Rudick and co. are back with a brand new 7″ single, ‘Cheap Beer’, to be released on the cassette and vinyl-only label, Holiday Breath records. Speaking about the song, they explain:

“[The track is a] love/hate song dedicated to frontman and principal songwriter, [Rudick’s] hometown of Rainier, Washington. The song laments the impending realities of our mortalities, juxtaposed against the backdrop of a redneck small town in the pacific northwest.”

The song opens with slow piano but soon develops into a half-paced indie rock number, Rudick’s distinctive vocals conveying his unique blend of sincerity and cynicism. As such, ‘Cheap Beer’ is bathed in a kind of resigned sadness, born of a long-held struggle between understanding the world as tragic and trying to find beauty or at least empathy within its futile grind.

“I could try to comprehend
everyday when it begins
or how my last days here will end
while my grandma’s ashes rest

in some urn I’ve never seen
covered in old magazines
in some town where old men drink
cheap beer while they go fishing”

If that doesn’t sound good enough, the single is backed up with a b-side cover of Low’s ‘Murderer’, which the band describe as ‘brutal’.

‘Cheap Beer’ is out on the 17th February via Holiday Breath Records and you can pre-order it now from the Young Elk Bandcamp page, including on vinyl.

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But somehow, amidst the drugs and fighting and perversion, Pollock managed to create characters interesting beyond black curiosity, taking up the mantle of Southern greats such as William Gay and Flannery O’Connor in his ability to induce sympathy or at least complicate the antipathy his characters will garner. This style was developed (and potentially mastered) with Devil All The Time, his debut novel which cast the reader into world in which the membrane between reality and nightmare is leaky at best, with blood sacrifice and serial killer couples complicating an already bleak coming-of-age tale.

While Donald Ray Pollock’s latest novel, The Heavenly Table, takes us back to the 1917, it’s still rooted in the area of America he is making his own. The narrative is snappy and unsettled, the short chapters jumping between various locations and points of view, slowly drawing inwards in an inescapable ring which corrals the characters into the inevitable finale at the town of Meade. We have Ellsworth Fiddler, a swindled farmer trying to save face, Jasper Cone, a painfully afflicted sanitation inspector, Lieutenant Bovard, a jilted husband turned homoerotic (would be) war hero, and finally the luckless Jewett brothers, Cane, Cob and Chimney, who grow tired of the poor life and turn to robbing banks as a path to salvation.

With the graphic violence, crude sex and odd scatological humour, this appears to be more or less Pollock’s odd twist on the standard Western fare. Where things get interesting is that the Jewetts are inspired by a cheap dime novel, The Life and Times of Bloody Bill Bucket. Every cliche can therefore be read as a secondhand gesture, the Jewetts wearing Bloody Bill’s persona like a tacky fancy dress costume, hoping some of his magic (ie. his fictional bravado, success, imperiousness to pain/failure/death) might rub off on them. Furthermore, as their ‘spree’ gains traction so does the media’s reaction, with stories of ‘Jewett’ crimes emanating from newspapers in other areas and states, despite the brothers never having been there.

So not only are the boys distorting fiction into reality, but their reality is distorting into fiction, leaving them having to live up to the magnificent/terrifying tales on both ends. And while it’s apparent the trio are not well-equipped for such pressures, they sure give it their (quite literal) best shot, working on the logic of faking it ’til you make it:

‘Leaning over the horn of his saddle, Chimney spat and then said, “Well, I don’t know who those ol’ boys are back there, but I don’t figure they can shoot any better than we can.”

“Maybe, but there must be fifteen of them in that pack.”

“So?” Chimney said. “That many don’t even amount to one box of shells.”‘

Here are some dust-strewn, blood-spattered songs to listen to as you read.

Tracklisting:

1) Devil Town – Bright Eyes
2) Blood Red Sentimental Blues – Cotton Jones
3) Bury Me in the Garden – Tyler Butler and his Handsome Friends
4) Tom Justice, The Choir Boy Robber, Apprehended at Ace Hardware in Libertyville, IL – Casiotone For The Painfully Alone
5) Murderous Joy – Carter Tanton
6) Christ Jesus – Deer Tick
7) You Should’ve Seen the Other Guy – Nathaniel Rateliff
8) Buriedfed – Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson
9) Fire & Fast Bullets – Blitzen Trapper
10) Brother’s Blood – Kevin Devine
11) I Dreamt of My Brother Dying – Oscar Lush
12) Drunk and On a Star – Kevin Morby
13) Weather of a Killing Kind – The Tallest Man on Earth
14) Whore – Low
15) Liars – Gregory Alan Isakov and the Colorado Symphony
16) Closer to Heaven – Pink Mountaintops
17) Killer – Samantha Crain

The Heavenly Table is out now via Harvill Secker and Doubleday. You can read about Donald Ray Pollock’s other works on the Knopf Doubleday website.

The post Lit Links: Donald Ray Pollock – The Heavenly Table appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The world has always been ending, but 2001 really upped the stakes for the first time since the end of the Cold War. Terror became the buzz word in a world of televised attacks and indefinite wars, Wikipedia emerging just in time for us to catalogue such events and believe they were getting more frequent, more severe, closer and closer to home. While art was probably playing catch-up to developments, cinema went for the escape route, with Shrek and Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings beginning their own seemingly endless campaigns, while music reminded us that, for the majority, life went on as normal. Here are some songs that let us know while the world has always been ending, in ways both crushingly huge and pathetically small, we’ve got little choice but to keep on living.

Tracklisting:

1) Tonight Was a Disaster – Castiotone for the Painfully Alone
2) TV Zombie – The Rondelles
3) Ice Cube – Clem Snide
4) I Remember Me – Silver Jews
5) Adopduction – Les Savy Fav
6) Lucky Number Nine – The Moldy Peaches
7) Jenny & the Ess-Dog – Stephen Malkmus
8) Confusion is Nothing New – Beachwood Sparks
9) Miss My Lion – Scout Niblett
10) Wonder Wonder – Edith Frost
11) Up to My Neck in You –  Mark Kozelek
12) It’s a Wonderful Life – Sparklehorse
13) Sunflower – Low
14) Parks – Four Tet
15) Unearned – Patrick Phelan
16) I Want Wind to Blow – The Microphones
17) Bitters & Absolut – The National

Did we forget your favourite? Are our musical opinions now null and void? If so, let us know on Twitter or Facebook or something. Also, if you didn’t see it last month, you can find our post for the year 2000 here. Otherwise, we’ll see you next month as the world’s least efficient/useful time machine chugs along to 2002.

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Tracklisting:

1. Red Coat – Adeline Hotel (Interview)
   2. S.O.B. – Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
   3. Daughter of the Sea – House of Wolves (Interview)
   4. Monarchy – Table People
   5. Ruin – Doomking
   6. Lonely Boy – Titus Andronicus
   7. New York Hardcore – talons’
   8. Roar of Nothingness – Sun Organ
   9. Slow Dark Water – Furnsss
   10. You Are Arrived (But You’ve Been Cheated) – The Spirit of the Beehive
   11. It Was Gone – Orchid Mantis
   12. Big Sis – SALES
   13. No Comprende – Low
   14. The Washing Machine – SPORTS
   15. Shark? – Shark? (Everything Is Teeth by Evie Wyld and Joe Sumner)
   16. Christmas in Milwaukee – Advance Base
   17. Only Friend – Valley Maker
   18. My Track ’92 – Pet Cemetery
   19. Dusk; Falling Asleep, Know That You Are Loved – Sabbatical Wilderness
   20. Theremin Demonstration – Leon Theremin (Us Conductors by Sean Michaels)
   21. The Lemon’s Cousin – Boy Scouts
   22. Audrey Horne – Teen Love
   23. Mia – Spencer Radcliffe
   24. Return To The Moon – EL VY
   25. Bug – Alex G
   26. Wild Hearts – Kodiak Deathbeds
   27. Waves – Abby Gundersen
   28. UR = UO – No Touching
   29. Sparrow & Stone – Eva Foote
   30. What Can Be Taken – ÒOR

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“In our 20+ years of writing songs, I’ve learned that no matter how escapist, divergent, or even transcendent the creative process feels, the result is more beholden to what is going on at the moment. It’s hard to admit that one is so influenced by what is in front of us. Doesn’t it come from something magical and far away? No, it comes from here. It comes from now. I’m not going to tell you what this record is about because I have too much respect for that moment when you come to know it for yourself.”

To learn more about the album you should read this interview with Mimi Parker and Alan Sparhawk from Stereogum.

The first new track ‘No Comprende’ was released a few weeks back. Trademark Low, the song is slow-burning and brooding, the distinctive dual vocals of Parker and Sparhawk rising to your ears like an old friend.

‘What Part of Me’ is a little different, gentle but growing in intensity across its three minutes. The song is as warm as pretty much anything to date from the band, the hum of synths filling the spaces to give something akin to Yo La Tengo meets Say Hi. “What part of me don’t you know?” asks the refrain, and it’s hard not to frame the question in the context of the Parker and Sparhawk’s marriage.

Ones and Sixes will be released by Sub Pop on the 11th September. You can pre-order it right now.

Photo by Zoran Orlic

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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.

The post Rivulets – I Remember Everything appeared first on Various Small Flames.

That’s all very exciting for American fans or those braving the trip to Texas, but why should the rest of us take notice? The answer lies in the ingenious method of fundraising that the band used along with the good folks over at Song, by Toad Records. The basic premise was that anyone who pledged support to the Kickstarter campaign was asked to vote for up to five songs that they would like to hear the band play on a specially produced album. And they weren’t limited to Meursault songs, suggestions of covers were welcomed.

The result is a pseudo-covers album (pseudo as there are a couple of re-imagined Meursault tracks thrown in too, such as the re-worked version of ‘Dearly Distracted’ in the player below), which has been wonderfully captured and produced. It must also be said that Meursault fans have great taste, with some of my all-time favourite songs making it onto the album (see ‘No Children’ by Mountain Goats and Wolf Parade’s ‘I’ll Believe In Anything’ in particular).

Each track has its merits, and I really don’t think there’s a dud amongst the fourteen strong collection. A personal favourite is the cover of Chad VanGaalen’s ‘Rabid Bits of Time’, which is perfectly suited to Neil Pennycook’s emotive vocals.

You can get the album now via Song, by Toad Records.

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The single displays the distinctive Rivulets blend of more conventional folk/singer-songwriter sounds with the slowcore of bands like Low. It really is very beautiful, I for one can’t wait for the album.

You can buy The Fire for just $1 right now over at Bandcamp.

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It starts off with regular songs that are somehow linked with a scary theme before taking a more traditional Halloween vibe, a kitsch spookiness akin to handing out candy in costume to kids with bedsheets over their heads. Finally, in the second half on the mix, things take a strange turn and get weird, an unsettling section best listened through headphones in a dark room.

Beware the Moon: a Halloween Mix from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

Tracklisting:

1. Halloween Parade – Lou Reed
2. Werewolf (or …While I Was Casting Demons Out of You) – Tyler Lyle
3. Witches – Low
4. She Just Happens To Date the Prince of Darkness – Say Hi To Your Mom
5. The Bear – Snow Mantled Love
6. Casper the Friendly Ghost – Daniel Johnston
7. Skeleton Man – Evangelicals
8. Dracula is Only the Beginning – COOLRUNNINGS
9. My Body’s a Zombie for You – Dead Man’s Bones
10. Woman – Timber Timbre
11. Colours – JB Newman & The Black Letter Band
12. Dance of the Dream Man – Angelo Badalamenti
13. Fear of the Unknown and the Blazing Sun – Colin Stetson
14. Guilt – Piggy
15. Alone – Alone
16. Childhood’s End – Majical Cloudz
17. Fridge Music – Mogwai
18. The Mirror Reflecing (Part 2) – The Haxan Cloak
19. The Cellar – Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
20. I Know (Jon Hopkins Remix) – David Lynch

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If you are unfamiliar with Rivulets then I strongly urge you to get acquainted. Dark, sparse folk music that has something to say and isn’t adverse to getting loud when required. I’ve embedded a few of my favourite tracks throughout the post for you to sample.

Also, if you send $20 via PayPal to orders@rivulets.net, Nathan will record a personal solo song at home and send it directly to you. This can either be a new song that he will write just for you or solo version of your favorite Rivulets song. Just leave a message in the Paypal comments box outlining your wishes.

The method of paying on Bandcamp means you can give more that the RRP so if you find yourself with some extra coins then I’m sure it would be appreciated if you could give a little more. Remember, it’s paying for a new album. Rivulets is one of those criminally underrated acts that deserve far greater recognition. Why not use this opportunity to explore the back catalogue while funding a brand new album?

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