Tracklist:

1. She Reminds Me – Family Video
2. Jean Skirt Mystique – Naps
3. Sail – Swim Lessons
4. Mirror Threat – Waiters
5. Tibetan Clouds – Chips Calipso
6. Smokesquare – Fanpage
7. This City Will Eat Itself – Blush Response
8. Undone – Phoria
9. Lungs – Pixel Fix
10. Ancient Ways – Interpol
11. Have You Seen My Son – Benjamin Booker
12. Ballad of Big Nothing (Elliott Smith cover) – Arms
13. Stupid Boy – Owl John
14. Memento Mori – Hollow Wood
15. It’s the End of the World As We Know It (R.E.M. cover) – Free Cake For Every Creature
16. Youth – Thad Kopec
17. You Belong – Lucas O’Connell
18. Knives – The Meanest Creature Ever Known
19. Accept That the Mark Will Outlast You – Old Earth
20. If I’m – Sea Oleena
21. Joni – Old Amica
22. Autumn in the New Canaan – Lejsovka & Freund

August Mix from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

The post August 2014 Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.

He makes heartfelt love songs, with a naive, almost childlike innocence which brings to mind Daniel Johnston. The album opens with ‘Roll On’, a back-to-basics love song which contains lines like, “Hush my sweet darling, darling don’t you cry / The wind is gonna blow, the grass is gonna grow, the sun is sure to shine.” Many of the songs deal with personal struggle and self-doubt, but unlike many other songwriters who take this route, O’Connell always retains the hope of redemption, namely via the phenomenon of love. On ‘You Belong’ he sings, “The strongest weapon they’ve come up with yet / is a way of making a human forget / How to respect and love themselves / and share that love with someone else.”

O’Connell writes songs rooted in a refreshing simplicity, with a classic folk style that brings to mind fellow Canadian Mike Tod. Lots of his songs deal with escape from our modern money-driven culture. For example on ‘Roll On’ he sings, ”Don’t you go chasing those tainted paper greens / Open your heart, don’t fill it up, bust it at the seams.“ In the wrong hands these kinds of messages can come across of happy-clappy hippie-speak, but O’Connell’s disarming naivete means that you really believe what he is saying.

The fact is that in order to solve some of the biggest social and environmental issues that we currently face, we must learn to live within our means. This means that the modern obsession with material wealth and financial growth must be replaced with something else. O’Connell’s suggestion is to obtain the small number of things that we really do need and then enjoy them with people that we love.

You can get Wet Moccasin Moondance on a name-your-price basis via Bandcamp.

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