But, however these depictions square with the coming (or ongoing) reckoning, they rarely have the desired effect. For things so drastic are beyond our comprehension, destined to feel distant and impersonal by their sheer scale. How can we take seriously what we cannot imagine?

Still No Mother, the latest album from the Colorado-based songwriter Logan Farmer and the first under his known name (as opposed to Monarch Mtn), looks for an answer through a more oblique approach to climate breakdown. Released by Western Vinyl, the record sets its focus not on the storm at the horizon, nor its first winds on our shores, but instead into the minds of those who will experience it. Those waiting and dreading. All of us.

To achieve this, Logan Farmer looked into history. The American folk song has evolved alongside the nation’s tragedies, long used as balm against pain both personal and political, or as a direct confrontation of this suffering. ‘Folk’ as in music of the people, grounded in struggle. Farmer used this framework and applied it to present and future pain, originally envisaging the songs farm workers might sing as their land is devastated by fire or flood in the vein of Woodie Guthrie’s Dust Bowl Ballads.

Still No Mother doesn’t quite follow this idea through to Guthrie’s concept style, but still it homes in on the people at the centre of the devastation, moments of humanity caught in the lulls between nature’s revolt. “The music is intentionally gentle and delicate with shards of piercing dissonance scattered throughout,” explains Farmer. “The intention was to capture the quiet moments of contemplation before the storm comes, as we peek through the cracks in the wall to catch a glimpse of the approaching danger, now a growing dot on the horizon.”

Those familiar with Monarch Mtn will recognise the sombre depth of the songs, but Farmer’s ambient-folk style is at its most organic yet. Listen to lead single ‘Rome, Through a Fog’ or opener ‘River Black’ and find an instinctive simplicity within the starkness, acoustic guitar anchoring Annie Leeth’s string arrangements, Farmer’s vocals lacking the effects of previous records. Even the use of drone and spoken word recordings possess a natural air, the surrounding environment leaking into the spaces of the songs, be it a far off electrical transmission or the slow hum of the world itself.

Evoking the title, ‘Vessels’ paints a world abandoned not just by God by Mother Earth too. “Still no mother on our side, desertion,” Farmer sings, humanity now outside of any relationship or coexistence, a gathering on a hostile rock. The song paints a soul dizzied and static, frozen with fear and anger and the cold tendrils of complacency, the sense that it is too late, that we are damned by our own inaction. Closer ‘No One Owes Us Anything’ takes this up more directly. An engagement with the climate and the politics underpinning its collapse, it represents the sad wrath of the underclass as it tries to remember the real point of blame. “If we lose our strength, it’s gone,” Farmer sings. “If we lose our faith, it’s gone.” But the sentiment grows hazy, even the most obvious injustice and inequality lost in the fog of guilt, our own ties to the destructive system eroding the ground beneath our feet.

Forty years later
when there’s no more ice
I’m gonna end my days on a kitchen knife
everything together better add up to a lot

A place on the wall where I paint my hand
I’m gonna betray
the call of modern man
but I’m terrified every time the service drops

The acceleration of ‘War is Body’ is a distillation of the entire album. The track places the intensely personal within global strife, capturing the contemporary mood better than perhaps any song has managed to date. The abrasive, poltergeistic fury of the opening plays like some warning cut off by the track’s lush swells, some hideous thing ignored but left standing outside our door as violins sweep our attention elsewhere. There’s a sense of disembodied calm, a kind of stupefied melancholic float at odds with the apocalyptic verses it holds. Just when it seems we can drift along in this reverie forever a faint hum emerges, the outside threat making itself known again as the piano winds down almost to nothing. Then a sudden quickening, as though the bottom has fallen out of the track and sent us tumbling down and there is nothing to grab on to and no way back up and suddenly melancholy and reflection count for nothing, not here. We can only be witness to what is about to unfold. It’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone.

Still No Mother is out now via Western Vinyl and you can get it from the Logan Farmer Bandcamp page.

Photos by Ben Ward

The post Logan Farmer – Still No Mother appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Today marks the fifth anniversary of Fox Food Records, and to celebrate James Smith has gathered a large number of the label’s artists for a special compilation, Something’s There But You’re Not Sure What. Essentially a who’s who of the Fox Food roster, the release represents a celebration of what truly independent labels can offer—a diverse group of people from all over the world linked not by a specific sound and style but rather the spirit within.

Opening with an acoustic version of Oh Rose‘s ‘Prom’, Something’s There But You’re Not Sure What features a whole host of our favourites. Nice Legs stop by with another slice of delightfully warm fuzz pop, Spartan Jet-Plex provides an alternate take on single ‘Meant’ and Monarch Mtn returns with his characteristically intimate and melancholic whisper-folk.

Dana Gavanski joins Kaiya Cade on the haunting ‘Garden’, Fazed on a Pony serves up a dose of wonky nostalgia and Goodbye Max welcomes us back into his wistful warmth with the modest wonder of ‘Search Party.’ Then there’s the icy pop of Bloodhype, the whimsical momentum of Plant Food, not to mention the playful hush of Lewtrakimou and cool swagger of Saint Charles. Mixing things up, Henoheno and Fair Mothers offer different takes on patient, sprawling music—the ethereal gloom of the former matched in mood and scope by the foreboding creep of the latter.

Elsewhere, Unisex offer a carefree sway with ‘Let the Tide Take You’, Fairy Godmother a garage rock washed with dreamy haze and the likes of Ratbath, Hairpins, Suzy Jivotovski (of GRNDMS) and Deer Scout all provide stellar examples of intimate bedroom folk. Then, in a fitting finale, Smith’s own Good Good Blood teams up with Astral Social Club for mammoth closer ‘Heathen Astronaut’.

With ambient textures and electronic beeps and glimpses of sincere emotion peeking through the fog, the track acts as a kind of summary of the compilation and therefore the Fox Food Record’s mission as a whole. Heartfelt, experimental, bound not by expectation or convention but rather some gut-level intuition. Together, the elements coalesce into an intangible yet sustained sense of spirit, something far more powerful and lasting than anything done alone. This might not be something than can be adequately put into words, but that it exists is a testament to Smith’s judgement and effort. Because something is there, even if you’re not sure what.

The post Fox Food Records – Something’s There But You’re Not Sure What appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

Frog – American
The Phone Booth – Ballad of Indifference
Spielbergs – 4AM
Neurotic Fiction – Collateral
Neighborhood of Make Believe – Track Names
Pizzagirl – body part
Orchid Mantis – porch song
Gorgeous Bully – patience
Reighnbeau – Trading Heat
Troy Everett – Absent
Amparo – Hounds
REW<< – Victoire Impossible
Okay Embrace – Moving
Young Jesus – For Nana
Vender & The Cobras – Everything is Beautiful
The Lostines – Faith in Love
Haley Heynderickx & Max García Conover – Little Wind
Rivulets – Everything Goes
Balto – Bullshit Dream
Meat Wave – That’s Alright
Docks – Kiosk
Satanic Ritual Abuse – Hurting (Adjective/Verb)
SATU – Growing Up
Anna Tivel – Fenceline
Madison Turner – Richmond, Virgina
Elly Swope – 6.8
Nathan Ball – All or Nothing
Monarch Mtn – canyon blues
Stripmall Ballads – You Were Good (I Was Good For a While)
Katie Mullins – Crocuses
Lisa/Liza – Tea Kettle
free cake for every creature – shake it out
Katy Kirby – Tap Twice
Lung Cycles – hottest day of the year so far (4pm version)

You can find all of our Monthly Roundup playlists here, and peruse a wider range of mixtapes that we’ve put together over the years.

The post November 2018 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The thing with creating such vivid worlds is that their confines are vague and distant, and Monarch Mtn’s noir metropolis is crammed with stories yet untold. Which is perhaps why, mere months later, Farmer is back with days of sleepwater, a brand new record that is every bit as darkly atmospheric as its predecessor. However, to say the album is a direct continuation would be misleading. There is a distinctive change in the spirit of the music here, days of sleepwater seeking out space and autonomy as though reacting to the suffocating oppression that marked I Woke At The Station.

Take for instance the slow and considered first track ‘canyon blues’, Naarah Strokosch’s cello bringing an air of elegant sorrow as it saws sombre against a backdrop of subtle percussion. As on I Woke At The Station, the lyrics bristle with desperation and implicit violence, though while the previous songs felt as though they were careering toward these emotions, ‘canyon blues’ is more of a retreat or escape—leaving the dense tangle of civilisation for something more open and free.

“Highway 1 like a cancer in my mind
Scattered ashes on the sheets
I’m too nervous to be happy all the time
Hope you never get scared of me”

Follow-up ‘trick of the light’ is a sparse and candle-lit croon, Farmer’s velvety vocals unfurling across barely-there guitar and snaking sax, while, in comparison, ‘no embrace’ sounds rich and graceful, a song about being isolated as the world ignites in celebration or disaster. “Fell asleep with headphones on,” Farmer sings, “as royal city burned / Not for me, this other man’s concerns.” The result is sad and strangely isolated, synths like an angelic choir adding a gravitas to an otherwise ordinary scene, dispatches from a dark and lonely room illuminated only by the light of the 24 hour news on the TV.

Cello again winds itself across ‘the glow’, a stripped-back acoustic song, before the eight-plus minute epic ‘iron sphere’ unfurls patiently from a quiet artificial dawn, ending eventually with sci-fi synths that bring an ominous air. The track is fraught with guilt and loss, and the synthetic nature of its close carries its own dread, as though the characters within are overtaken by some great pressing force as penance for past actions, or perhaps emancipation from the forces that held them.

The strangeness carries over onto ‘on the stone’, its weird dreamy blurriness presenting open spaces which the ghosts of Farmer’s characters haunt, before closing track ‘bedlam goes quiet’ presents what is perhaps the strongest narrative of all—a series of images bathed in neon and shadow.

Bedlam goes quiet
And she leaves the bed
Beer in the shadows
With a Texaco attendant

She drives all night
Just to clear her head
Nearing Montana
A wild dog’s spirit

Rises from the earth
Finds the traveller
Carrying her load with tired limbs
There is no wrong that time forgives

There was a sense of inevitability about I Woke At The Station. Every scene and interaction eventually lead to death and destruction, its inhabitants moving with the vaguely depraved self-interest that is the cultural logic of such a space. The world of days of sleepwater is no lighter, but Farmer’s interpretation of and reaction to the atmosphere signals a change. Darkness breeds darkness, and allowed to fester can become a self-perpetuating thing that metastazises unto ubiquity. Here, Monarch Mtn do not pretend that suffering is abating, or can be dispelled by a mere shift in perspective, but rather choose to fight the phenomenon. days of sleepwater exists to fight the creeping dark, and not embrace it.

days of sleepwater is out now and you can get it from the Monarch Mtn Bandcamp page.

The post Monarch Mtn – Days of Sleepwater appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

Typhoon – Rorschach
Cloud – Two Hands Bound
Trust Fall – do it right
Wooing – In Colour
Tree House – Nonsense
Long Neck – Milky Way
Sara Renberg – Take the Summer Off
Special Moves – Half and Half
Lying Down – Betty and Barney
Pastel – Close
Monarch Mtn – Saint in Armor II
Doomking – I Laid the Prairies to Rest
vierzig skizzen – passwords
Old Robes – The Spider and the Spectator
Jeremy Squires – Gift
Bill Vuono – Think of Me (feat. Earl McVeigh)
Kraków Loves Adana – Rapture
Cool American – Focus
Bucolic – Blue Tree
There’s Talk – Give It Up
Airium + Double Honey – Concrete House Of Dreams And Pools
The Saxophones – Just You
Jelani Sei – LVNDR TWN
Why Dogs Why – Linus

You can find all of our monthly roundup mixes here, and be sure to stick around into March to see what musical goodies we’ll be sending your way. And, of course, please reach out on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram if you have something you think we should hear.

The post February 2018 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The opener ‘Saint in Armour II’ sets the tone for the release, a slow, heartbroken shuffle like the introspective thoughts of a figure suspended in grief, the outside world sliding past in bleak monochrome. This joyless metropolis is the setting for all nine songs, what we described in our preview of single ‘Overtime in the Underworld’ as “a sad, shadowy city where numb people wander and sometimes collide.” Farmer’s triumph is capturing such a sparse, lonely place in a sound so rich. Every word and observation is imbued with melancholic meaning, every stray thought of the various sad and eccentric characters lends a certain weight, as though within their perseverance lies some noble intention.

We’re honoured to be able to share the album in its entirety a few days early, so do yourself a favour and turn out the lights, put on your headphones and descend into the dark world of Monarch Mtn.

The post Album Premiere: Monarch Mtn – I Woke At The Station appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Which brings us to 2018 and I Woke at the Station, a brand new album from Farmer set to be released with our good friends at Fox Food Records. Having the chance to record at the Hill House Artist Residency in Mancelona, Michigan, Farmer headed out into this cabin in the woods with a beard and lots of flannel (referred to self-deprecatingly as “a pitch so overused that it should be cast in bronze and placed on a mantelpiece”), though his intentions were far from recreating the wilderness around him. As Farmer explains:

I knew from the beginning that I wanted to make a city album. An album for driving down the highway in the middle of the night under a sodium vapor glow. A collection full of distinct characters, overflowing with hardship and longing. They wake up, they go to work, they fall apart under the pressure, they dream and dream. The question I really wanted to ask was this: Is there dignity in desperation?

We’re really excited to share the first track from the release, ‘Overtime in the Underworld.’ Making good on Farmer’s urban promise, the track evokes an atmosphere both sombre and subtly savage, as though beneath the calm surface lies a violent force, some predator just waiting for someone to slip up or grow tired. Monarch Mtn gives you the grand tour of this place—a sad, shadowy city where numb people wander and sometimes collide, all haunted by a vague, ubiquitous sense of loss that turns hearts into holes and men into mimes or monsters.

“He leaves the ring, all
cigarette ash and dive bar beauty,
he sleeps beside his Friday bride,
and hopes that she’s eighteen.

And oh my god,
he’ll tell you that his life’s a movie,
he fucks and fights, his name’s in lights,
and he can barely read.

He should be dead,
or at least dying.
But instead
the world is kind
and inviting
time and time again “

The post Song Premiere: Monarch Mtn – Overtime in the Underworld appeared first on Various Small Flames.

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.

Hallelujah The Hills – A Band is Something to Figure Out
(REVIEW | INTERVIEW)

“This is an album built from symbolism (one of the tags on Bandcamp is ‘hieroglyphics’, to give you an idea) but, like all the best mysteries, a sense of significance floats to the top, independent of any hidden code. Hallelujah the Hills reconstruct the human experience through sheer enthusiasm, using their joyous hooks and choruses as earnest expressions of emotion rather than ironic juxtapositions.  Walsh and Co. aren’t sitting us down to share a smirk and a wink, or to reel off some abstract philosophical theories, but rather taking us by the hand and running through their strange world, leaving it up to us to catch something meaningful in the breathless blur. And what a world this is, one which has been evolving since their first album, an ecosystem based on a strange molecule – twin strands of confusion and intuition tightly bound and swirled into a double helix – the DNA of Hallelujah the Hills.”

Camp Cope – S/T
(REVIEW)

“For those of us that want to hope that maybe everything doesn’t have to be shit forever, there’s an atmosphere of dissent that seeps into every line. Not in that horrible on-the-nose Billy Bragg/Frank Turner way, but more subtle, funny and heartbreaking, with throwaway lines that leave you a bit off-balanced. I think that’s what I like most about Camp Cope – the constant switch between personal and protest, heartache and anger, and all the while feeling completely and utterly helpless.”

Beat Radio – Take It Forever
(REVIEW | INTERVIEW)

“Beat Radio’s fifth album Take It Forever feels like a culmination of ideas, the product of some long, hard thinking… With a large dose of hope and a pervading sense of goodwill, Take It Forever plays like the manifesto of someone who doesn’t know all the answers but finds meaning in asking the questions, the words not of a revolutionary or prophet but an ordinary man striving to make life extraordinary, just as it should be.”

Talons’ – Work Stories
(REVIEW)

“Explores the pervasive disillusionment in a society that hasn’t yet lived up to what it promised, a society run for interests other than those of the people who make up its majority. A society that offers hopes and dreams of resplendent lives in exchange for your hard earned $$$s, education courses that leave people stranded with more knowledge but no money, opportunities or sympathy. These are songs for people who wonder ‘when did it become not okay to do what I want with my life?’ Work Stories is a reminder that it’s okay to occasionally feel afraid or sad, that the things which trouble you are probably not as much your fault as you think, and most of all that, despite how it might sometimes feel you are never, ever, alone.”

Mount Moriah – How To Dance
(REVIEW)

“Mount Moriah push past their troubles into something positive and mysterious, a conglomeration of symbolism, mysticism, universality and other cosmic forces which pretty much equates to Southern Gothic 2.0. How to Dance is crafted from spirit and faith, carved out of a high, wide hope capable of healing any wounds, giving us the courage not just to survive, but to live.”

The Chairman Dances – Time Without Measure
(REVIEW | INTERVIEW)

“The Chairman Dances succeed in bringing characters to life in three dimensions, though on Time Without Measure the feat is even more impressive as the roster of figures are not only numerous but also known to history in decidedly superhuman terms. Now more than ever we should remember that activists and political heroes, for all of their spirit and unimaginable resolve, are as prone to doubt and death as anyone, and not half as powerful without our support and belief. Likewise, we’d do well to remember that villains and bigots are human too, flames that, however fierce and bright, will be snuffed out without the oxygen that is our backing. This album is a reminder that belief and faith can save us. It’s just a matter of choosing the right thing in which to invest our energies.”

Karima Walker – Hands in Our Names
(REVIEW)

“Hands in Our Names sees Karima Walker reconstruct an array of varied elements into something larger and more meaningful than they could ever be alone. Field recordings from her present and found recordings from someone else’s past swirl above and beneath her own words and guitar notes, drones of every pitch filling the background and stretching the songs into worlds of their own. When atomised into separate parts, the album is impressionistic, blurry and strange and difficult to describe, though when listened to as a whole, a blanket of stitches, it becomes something vivid and intuitive. As such, Hands in Our Names is able to convey things normal songs cannot, a freedom not just born of trope-avoiding experimentalism but somehow inherent in the very combinations of sounds, as though arranged into secret patterns or codes, magic spells that trump postmodern convictions. Rather than dying in open air upon leaving her mouth, Karima Walker’s communications bubble from within, stirring that dormant empathy that lies somewhere near the centre of us all.”

Sioux Falls (now Stranger Ranger) – Rot Forever
(REVIEW)

“Sioux Falls’ sound reads like a melting pot of the last twenty years of rock music. Taking the indie rock of the likes of Built to Spill et al., the band add thoughtful emo (like The Hotelier) and smart pop punk vibes (think LVL UP etc.) to create something wonderfully varied and entertaining, cycling through these genres not just between songs but within them. The narrator is centred within the stories of which they sing, sounding like another confused player in violent, unfair game operating to rules outside of anyone’s understanding. In the face of bewilderment they turn to anger and sorrow and joy, feelings easy to recognise, easy to submit to, decidedly non-ambivalent chemical reactions which remind them that they’re still alive.”

John K Samson – Winter Wheat
(REVIEW)

“The Weakerthans frontman’s first release since 2012 is everything we’ve come to expect, exploring his favourite themes of contemporary loneliness and isolation in his uniquely warm manner, his characters not ready to give up hope that connection (that is, real human connection) is still possible in our digital world.”

Nap Eyes – Thought Rock Fish Scale

“Nova Scotia’s Nap Eyes return with a sophomore album of rhythmic, ear-worming slacker folk rock songs, recorded completely live with no overdubs in just four days. Nigel Chapman’s lethargic monotone vocals give the whole thing the feel of a daydream, like the wandering high-brow thoughts of a sleepy philosophy/psychology major.”

Jeremy Squires – Shadows
(REVIEW | INTERVIEW)

“Does what the very best folk music can do, an outpouring from one human being to a multitude of others. It’s a record borne out of legitimate heartbreak, the end of a marriage and the death of a loved one, a brave and honest attempt to deal with big life-changing events. Deft songwriting allows Squires to expand these specific, individual scenes into large, engaging metaphors, in which we can find shards of our own experiences. The beauty of it is that the finished work is not just healing and revelatory for the artist. It can help us too.”

Loone & Paper Bee – Now I Know You and See How Wide You Are to the World
(REVIEW)

“Now I Know You and See How Wide You Are to the World is a terrific album. It’s as rich and as complex as life itself, steeped in passion and poetry, whirring like the universe and everything in it. There’s a line at the end of ‘Ugly, I’m Sorry’ that sums up the whole release rather nicely, capturing its in a handful of words far better than I am able to in this review: ‘And I wanna hold your hand / and go explore the pulsing humming darkness’.”

Spartan Jet-Plex – Get Some
(REVIEW)

“Taken at face value, Get Some is an indistinct album, the themes and meanings wrapped in layers of abstract lyrics and varied instrumentation. However, this vagueness itself curls and contorts and creeps into your head, eluding inclinations to describe and detail and thus bypassing the whole processing machinery most music must enter. As such, Kells’s thoughts and feelings arrive whole, unaltered, meaning that you feel what’s being said, even if it’s impossible to put into words.”

Kyle Morton – What Will Destroy You
(REVIEW)

“While Typhoon’s fourth record is still in the works, Morton last month released a surprise solo album, What Will Destroy You. Again the twin themes of tragedy and pleasure are central, as is the idea of catharsis and release. However, while mortality is an intrinsic element, the album does not tread the exact same ground as previous Typhoon releases. What Will Destroy You shifts the focus onto love, more specifically what Morton describes as “the ambivalence of erotic love,” leading to an intimate, surprisingly honest album which delves into things both more wonderful and mundane than your average love songs.”

CHUCK – My Band is a Computer
(REVIEW | INTERVIEW)

“Playing like a collaboration between Owen Ashworth and Bret Easton Ellis, the CHUCK brand of observant and at times cringe-inducingly honest indie pop will no doubt prove divisive. But there’s far more to My Band is a Computer than drugs and self-pity and empty sex. Like the Frog release that Audio Antihero brought us last year, it crams an awful lot into its run-time, covering everything that’s terrible and everything that’s not about being a young adult in the twenty-first century, somehow managing to tap into the human kernel at the centre of our zombified lurch of nostalgia and regret.”

Monarch Mtn – Everyone is Here
(REVIEW)

“It would be wrong to consider the music of Monarch Mtn as simply a two dimensional mope-fest, with Farmer’s poetic lyrics and warm delivery hint at something beyond the misery. The palette is undoubtedly gloomy, blacks and greys and deep blues, but Farmer’s warm vocals and poetic turns of phrase flicker across this twilight like threads of gold.”

Claire Cronin – Came Down a Storm
(REVIEW)

“The real success of Down Came a Storm is how Claire Cronin and John Dieterich combine to spin stories and landscapes from their combined talents, every element given equal standing to conjure not only folk tales but the worlds in which they exist. Here you can feel the wind on your skin, hear it move in the trees, smell its scent of salt and earth and ozone. You can feel it move the characters too, propelling them into dark, poetic places where nature rules and comfort can be found in the starkest of elements.”

Adeem the Artist – Kyle Adem is Dead
(REVIEW | INTERVIEW)

“The word ‘sincere’ is often taken as synonymous for affectionate or sentimental. With Kyle Adem is Dead, Adeem the Artist strives to be sincere in every sense, finding the bravery not just to declare his love for his wife but to voice his fears, his weaknesses, his exasperation with life as we live it. With everything on the table, no lingering mysteries or secrets withheld, there is nothing left to corrupt the good things. Because, after all, Kyle Adem is dead.”

Mal Devisa – Kiid
(REVIEW)

“Kiid is a personal record and plays like condensed version of life, reaching high and falling low, crackling and bursting and simmering under the surface, at times exploding in urgent streams of consciousness as if the words and thoughts can no longer be held in. This is an album that refuses to be reduced to something easily describable, persevering in it’s complexity against the binarizing forces of anxiety or genre or gender or race. Kiid isn’t a self-doubt record or political record, nor a sad record or a happy record. It’s not jazz or gospel or indie rock. Kiid is everything. Kiid is whatever it wants to be.”

Lisa/Liza – Deserts of Youth
(REVIEW)

“Wonderfully minimal and psych-tinged songs that will doubtless appeal to fans of  soft and sad outsider folk artists such as Sarah Winchester. At times it’s gossamer thin, with Victoria’s vocals little more than hushed murmurs, though even in these quiet moments her words hold a kind of understated magnetism, a power which draws in the instrumentation and in turn becomes augmented by it. Deserts of Youth shows you don’t necessarily need to raise your voice to make a statement, that even quiet songs can be imbued with a blazing energy.”

Old Earth – Lay For June
(REVIEW | INTERVIEW)

“Trying to put Old Earth’s music into words seems futile and kind of besides the point. There’s never going to be a satisfactory way to describe art so fluid and weird and instinctive, so all we can tell you is what it sounds like to us. It’s operating on a deeper level, one not easily outlined, playing on some atavistic region of the subconscious that reacts to fear and beauty, that treats intense wonder and dread as the same emotion. It’s the same area of the brain that tells us to light candles and throw coins down wells no matter how secular our society becomes.”

What were your favourite albums of 2016? Let us know through one of the usual channels – we’re on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and Instagram.

The post Wake the Deaf’s Favourite Albums of 2016 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Take for example Friends For Equality, the benefit compilation in support of Southern Poverty Law Center, ACLU and Planned Parenthood put together by Nancy Kells and Fox Food Records. Collecting the talents of 42 acts, the release features a diverse range of unreleased tracks from all over the world, including WTD favs such as Henry Demos, Henoheno, PAT MOON, Rainwater, Francie Cool, Lewtrakimou, Slumbers and Monarch Mtn, not to mention songs from the creators themselves in the form of Spartan Jet-Plex and Good Good Blood. As you might expect, it’s also a great way to discover new artists, and while there are too many to write about properly, there’s enough variation in style and genre to ensure every music fan will find something to their liking.

Not content with the compilation, Nancy is organising a benefit show at Strange Matter in Richmond, VA on the 17th February, and working to put together a zine for which the theme is “social justice/civil rights – so anything related to that – drawings, photographs, comics, editorials, poetry, short story, etc.” Submissions are currently open until the 2nd January, so email spartanjetplex@gmail.com if you want to participate or help in any way.

You can buy Friends For Equality now via Bandcamp, and be sure to remember that the $5 price tag is a minimum suggestion (and impossibly generous for 42 tracks). Equally, if you don’t have cash to spare, you can help by spreading the word or getting involved (just contact Spartan Jet-Plex via the email address provided above).

Artwork by Ryan McCardle

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