And, of course, being comprehensive is impossible these days, so let us know if we missed your favourite and maybe we’ll add it to the collection.

If I Die in Mississippi – Artless
(RIYL: bedroom pop, ambient, Sam Ray, sad)

In Love With a Ghost – Let’s Go
(RIYL: electronic, chillwave, dream pop)

Jake Bellissimo – Piece of Ivy
(RIYL: indie pop, Gay Angel)

Jemima Coulter – lampshade ep
(RIYL: bedroom pop, chilled out, Volcano Choir)

Joyride! – Half Moon Bay
(RIYL: pop punk, indie rock, All Dogs)

Julia Brown – An Abundance of Strawberries
(RIYL: experimental, indie pop, Elephant 6)

Lake Michigan – Gleaming
(RIYL: bedroom pop, late night vibes, Arrange)

Lance Bangs – Lance Mountain
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie pop, Colin Thibodeauxxx)

Lazy Legs – s/t
(RIYL: shoegaze, noise pop, feedback)

Little Kid – Flowers
(RIYL: fuzz pop, bedroom folk, reflective thoughts)

Long Neck – Spring Cleaning
(RIYL: bedroom pop, Cyberbully Mom Club, Jawbreaker Reunion)

Max Gardener – Memory Lounge
(RIYL: dream pop, bedroom pop, slacker)

Mineral Girls – Seven Inches of Release
(RIYL: noise pop, emo, indie rock)

Moin Moin – Dawn
(RIYL: folk, bedroom pop, delicate, quiet)

MOLAR / Pale Kids – Split
(RIYL: pop punk, riot grrrl, The Courtneys)

Molly Drag – Tethered Rendering
(RIYL: bedroom pop, experimental, dreamy vibes)

Monarch Mtn – Everyone is Here
(RIYL: grand melancholy, nighttime)

Monster Rally – Mystery Cove
(RIYL: experimental, hip hop, tropicana)

Moving In – Sunburn
(RIYL: bedroom pop, lo-fi, teenage heartbreak)

Naps – Happy All the Time Forever Always
(RIYL: ambient, experimental, tape hiss)

No Museums – The Drifting Knives
(RIYL: basement rock, indie pop, lo-fi)

Nice Try – s/t
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie pop, Frankie Cosmos)

Nikolas Escudero – 100
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie pop, slacker)

No Dice Tapes – 2016: the year all bad things went away and everything turned out to be fine
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie pop, good causes, ironic titles)

Noname – Telefone
(RIYL: hip hop, rap, courageous poetry)

Be sure to check out the previous sections of our favourite free music list here.

The post Favourite Free Music of 2016: I – N appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. Fire – Mal Devisa
2. wild fire/flowers – Trust Fall
3. Home Alone – Max Gardener
4. Your Love – Jeremy Squires
5. Veins – Camp Howard
6. How To Dance – Mount Moriah
7. Good Evening – Adeem the Artist
8. Shallow – Candy
9. Francie Cool – Francie Cool
10. Bad Vibes – Zebrafi
11. Piece of Ivy – Jake Bellissimo
12. Snow Day – Julia Brown
13. Alive – Dear Tracks
14. Ted the Radical Westy – Ravetank
15. ft1 – naps
16. We Have The Perimeter Surrounded – Hallelujah the Hills
17. Bullet in a Broken Gun – Oscar Lush
18. Color Peels – The Wandering Lake
19. Nowhere Nothing – Oceanator
20. Suagr Skull – The Washboard Abs
21. Of Wandering – Littler
22. bicycle – Twelve Gardens
23. Ya Ya Ya – You Won’t
24. Find You – Family Video
25. Jack Campbell (Quick Jammer) – Dingus.
26. Candy – Fish Food
27. It May Very Well Do – 100 Watt Horse
28. Life – Whim
29. Meg – Hovvdy
30. Piano Player – The Hotelier
31. Calvary – Chris Bathgate
32. Postman – Sam Moss

The post March 2016 Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.

‘Home Alone’ came to life when Gardener was packing up in Long Beach to move up the coast to San Francisco to go to college, so the track is composed of the million tiny excitements and anxieties that come with such a transition. While the whole song is a hazy dream cast in golden Californian light, there is quite a distinction between the verses, two forms of ambiguity which exist side by side. The first deals with the passing of time and the alarm you feel when opening your eyes to it, while the second points in the other direction, telescoping outwards into a future both long and excitingly indistinct.

“Write all day and dream away
theres nothing on the horizon
but the light that’s in your eyes
see where it goes

I am home alone again”

The whole album is carved out of this paradoxical arrangement, a pre-collegiate hope mixed with the sneaking suspicion that there ain’t no end to the desert we cross. You can buy Memory Lounge now from the Max Gardener Bandcamp page. There’s also a special cassette release, featuring a personalised Memory Lounge matchbox, which is limited to thirty copies and will be available through Sports Day Records and the Citrus City Records Bandcamp page.

The post New single from Max Gardener, Home Alone appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Not content with curating a great radio show, Fresh Juice have also recently become a record label. Or, more accurately, a cassette label. Their first release is a compilation of songs all discovered while mining the rich seams of talent to be found on that alien planet we know as Bandcamp, featuring artists from both sides of the Atlantic. What better way to introduce the general vibe of the radio show.

The comp opens with a lean and stylish track from San Francisco’s Concon, followed by a track from fellow Frisco artist Max Gardener’s forthcoming album Memory Lounge. Velcro Team brings pulsing lo-fi electro pop, The Carraways a bright and surfy take on the Britpop formula and Smiles deliver shoegaze-shaded indie pop.

Portland’s Turtlenecked delivers a lovely bedroom pop track, which explodes with noise in the final third, before London’s Real Swell bring oddball electronic pop and Cheltenham producer Samuel Francis closes proceedings with a shimmering slice of electronica, falling somewhere in the valley between emotive ambience and groovy beats.

You can get The Fresh Juice Compilation Vol. 1 right now via their Bandcamp page, on a nifty-looking cassette (see below) or as a digital download. And remember to tune in to Fresh Juice every Monday!

The post Fresh Juice – Compilation Vol. 1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.