kitchen Archives - Various Small Flames

Music We Missed in 2020

Jon Doyle — Mon, 11 Jan 2021 19:40:36 +0000

One of the hardest things about running this site is all the great music we are unable to cover. Our inbox is in a perpetual state of bursting at the seams, and we like to spend time with every release we write about. There are simply not enough hours in the day to cover everything we’d like to, and often some of our very favourite releases slip by without a word. That makes us feel bad (and is probably the reason we didn’t reply to your email), so we decided to make a slightly different list in lieu of the usual Year End fare.

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.

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March 2019 Roundup Mix

Jon Doyle — Mon, 01 Apr 2019 18:37:12 +0000

Here’s a roundup of everything we covered during March 2019.

Swim Camp – Pretty Bird
Black Belt Eagle Scout – Indian Never Die
Pedro The Lion – Quietest Friend
Cat Clyde – Anymore
She Keeps Bees – Coyote
Cartwheel – Nothing
Tempertwig – Comfort Blanket
Downhaul – Wires / Enough
Witching Waves – Eye 2 Eye
LISA – Primitive Us
Yamachan – Rose Gold Blue
Spelling Reform – The Second Coming
Faith & Majesty – Summer Fling
Caroline Lazar – Georgia
Jeffrey Silverstein – Easy Rider
Ronnie Rogers – Leaning On
Nanami Ozone – Alone Too
Fresh – Willa
Perfume V – Perfume Homes Movies
Hand Habits – Can’t Calm Down
MUNYA – Benjamin
LUNCH – Forget Everything
Control Top – Chain Reaction
Prudence – Euphoria
Cult Film – Bored to Death
Walking Bicycles – Fat Cat
Lost Dog – DFT
Sharkmuffin – Serpentina
Bandy – Trying to Reach You
Gold Connections – Like a Shadow
AllegrA – Spoon or Fork
Parkway & Columbia – Wondering and Wandering
la loye – to live underwater
Kitchen – Claws
Spectator – Waves
Sailor Boyfriend – The Battle of Sugarhill
Ladada – My Van
The Exbats – 2027
Adir L.C. – Reacting
minihorse – Drink You Dry
Trevor Stott – Halfway in the Night
Tyler Burkhart – Waiting For You
Or Sobre Blau – Mártires

Like what you hear? Catch up with the rest of our Monthly Mixes!

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Kitchen – claws

Liam Doyle — Sat, 09 Mar 2019 12:53:49 +0000

Kitchen is the recording project of James Keegan from Rochester, NY and “whoever is in town”, a project you might remember from the album town on Drunk With Love Records a few years ago. Kitchen has a brand new album on the way, titled Pussy Willow, a record that sees the band transcend their lo-fi beginnings into something a little more developed. “We used to be a lo-fi band,” says Keegan, “but now we’re more regular-fi, slowcore / quiet pop.”

The rotating supporting cast this time features Ethan Hasiuk (drums), Chloe Wehner (violin), Jake Bellisimo (viola), Rose Love (bass) and Sabrina Nichols (guitar), who work with Keegan to make ten songs that are rich and reflective. The sound still draws from that of the previous record, none of the intimacy lost in the evolution of the style but a great sense of warmth gained.

Today we’re happy to premiere ‘claws’, a song that introduces what to expect from Pussy Willow. It sounds at once bright and bittersweet, like getting caught in a sunshower or watching the world go by from a window on a quiet Spring morning. Piano sparkles as Keegan delivers their vocals in a plaintive mumble, strings arriving to bring a Sufjan-style grace to the song’s indie pop skeleton.

transmission towers looking frigid in warm weather
standing still against the blue
grey and sober like a puddle in November
as i waited for you

pussy willow by kitchenPussy Willow will be released on March 15th and available on a limited run of handmade tapes and CDs. Preorder it now from the Kitchen Bandcamp page. Kitchen is also going on tour in March with shep treasure. Check out the dates below.

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Song Premiere: kitchen – November Prayer

Liam Doyle — Thu, 15 Dec 2016 19:01:06 +0000

kitchen is the new project of a young man from Rochester named Jame, a bedroom pop artist who lists acts such as Attic Abasement, Julia Brown, Beat Happening, Frankie Cosmos and The Microphones as influences. For the last two years he has been making “textured, meditative, and melancholic songs” under the moniker Loner(s), but he found himself wanting a change. “I basically just changed the name because I thought the loner(s) was a stupid name,” he says, “[kitchen is named] after the novel by Banana Yoshimoto. Things got out of hand or something and now it is the name of the whole project. It’s not really different except that hopefully it is more subtle and just generally less shitty”.

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:

town by kitchen
town will be released digitally and on cassette via Drunk With Love Records on the 23rd of January.