Seen as a spiritual successor to Swell Tone’s Summer of Sad comp on Z Tapes, the release features takes on tracks by everyone from Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young to Björk, Mazzy Star and even Mr Rogers. Better yet, all proceeds are going to Homeward Bound Animal Rescue, which gives dogs a second chance at life. So when not support the release and relax in the knowledge that you are helping a good cause too?

The release is ostensibly one of love songs, but such a description belies the depth and ambiguity of emotions on offer. Opening the album, Basement Revolver gloss a layer of melancholy sweetness over Springsteen’s ‘I’m On Fire’, subtle percussion and winding guitar allowing Chrisy Hurn’s vocals to come to the fore. Changing tack completely, Anna McClellan takes on ‘Dear Someone’ by Gillian Welch, transforming the original into a romantic piano song that sounds haunted by a sense of long-lost nostalgia, as if it’s floating across a quiet room from a war-time gramophone.

This diversity continues across the rest of the compilation. Yes these are all love songs, but stylistically no two sound quite alike. From Lucy Stone’s heartfelt guitar ballad (a contemporary update of Bonnie Raitt’s ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’) to the gentle droning pulse and ghostly vocals of Ora Cogan’s Björk cover, the album twists and turns through styles and emotions, from naked declarations to heart-broken longing to that lingering wistful feeling that’s woven into the fabric of things. There’s no sugary Hollywood sentiment here, rather love in its true, maddening form, so closely related to pain and sadness as to make the distinction obsolete.

The mood is perhaps best captured in Rosie Tucker‘s singular take on Connie Converse’s ‘How Sad, How Lovely’, a track which manages to hold tender beauty and creeping loss in the same hand. “How sad, how lovely,” go Converse’s lyrics. “How short, how sweet / to see the sunset / at the end of a street.” To take notice of the small wonders of the world is to notice their slow dissolution, but to take no notice at all is to already have died.

Sixteen Jackies lift the mood with a bouncy rendition of Pete Townsend’s ‘Let My Love Open The Door’, before Honey Moon arrived with their sultry take on ‘Lovefool’ by The Cardigans. Both tracks come with a technicolour finish, their sounds so lush and textured that you can wrap yourself within them, which juxtaposes well with Porridge Radio‘s stripped back version of Neil Young’s ‘Only Love Can Take Your Heart’. However, despite the track’s stark simplicity, the earnest tone and authentic delivery forms an enveloping texture of its own, radiating warmth and a kind of nostalgic grace.

The collection ends with a a hushed and intimate cover of Mr Rogers song ‘It’s You I Like’ by Ings, Inge Chiles delivering Rogers’s trademark earnestness and sentimentality in a near-whisper. The gently plucked guitar keeps its voice down too, leading to a finale as quiet and peaceful as it is suffused with feeling.

Summer of Love is out now digitally and on cassette, and you can get it from Bandcamp.

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Various Swell Sounds is a collaborative playlist series from Shana Hartzel of Swell Tone, Jon Chin of Cereal and Sounds, and myself. Instead of constantly exchanging tracks amongst each other, we have decided to work together to bring them to more ears. Every month, we will match a selection of our old and brand new favourites to a specific theme, as decided on a revolving basis month by month.

2018 Warped: the final Various Swell Sounds offering of the year, and perhaps of all time. Here, all constraints go out of the window, and instead we present a collection of songs from all styles, sounds and eras that have been with us this year.

If you enjoy 2018 Warped, be sure to check out the other instalments of Various Swell Sounds. You can find those we hosted here, and the others on Swell Tone and Cereal + Sounds.

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Opener ‘Liars & Thieves’, is pretty much a folk song, with an acoustic strum rotating beneath Lauren Brown’s sultry vocals. ‘Constellation Lines’ has a slightly more electronic flavour, with a persistent drum beat and slightly ominous sounding synths.

Brown’s vocals are great throughout and add a real intimacy and dreamlike quality to the album. There is also a sliver of melancholy which permeates through the album, providing that strange tinge of sadness that all the best dreams leave behind.

The band list Cat Power, Mazzy Star, Sharon Van Etten and The xx as influences, and (perhaps with the addition of Beach House) that sounds pretty accurate to me. If you like any of those artists then you should definitely give The Lion’s Den a try.

Get the album via the Twin Oaks Bandcamp page for the ludicrously low price of just $5 (just over three quid for us in the UK).

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