The week saw the second such collaboration, this time with Philadelphia blog sensation Swell Tone. Curated by Shana Hartzel, Summer of Sad is a ten-song release featuring a range of styles and genres linked by the common themes of being 1) summery, 2) sad, 3) great. Or, as Shana puts it:

“Summer of Sad is about the quiet moments of the hottest season. It’s the warm breeze on a moonlit night and the mellow release of melancholia as you float down the river on an inner-tube in the hot, hot sun. A collaboration between Philly music blog Swell Tone and Slovakian tape label Z Tapes, the compilation combines 10 songs from female artists and female-fronted bands to create a dual atmosphere of summer’s brightness and the depths of longing. As if time were being kept by the creak of an old, back porch swing, the songs sway with an effortless sincerity.”

‘Icebergs’ by Bevelers opens, playing like some mountain hymn for the twenty-first century, while ‘Bad Way’ by Pop & Obachan is a slow, dreamy rock jam that seems caught between light and dark. “You arrived a surprise in the strangest way,” sings Emma Tringali, “what started as hate ended as a beautiful thing”. Lomelda’s glitchy folk rock follows, ‘Ya w/Me?’ insular and downbeat yet also somehow warm in its incredibly human heartbreak:

“So you don’t wanna be a family
You told me
Sitting at the table that my grandparents left for me
I just poured you another glass
Did ya notice
The silence that passed is all that lasts?
Where did ya go?”

Summer Flake’s ‘Shoot and Score’ is a slightly off-kilter rock tune, the vocals sliding over the music in monotone sheets, always threatening to deepen into something more dark or dangerous but never quite following through. ‘bat’ by CBMC’s ÓOR is a submerged bedroom number, the instrumentation rippling like the surface of a pond, while Queen of Jeans’ cover of Roy Orbison’s ‘In Dreams’ is seized by a timeless, romantic melancholy, the dramatic drums and crooned vocals conjuring that perfect tortured state unique to country singers and Hollywood actors.

The second cover, Candace’s rendition of Buffalo Springfield’s ‘Way Home’, is similarly arresting, snaking between fond sadness in the verses and the carefree forgiveness (or at least forget) in the chorus. Mia Loucks follows this with ‘summer’, a song both muffled and bright, as though sung the bottom of a swimming pool, lit electric blue during a sweaty August night. Sarah M.’s ‘t-shirt’ worms its way gradually out from beneath heavy bass, the energy rising across its run-time, before Deer Scout closes the release with ‘Haus’. Half-paced and soft, this is a song for those late summer nights where autumn comes knocking, darkness arriving a little too early, cool damp creeping into the fabric of things. Luckily, Dena Miller’s vocals are the perfect antidote, weaving a blanket in which to wrap yourself, through the night and winter both.

Working as a stellar release in its own right, as well as an introduction to ten acts that will soon be amongst your favourites, Summer of Sad is pretty much the perfect compilation, and a great example of the special things that can happen when enthusiastic people team up and combine their energies.

Summer of Sad is out now and you can get it now from the Z Tapes Bandcamp page, including a rather lovely cassette edition. All digital sales will be donated to Slovakian charity, Esther, who help people live again after domestic abuse.

Cover art drawn by Victoria Engle, colored Caitlin McCann

The post Summer of Sad – Swell Tone & Z Tapes appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. Red Coat – Adeline Hotel (Interview)
   2. S.O.B. – Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
   3. Daughter of the Sea – House of Wolves (Interview)
   4. Monarchy – Table People
   5. Ruin – Doomking
   6. Lonely Boy – Titus Andronicus
   7. New York Hardcore – talons’
   8. Roar of Nothingness – Sun Organ
   9. Slow Dark Water – Furnsss
   10. You Are Arrived (But You’ve Been Cheated) – The Spirit of the Beehive
   11. It Was Gone – Orchid Mantis
   12. Big Sis – SALES
   13. No Comprende – Low
   14. The Washing Machine – SPORTS
   15. Shark? – Shark? (Everything Is Teeth by Evie Wyld and Joe Sumner)
   16. Christmas in Milwaukee – Advance Base
   17. Only Friend – Valley Maker
   18. My Track ’92 – Pet Cemetery
   19. Dusk; Falling Asleep, Know That You Are Loved – Sabbatical Wilderness
   20. Theremin Demonstration – Leon Theremin (Us Conductors by Sean Michaels)
   21. The Lemon’s Cousin – Boy Scouts
   22. Audrey Horne – Teen Love
   23. Mia – Spencer Radcliffe
   24. Return To The Moon – EL VY
   25. Bug – Alex G
   26. Wild Hearts – Kodiak Deathbeds
   27. Waves – Abby Gundersen
   28. UR = UO – No Touching
   29. Sparrow & Stone – Eva Foote
   30. What Can Be Taken – ÒOR

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

Opener ‘peach to a peach’ talks about meeting James Oglethorpe, who Wikipedia reliably informs me was a British MP and founder of the colony of Georgia, and who Heck reliably informs me is probably a “fucking dork”. Then we get ‘waves’, a simple acoustic song about long hot summers and ‘Mikey’, which is all lazy little needly guitars. ‘For luck’ is a song about moving on from something or someone (“I know you’re right but I can’t forget her”), complete with echoey vocal effects reminiscent of Snow Mantled Love. ‘song for ari’ is a sweet song about watching a little relative grow up, “when my baby falls, she gets right back up / sun brings out her freckles, i stick ’em in my cup / doesn’t shed a tear when she falls, whispers ‘i love you too’ over phone calls”. ‘everyone I love’, which sounds like indie rock slowed to folk pace, with acoustic guitar and bursts of slapped drums and some really nice lyrics:

“i don’t believe in god but i still pray when i’m afraid
feels like i’m using him, or using faith, or something
anyway, i don’t write poems but i wrote one in my sleep and it goes,
‘everyone i love in walking distance from my home’
that’s what i pray for when i start to feel all alone”

‘Feels nice (a little more than alright)’ is a perfect bedroom love song, with very sweet lyrics (“go outside and look up at the sky, it looks right but I can’t see the stars at night so I think of the light in your eyes”), which then segues into a song about piling up cans (more on which in a little while). ‘what can be taken’ has slow and lolling electric guitars and vocals which appear and cut abruptly, giving the track a slightly surreal, fractured feeling. The lyrics address the postmodern paradox of love, the fear and pain of never having versus the fear and pain of losing, and eventually settles on the compromise of loving the people you do as much as you can for as long as possible:

“you can’t enjoy it, you’re always scared of losing it
what can be taken, the good that we clutch all more tight,
what can be taken
is always the good, warmer nights by your side
i’ll keep my love on my breath till i die”

‘The sit down, stay down’ reads like manic flowing poetry of the anxious (“every thought is a yearning when i sit down, i can’t stay / i get mad when i calm down, need a habit every day”), while ‘pile cans up to pass time’ is mostly gently picked guitars, and simple lyrics. The song has a cyclical nature, guitar line and lyrics circling around and repeating, perhaps as a symbol of things being stuck at a certain point, doomed to repeat until something dramatic breaks the pattern. The album then ends on the short and surreal ‘secret’, which has a wobbly, almost creepy sci-fi vibe and fuzzy vocals repeating the line, “we’ve got a secret they’re never gonna find out”.

Softer and dreamier than previous CBMC stuff, the album is  perfect to drift away in and allow the lyrics to take your mind places and feel things. ÒOR is out now on the CBMC bandcamp page.

The post ÒOR – s/t appeared first on Various Small Flames.