Adrianne Lenker – cradle
German Error Message – Hopelessness
Jo Schornikow – Incomplete
Grizzly Coast – Half-Light Boy
Taylor Hamilton – Might Say
Porridge Radio – Give / Take
Patio – Scum
Ruthie – Spirit Now Moves
Esther Rose – Don’t Blame It On the Moon
Blood Cultures – Flowers For All Occasions
Puddle-Cuddle – Compost
Mess – Dead Space
Cry Babe – Soft Honk
The Painters – Pieces of Life
Two Meters – Ground
Erin Durant – Take a Load Off
Michelle Blades – Ring
Eric & Magill – Thanks to Sciences
Foundlings – Caught Up on You
Craig Finn – Something To Hope For
JW Ridley – Homesick (Out The Blue)
Pieket – Eternal Recurrence
The Curfews – Rose
Emily Fairlight – Body Below
Raggedy – Brainwash
Barrie – Saturated
Blush – Forever Is a Long Time
Shane Leonard – Empire Builder
Con Davison – Sofa Bed
Gold Light + Snakemusk – The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
The Chats – Pub Feed
Shutups – Yellowjacket
Izzy Heltai – Stuck In Stone
Adam Ostrar – Take It Back
The Death Of Pop – Last
Toledo – Some Samurai
Yot Club – Japan
Evan Thomas Way & The Phasers – Long Distance
K. Campbell – Heads Up
The Duke of Norfolk – As the Heralds Revere You
Leaky Engine-John Birch Society Blues
naps – treading
Vieo Abiungo – What the Rain Restores
Old Earth – The Friends ∴ The Gods
Good Good Blood & Astral Social Club – Heathen Astronaut

Like what you hear? Catch up with the rest of our Monthly Mixes!

The post April 2019 Roundup Mix appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The latest naps release, better to give, released on Omaha, Nebraska label Gertrude Tapes, sees Calhoun continue in his singular vision. Opening track ‘blind’ begins with a repetitive scratching sound, as if the title refers to a mole rooting through dark soil, or an artist scumbling paint onto a canvas in a bolt of sightless inspiration. Behind this is a slow dawning ambience, droning keys that illuminate the song from within like winter afternoon sunlight.

This flows into ‘treading’, built of birdsong and creaking doors and the rumble of a highway. The droning keys slide in slowly, starting almost inaudible, like a clenched jaw, and advancing steady and weightless as fair-weather clouds.

The last of the shorter tracks, ‘to give’ is wrapped up in a grainy, fuzzy whir, like the hum of life around us we too often forget to hear, soft rounded bloops splashing against the background like spherical raindrops. The two final tracks stretch out, ‘each year’ just over nine minutes of beautifully meditative organ, and ‘no heat’ a ten minute exercise in marrying patient atmospherics with cryptic field recordings. Despite the run-times, there isn’t a second wasted on needless experimentation, each note and muffled creak unhurried but necessary.

And that’s what sets naps apart from much of the genre. Too often the eschewal of ear-worm melodies or verse-chorus-verse dynamics equates to impenetrability in experimental music, but Calhoun’s music doesn’t feel like blind experimentation. Listening to a naps record isn’t a step into the unknown, but rather something oddly familiar—its goal not to tear apart the reality into an alien soundscape, but rather accentuate the real so as to draw our attention to the texture and detail that exists all around.

better to give is out now and you can get it on cassette from Gertrude Tapes or download from the naps Bandcamp page.

The post naps – better to give appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

Hop Along – How Simple
Remember Sports – Pull Through
Fresh Kill – San Diego
Badlands – Slow it Down
Foundlings – Misery
Squirrel Flower – Conditions
Valley Queen – Chasing the Muse
Nap Eyes – Every Time the Feeling
wished bone – reasons
Pearl Crush – True Blue
Samia – 21
plant food – baked beans
Gillian Frances – Blue Shit
Luton – Ice Museum
naps – ninth
Allison’s Gate – Traces
Mess – Cave
runner – awash
I’m Kingfisher – Sarajevo
Sam Moss – Snap
The Duke of Norfolk – Dylan Thomas / Bitter Bitter
Michael Nau & The Mighty Thread – Less Than Positive
lung cycles – dcs

You can check out all of our past monthly roundup mixes here, and be sure to follow us on Spotify and Playmoss for all our future playlists.

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

naps gets side A, Calhoun’s now signature blend of ambient drone and field recording delivered with a previously unheard glowing lucidity. As Lily Tapes puts it, “[the] poignant clarity that was only hinted at before now cracked wide open.” It’s soft and somnolent but so much more than a pink-noise sleep aid, four songs that scoop out a space in the day for reflection, soothing and stirring in equal measure.

‘First’ feels like a dawn, both literally and metaphorically, like lemon-yellow sunbeams slowly spreading across a grey landscape, while ‘Second’ feels like the gentle unfurling of morning as it shimmers its way through its ten minute run-time. ‘Ninth’, the shortest naps track on the tape, pairs the drones with abstract field recordings, gentle clicks and clacks that somehow conjure a cosy and reassuring feeling.

The Lung Cycles side comprises of pipe organ recorded live to tape in an empty cathedral, and is every bit as haunting and reverential as that sounds. The earth has turned its back on the morning sun from the naps side, Lovell’s improvised performance like a flame flickering in the dark. ‘rvc’ is quietly devastating, using some key changes that make your stomach drop in their understated emotion, while ‘dcs’ continues this vibe, a weird nightsong playing to itself in an empty room.

The tape closes on another +10 minute slow burn, a song that eventually burns as dramatic as any of the others. It’s the perfect patient end to an album that does things at its own pace, in it’s own way. You can get the naps / lung cycles split now on cassette and download from the Lily Tapes and Discs Bandcamp page.

Cover art by Benjamin Torrey

The post naps / lung cycles – s/t appeared first on Various Small Flames.

However, while the album is united by a certain mellowness, to label it one-paced would be to do it a disservice. Opener ‘Beautiful, OH’ is a sparse, elegiac number underpinned by the gentlest swells, the cyclical pattern interspersed with irregular rises in tempo which never quite culminate in anything like a climax, playing like time passing across a landscape. This is followed by ‘The Carter Starter’, a track positively chirpy in comparison, though violin still sweeps across at various interludes to add a wistful dimension. ‘Still New To This’ creeps out of its beginnings with a playful edge. The cyclical motif utilised once more, though each iteration is altered and built upon so that a sense of organic life is imparted to the flow.

As highlighted in the next three tracks, much of Tiny Houses is pitched somewhere between insular and expansive, the echo and hum suggesting loneliness, though one which could apply to a crowded room or wide open plain. Put another way, the sadness Hour conjure could be either external or internal—a mindful person living within a lonely space, or a lonely person trying to feel more at home within an indifferent one. “This collection of songs explores the cracks and crevices of the spaces we occupy and call home,” the press release explains. “Each song balances the transcendence and claustrophobia that can come with sharing those spaces with others, and the decision, at times liberating, at times painful, to leave and start the process over again.”

With its more insistent percussion and experimental sound, ‘Town Meeting’ has a disorientating undercurrent, the intermittent field recordings of wordless babble adding to the perturbed vibe. Samples are a key part of the title track too, with subtle birdsong and the great rush of wind filling out the background of the simple acoustic sound. The ambient hiss of this track continues onto the grand, slow-burning ‘Doxology’—the most cinematic, post-rock inspired song on the record, bringing to mind talons’ minus the lyrics.

The album is closed by ‘From a Bus Window in Central Ohio, Just Before a Thunder Shower,’ and the sincere preciseness of the title is a good indicator of the sound. Again, the song emerges in gentle waves, a naturalistic patience that eventually rises into some of the most affirming moments on the record. As a finale, it feels like a message of sorts, Hour’s insistence that there can be value and meaning within the simplest of things, beauty within quiet calm, a home within any place, no matter how great or small.

Tiny Houses is out now on Sleeper Records and you can get it from Bandcamp. Also, Hour recently put out three videos which, speaking to The Line of Best Fit, Cormier describes as “attempts at capturing slices of three distinct artistic lives and visions, in process and imperfect, connected by songs from the latest Hour release.” Check them out on Youtube:

The post Hour – Tiny Houses appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Calhoun’s music is not easy to report, relying as much on atmosphere and texture as it does any kind of traditional musical elements. Describing it feels like talking about a contemporary artwork rather than a record. Bask is intended as a companion piece to Calhoun’s last Lily Tapes release, one hundred percent confident, but this new tape shows a marked stylistic shift. Things are still hazy and indistinct, but in a different way. Gone is the shrouding murk, the dark droning distortion. Instead the tone is bright, the tape dawning slowly across its run-time. As Lily Tapes put it “If confident was the dive down, here we find ourselves resurfacing. It’s sunny out, and there’s plenty of shade but fragments of light still break through, shifting and converging as you drift. They’re bringing something down with them—but don’t worry about what you’re looking for, just let it come into focus.”

Opening track ‘new friend’ is a good introduction, wrapped in a blanket of indistinct fuzz, the drones raindrop soft, rippling in concentric circles as they splash against the background fuzz. ‘anne’ follows a similar blueprint, paradoxically bright and opaque, a sensation that’s best captured by Shaun Hall’s beautiful cover art, like a lamp illuminating the emerald-blue water of a swimming pool or shafts of sun lighting up banks of pillowy cumulus at dawn.

The title track mixes ambient field recordings with tender drones, the sound of a small-town summer afternoon, gentle traffic and indistinct voices and that sense of quiet sadness that comes with passing time. Perhaps the darkest song on the album, ‘hearing’ sounds like a 3am answerphone message from a long-dead loved one, a voice garbles indecipherable words, pixelated beyond comprehension, conjuring a mix of creeping dread and breathless hope as you reach out across the snowy static in the vain hope of being reunited.

It’s logical then ‘tree 103’ sounds like the morning after, where things have already turned improbable and surreal in the warm daylight, the neighbourhood’s birds chirping to assure you the world is as it was, things seeming sad rather than strange. The album then closes with ‘alxs’, its high-pitched keys fading away into silence.

naps makes DIY ambient music the way the Impressionists made paintings. These little songs, no matter how fleeting and indistinct, invoke emotions that are impossible with traditional guitar and vocals set-ups. Several play-throughs may be required for the desired effect, but when it does take hold you can be sure that you’ll feel a little lighter, a little wiser, a little better.

You can get Bask now on cassette via Lily Tapes & Discs, or digitally via the naps Bandcamp page.

The post naps – Bask 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.

And the usual disclaimer applies, there were too many great tunes to include them all, so treat this more as a selection rather than a comprehensive round-up of the year. Enjoy.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson – Constellation

“You’re used to quiet words
and so am I
so I’ll just whisper“

Tiny Ruins – Dream Wave

“always a dream wave drawing you off track
dream wave, a coast calls you back“

Magana – Get it Right

“You were red but my gold turned you green
So you stood there lying through your teeth“

deer scout – holy ghost

“I could find a new kind of devotion
I could know you by another name“

Hovvdy – Meg

“Speak because i know you feel a certain way
but ill pass it along anyway“

Bedbug – Leaving Town, Moving to a National Park <3

“I’m too young for that anyways
everyone’s just tryna skip town these days“

Soccer Mommy – Skinned Knees

“i left
burning streets in tennessee
for a north east feel“

Mitski – Your Best American Girl

“Your mother wouldn’t approve of how my mother raised me
But I do, I finally do“

LVL UP – Hidden Driver

“God is peeking
softly speaking
fucking everything
until I slowly do see“

Lisa Prank – Starting Again

“You say you’re not still drinking
you just started again
I swear I don’t still miss you
I just started again“

Dicktations – Dicktations Forever

“It’s hard to say when I first figured out something was wrong“

Joyride! – Running on Empty

“Young and running on empty
you said that you thought I looked pretty with my makeup on
so I went home and I took it off“

Sioux Falls (now Stranger Ranger) – Dom

“Spending too much time on the internet
are you ok? you don’t seem very into it“

Camp Cope – Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams

“It’s the trophy wives raising trophy wives raising children on TV
Scared of people like you and me
Just don’t ask questions you’ll sleep peacefully
We will not go out in silence and we will not go quietly“

Fake Boyfriend – BUMTOWN

“Why do I cling to the threads that mean the least?“

Outer Spaces – I Saw You

“I saw you, a shedding snake“

American Enthusiasm – Holy Wow

“Make a note of all the words I cough out on my death bed“

The Hotelier – Soft Animal

“Fawn, doe, light snow
Spots on brown of white 
make me believe that there’s a God sometimes“

Beach Slang – Future Mixtape for the Art Kids

“We’re not lost, we are dying in style
We’re not fucked, we are fucking alive“

CHUCK – Death

“You hold on to whatever kin
that keeps on breathin’ in
that keeps you from driftin’
like paper in the wind“

You Won’t – Ya Ya Ya

“So your daddy was a poltergeist
sent your little sister screaming down the hallway
well I don’t know about the afterlife,
but I can help you to forget about the old days“

Mountain Almanac – Kids Playing Outside

“Saturday morning, cartoon time, let’s go“

Basement Revolver – Johnny

“Please just stay away from Johnny
cos I love him understand“

Boy Scouts – Did You See My Cry

“walking walmart shopping center
i’d never been better
on my own two feet
i guess“

Free Cake For Every Creature – First Summer in a City

“i’ll be singing when i’m 90
climb a tree to see
what tastes to smokey sweet
first summer in a city“

Haley Heynderickx – First I’m Sorry

“Mother knows I drown in my lies
Father knows I learned my lesson the second time.
Ask me where I’ll go I’ll say do not know
No, I do not know“

ARMS – Missing

“I don’t want to force your hand
but wishes disguised as plans will never do
Like the king of deathbed regrets
and the queen of last requests could ever choose“

Naps – Bad Vibrations

“Can’t stand up to the world’s expectations
I’m living on a bad bad vibration“

The Washboard Abs – Day Draws Nearer

“Your backyard
you talked to God
about the heartbreak you forgot“

Trace Mountains – Forgiveness

“old dirt you thrown underneath the stair
is right there
right where you said i’d tremble and stare
at the vast unforgiving spirit lurking there
but it takes time, to realise forgiveness“

Nassau – Desert Blues

“I took a marker and wrote your number on the bathroom stall
That’s just my way of reaching out cos I’m too proud to call“

Adeline Hotel – Near You

“Sleep better tonight
In the heat of red moon light
Whatever we are, whatever we’ll be
I used to live near you, you used to love near me“

Simon Balto – Foothills

“I’ve never been a faithful man
I’ve always been too proud to pray
But won’t you come out to the foothills
And hold me together for one more day“

Cloud Cult – No Hell

“There’s no use in running unless you run like heck
The best things we’ve learned we learned from the wreck
Jesus coming back as a woman this time
Handing out hugs in the clinic line
Someone tell the devil we don’t need no hell
We’re all pretty good at beating up ourselves“

Slingshot Dakota – Break

“And in the end there’s two of us
it was always two of us“

Good Good Blood – No Sadness/Furrowed Brow

“We’ll have no sadness/furrowed brow
There is no shame in dying now
I said from my death bed“

Ben Seretan – Bowl of Plums

“My friends call me when they’re feeling low
We talk quietly for hours and walk the room
Flowers growing in a coffee can
Our lives are wonderful and sad sometimes“

Chris Bathgate – Big Ghost

“I got a Big Ghost
of static in my throat
from coming up too short“

Wintersleep – Metropolis

“The man that you are, the man you were, the man you left
Turn into stars, flowing in through the wilderness“

Mothers – Lockjaw

“I don’t want your kind words
I want your ghost inside a thimble“

Car Seat Headrest – Drunk Driver / Killer Whales

“You build yourself up against others’ feelings
And it left you feeling empty as a car coasting downhill
I have become such a negative person
It was all just an act
It was all so easily stripped away“

Space Mountain – Never Lonely

“Met a friend today
And im feeling okay
She’s in my head
I’m never lonely“

Hallelujah the Hills – What Do the People Want?

“What do the people want?
The people don’t know what they want“

Mount Moriah – Calvander

“Carry on and on and on on
With your cosmic reach
Newport river whispered fate
Spells cast with every crashing wave
Neon lines and a new name“

Frederick Squire – Bike Thief

“The lights are on
And we are sinking way down in our chairs
We don’t say much of anything
Even though there’s still a lot to say“

Kevin Morby – We’ve Been Here Before

“Running my mouth off at the storm
Yelling, “man, what the hell did you do that for?“

Sam Moss – Vertebrae

“Did you watch my vertebrae
Slendering out
Or did you watch your own?
Stretching skin over the bone
I’ve grown
Learning to be proud“

Arlo Aldo – House & Home

“O’er the mountains out past the trees
where the grasslands, meet the sky
you’ll find me singin’ my songs
with my lover in my mind“

Will Johnson – Nervousness Fangs

“Jesus what a mess
what they’re all selling
and what’s being sold“

Jeremy Squires – After All

“There’s an old painting of Jesus on a wall
and a tapestry that hangs by a cross
that weighs heavy on my shoulders now and then
I get caught up with why the things we love ain’t never last“

The Dead Tongues – Stained Glass Eyes

“Fifth wind brought a howl got me in a storm
I saw a lighthouse spinning at the edge of the world
like looking through a window to the day
I was born“

Kyle Morton – Automatic

“It’s my head, it’s my head
breaking itself to make a thought but instead
Just some pornographic images to stave off my death
It’s all automatic“

Keaton Henson – Alright

“Obviously
My wounds are open to see
But don’t take them seriously
I’ll be fine“

Talons’ – Work Stories

“Is this what the end of the world looks like?
Or is this just life?“

Jordan O’Jordan – A Lonely Road

“There are truths we may or may never know friend
and that is the point“

Mal Devisa – Sea of Limbs

“Honey-lover
keeper of the bees
Soft-spoken
seldom-seen“

Young Jesus – Hinges

“I’m pretty sure I’m a kind of collection of things
scattered throughout the backyard
under the moon
pulling weirdo slow dance moves
maybe always losing it a little
i am ashamed to believe in myself!“

Lung Cycles – For a While

“I feel like sharing
so I’ll press record
and I’ll tell you that I had a vision“

Sister Grotto – UNCANNY

“When we go, we go alone“

John K. Samson – Virtute At Rest

“You should know I am with you, know I forgive you
Know I am proud of the steps that you’ve made
Know it will never be easy or simple
Know I will dig in my claws when you stray“

If you missed it, you can see the list of our favourite albums of 2016 here, and stay tuned for our collection of the best name-your-price releases on Bandcamp next week.

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

Tracklisting:

1. Hold That Thought – Joyride!
2. Betsy’s Back – Bloody Death Skull
3. Cold Spell – Lunar Quiet
4. Go To Sleep – Skinny Blonde
5. Limbaud – American Enthusiasm
6. Saurkraut – Your Dog
7. Ache – Dæva
8. Bound By Blood – Hollow Twin
9. Florida’s Warm – Day Joy
10. The Dark Side of the Holy Ghost – Young Elk
11. The Park Behind Walmart  – Boy Scouts
12. Fear & Force – Vagabon
13. Stanton Park – Luke De-Sciscio
14. uuu – Field Medic
15. Meeting Points at 2AM – dné
16. The Rain Thief – Honey Stretton
17. The Stranger – Tyler Butler
18. Nervousness Fangs – Will Johnson
19. Constellation – Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
20. The Dark Streets of Newark – Monarch Mtn
21. Violet – Roddy Hart & the Lonesome Fire
22. Work – naps
23. Passage of Old – Seabuckthorn
24. We’re Stuck With The Beauty – Winter Villains
25. Why They Call You Blue – Jordan Buchell

The post November 2016 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The music of naps defies direct description – there are no lyrics to decipher, no traditional play between guitar and bass and drums. Instead you’re presented with ambiguities, textures and tones and slow creeping sensations that rise from the tape hiss and static. Take for instance opener ‘benjamin’, which plays out as a muffled hum interspersed with distorted crunchy sounds, like someone shovelling snow beneath your window at 5am. ‘work’ has a similar vibe, pairing plinking keys with a field recording of everyday life and a crackled interference.

‘i’m out’ somnambulates through it’s four minute run-time, before the slow winding sadness of ‘sick’, which sounds like the aural equivalent of an unfolding blue-grey dawn. ‘leave’ lays a sombre drone over nervous, flickering sounds, as if the producer is unable to sit still, while ‘all day’ is thick with an electronic fuzz. Closing track ‘tried’ has a quiet grandeur, like the first creeping daylight on the deserted streets of a chilly city dawn.

You can get checking out early on cassette tape from Patient Sounds, or as a download from the naps Bandcamp page.

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