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. Your Best American Girl – Mitski
2. Shine – Solids
3. Vertebrae – Sam Moss
4. Joy Lies Down – Cloud (Bern Yr Idols comp from Audio Antihero)
5. Near You – Adeline Hotel
6. I Saw You – Outer Spaces
7. Madeline – Yoni & Geti
8. Keep it Light – ARMS
9. Figure It Out – Jake Rollins
10. We Learned to Cry – Adeem The Artist
11. ant hill paradise – Bedbug
12. I’m Young – Erin Tobey
13. coca cola purgatory – Ryder Eaton
14. Muppet Babies – Nice Legs (FRY YR BRN comp from Cereal + Sounds & Z Tapes)
15. Dawn Raid – The Second Hand Marching Band & Benni Hemm Hemm
16. President – Nice Try
17. SHIP – Fake Boyfriend
18. If You Let It – Sioux Falls
19. sorry for not answering the phone, i’m too busy trying to fly away – In Love with a Ghost
20. Clueless – Holiday Home
21. Realistic Birthday Music – Hallelujah the Hills
22. Age of Consent – Cayetana
23. Seattle – Tincho
24. Lance bangs #1 single released on 4/20 – Lance Bangs
25. Cigarettes – Daytime TV
26. Everything Costs – Radical Face
27. Tired of IPAs – talons’
28. Soak – Good Good Blood
29. Heavy as a mountain – Moin Moin

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

‘Sun and Moon’ opens the album as it means to go on, strummed acoustic guitar and subdued vocals that, to me at least, bring to mind Danielle Fricke. The lyrics are apparently based on a Greenlandic fairy tale, the story of the cold dark moon following the sun and her burning torch.

“Moon follows the sun every night
While his eyes crystalize into bones
Are you not there?”

The vocals at the centre of ‘Crinoline’ are not as delicate as you’d expect, rising from the moody guitar work with surprising strength, a sure and slightly lonely wail. ‘Heavy as a mountain’ has a slightly ominous Gothic air, a similar creeping feeling to Creature Speak’s Shadow Songs, before ‘Dirt’ has the feel of a calm and somnolent evening. You can almost hear the croaking frogs and the wind in the trees when Mandorla sings,

“I wish I had a ladder
I would climb up to the roof
I would lay down in the attic
I would watch the rise of the moon”

The guitar is delivered in a much more robust strum on ‘Black Dog’, while ‘Hunter’ is reminiscent of the subdued folk of Sarah Winchester. The final track, ‘Mother’, is grey and sombre, indicative of the album’s natural intimacy. “With the northern stream I go,” she sings. “Low tide keeps me out of shore / Mother /Thirteen black swans / float far, far from home / Mother”. If you download the album you’ll also get a bonus track. In my opinion the song, simply titled ‘+’, is pretty vital to the experience of the album, beginning with some pretty acoustic guitar before giving way to a field recording of birdsong. It’s in this last minute of the album that it finally feels like the titular dawn has finally arrived, rays of sunshine piercing the melancholy fog that has come before.

moin moin’s folk music (if you want to call it that) is sad and spectral. Feather-light and gauzy, the songs shift and shimmer like lace curtains in a soft breeze, like the intricate patterns of frost on a window pane slowly melting in the morning sun.

You can get Dawn on cassette or a name-your-price download via the Z Tapes Bandcamp page. And you should, because it’s really nice. If for some reason you want to get your cassettes elsewhere then you can also get them from the moin moin Bandcamp page, courtesy of Chee Chaak Tips. Also – moin moin is embarking on a train-based art project come European tour this summer. The indiegogo campaign to support has ended, but I’m sure support for the album will help with travel costs.

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