good people over at The Le Sigh are streaming it in full.

The post The Grey Estates & Negative Fun Records present… Sugar Rush appeared first on Various Small Flames.

RIYL: Vagabon, Kissing Fractures, Cyberbully Mom Club

Favourite Songs:

You can download We Have No Future, We’re All Doomed now from the Soft Speak Records Bandcamp page, or grab a physical copy via their website.

The post Flash Review: Kississippi – We Have No Future, We’re All Doomed appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklist:

1. Something About Us (Daft Punk cover) – Spazzkid
2. Waves and Waves and Waves (Playlounge cover) – Two White Cranes
3. Dogmas (Kississippi cover) – Cyberbully Mom Club
4. Call Me Maybe (Carly Rae Jepsen cover) – The Yellow Dress
5. Clouds (One Direction cover) – Shunkan
6. Lodi (Creedence Clearwater Revival cover) – Advance Base
7. Emma’s House (The Field Mice cover) – Lost Film
8. Pitseleh (Elliott Smith cover) – Marissa Nadler
9. Pink Rabbits (The National cover) – Matt Paxton
10. Ontario Gothic (Foxes in Fiction cover) – Julia Brown
11. Australia (Attic Abasement cover) – R.L. Kelly
12. Sister of the Moon (Fleetwood Mac cover) – Globelamp
13. I’m On Fire (Bruce Springsteen cover) – Wakes
14. When the Sun Hits (Slowdive cover) – Mao Ra Sun (Feat Dems)
15. Tomorrow is a Long Time (Bob Dylan cover) – Phosphorescent
16. Smells Like Teen Spirit (Nirvana cover) – Noah Gundersen
17. The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton (The Mountain Goats cover) – Nathaniel Rateliff
18. Museum of Flight (Damien Jurado cover) – Winterpills

Covers Mix Volume #13 from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

The post The Covers Mix: Volume #13 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The EP begins with ‘smoking to death’, a tale of uncertainty and frustration that arises from a relationship turned sour, from the breakdown of once simple communications. “Don’t think i don’t detest the way you go on and on,” she sings near the close, ”and pretend that’s nothing wrong.“

‘Lifetime Warranty’ is probably my favourite track on the EP. It’s lyrics have a really nice fluidity and Heck’s breathless delivery makes it sound like each verse is comprised of just one really long line. My favourite line in the song is this one: ”Is my vision getting clearer now that I can barely see? I wish I lived inside a tiny box with fish and birds and leaves(?)“ Don’t we all?

The last track ‘Poem Song’ is a bit different; shambling, reverb-y lo-fi and offers another hint of what Cyberbully Mom Club could be like as a fully-fledged band.  There’s also a really nice cover of Kississippi’s ‘Dogmas’, which is probably worth the $1 entry fee alone.

The main strength of Heck’s songwriting is the sense of empathy she manages to create. Her sadness feels comforting but not in a cruel, schaudenfreude sense, but rather a sense of solidarity. Instead the sadness feels like a warm blanket, an old pair of slippers, something familiar and reassuring. It’s the way Heck uses her music to say “sometimes I don’t feel okay” that speaks to us the listeners, and makes us feel better when we ourselves feel that way.

You can buy amy locust whatever for a dollar or more over at the Cyberbully Mom Club bandcamp page.

P.S. Heck is rather prolific so be sure to check out her bandcamp page for lots more like this.

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The Meanest Creature Ever Known is Matthew Healy and Oliver Roditi from Edinburgh, and they have just put out their first album, You, Having Fun. Apparently the album is about “being alive and a bit sad.” As you might expect from that description, You, Having Fun is folky slowcore release that brings to mind quite a range of influences, from Phosphorescent to talons’

The album is available on a pay-what-you-can basis over at bandcamp.

Kississippi – I Can Feel You in My Hair Still

Kississippi is a sad girl from Phildelphia. She writes songs that are not mere catchy ditties, but instead full blown poetry. Stuff like this:

“You were swallowing god damning dogmas 
rough palmistry your hands could not align 
unsexed you borrowed callow spit, not lost 
no, looking for a space, just not mine 

redolent with skin of unknown 
unwary hands, nomadic ghost 
levied words from my spiteful throat 
understanding where my thoughts go 
you’d build a boat out of my bones.”

You can buy her album on Bandcamp for whatever you can afford.

James Junius – I’ll Hide Myself/Sleepers

Salt Lake City’s James Junius combines folk, ambient and jazz music to make atmospheric tracks “in an attempt to portray the world as he sees and the people he has met in various late night conversations out under the ferments.” Further details on Junius are few and far between, but you can download both tracks via Bandcamp.

Thad Kopec – Noble Neighbor

I stumbled across Thad Kopec’s cover of ‘Fake Empire’ a few days ago (and included it on our latest mix), and as luck would have it, he has a new(ish) album out right now. If folk music (with a touch of ambient music thrown in) complete with Biblical lyrics is your thing, Thad Kopec is probably your thing too. You can buy the album from Bandcamp, or grab it for whatever donation you can muster via Noisetrade.

Sea Wolf – Song Spell, No. 1: Cedarsmoke

The first release from Sea Wolf frontman Alex Brown Church’s Song Spell series, Cedarsmoke is a welcome reminder of how good Sea Wolf are. My listening relationship with the band is eerily similar to that of Jeremy over at HI54LOFI, and I am very much enjoying catching up with what I have been missing. There will be more Song Spell releases in between the ‘proper’ studio albums, so keep your eyes peeled and ears open for what Sea Wolf have to offer. Don’t make the same mistake we did.

Miss America By Wheary – All is Not Lost

Miss America by Wheary have been whetting our appetite over the past few weeks with singles from the EP All in Not Lost. Well you can stop dribbling and chow down on the full release. They make a brand of Americana that brings to minds acts like Jason Isbell and Water Liars, with an added experimental/ambient lilt which gives the whole thing a nice cinematic feel.

You can grab this one from Bandcamp too.

The post Feet on the Ground: Vol. 11 appeared first on Various Small Flames.