Tracklisting:

The New Tusk – Tarmac
Lazy Legs – Gloss
Sam Moss – Flowers
Varsity – Must Be Nice
Falcon Jane – Go with the Flow
Desert Liminal – Heavy Heads
Jamison Isaak – Sharalee
Nilein – Central Park
Pendulum Girl – crying in the carwash
Freya – Breath and Chime
Malena Zavala – A Vision That’s Changed
Alex Bayly – Wade in the Water
James Edwyn & The Borrowed Band – Pushing Statues
Tiny Fireflies – Nothing
Boreen – Halley’s Comet
Jenno Snyder – Take Care
Normal State – Summertime
Clare – Loquats
Leathan Milne – Now I Say Goodnight
John Moods – Leap of Love
Guts Club – Mustard Tears
Brianna Kelly – To Behold You
Sympathy Pain – Bless This Ugly Heart
Lung Cycles – Smoke column (Jonathan)
Be Softly – My Hands End With You Fingertips
Hour – Still New To This

Spotify:

Playmoss:

You can find all of our monthly mixes here, and be sure to check back in May for whatever April brought by way of good music.

The post March 2018 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

His latest album, There Is The Ground Beneath Us, utilises this to explore some pretty deep things. Specifically, death, though perhaps not in the way we might expect. Rather than take the route of ultra-dark melancholia, the record instead uses the constant shadow of mortality as a counterweight to life itself, the shade allowing the bright and beauty to become all the more conspicuous. As Milne explains:

“Although I don’t think of it as a dark record, lots of the songs have an underlying theme of death and the passage of time. It wasn’t something that I intentionally set out to explore, but as I looked back on the writing it was obviously something that my subconscious needed to scrutinize.”

Nowhere on the record is this more apparent than ‘Now I Say Goodnight’, a song built almost entirely out of a sense of loss that never explicitly gives anything by way of context or explanation. Instead, we have Milne’s gentle vocals meandering through a soft yet stirring arrangement, the breaks between verses populated by sweeping and mournful strings which paint loss in a slightly different light. Rather than a presence turned absence, or brief, sudden cessation, here the concept is treated more as a journey, a movement from one state to the next. And, so long as the other side remains a complete mystery, then why not imagine it as a positive one?

“Remember how it all seemed so clever?
Escape to forever after
you call me just to say howdy.
Funny how loudly the little things speak
and all that I can say is tossed and turned to clay.
I heard there’s something on the other side,
now I say goodnight.”

Joined by a group of collaborators—Craig Aalders (acoustic guitar), Owen Connell (pump organ), Alex Hauka and Devon Kroeger (both vocals)—Milne performed a live version of the song for a brand new video by Adrian St. Louis. We’re delighted to be able to share it below:

There Is The Ground Beneath Us is out now and you can buy it from the Leathan Milne Bandcamp page.

The post Video Premiere: Leathan Milne – Now I Say Goodnight appeared first on Various Small Flames.