You describe Black Dog as “a record mostly about people.” I was wondering if you could expand on that a little? Are these stories about you and people you know, or are these fictional people that you use as vehicles to convey a message?

They’re mostly very real for sure. Majority of the songs are either autobiographical, or about those closest to me. ‘Pheasant Country’ is a collection of stories from my partner Georgia’s childhood (I spent time in the South of England with Georgia and her grandmother Bridget a few years ago), while ‘Game Show’ is about a strange dream I had, and Fast n Free is a song for my friends who are songwriters and artists – all about falling out of love with the craft and feeling devalued in changing musical landscapes.

The only song that would be more fictional would be ‘Stubborn Fool’. The characters in that song aren’t people I know, but they embody certain kinds of people who the song is directed at.

The image of the black dog is an important one, from the title to the lovely cover art. What does that image mean to you? Do you see it as something foreboding? Or is there another meaning?

I’ll start by saying the painting on the front and back cover was done by my extremely talented partner Georgia Spain. Georgia is an incredible figurative painter and musician (no bias here) and you should check out her work on insta @georgiaspainer

I think symbolically the Black Dog is dual. Embodying depression was the initial thought for me (having been in that place when I started writing the record), but then later loyalty and steadfastness were also really key. Mythologically the black dog or hound is often painted as foreboding, a ghost of death (or as in ‘Stubborn Fool’ hounds of Hecate), but in reality dogs are so loyal and love so strongly – they’re great sources of comfort and understanding for most of us. So it was kind of inevitable that the duality would arise, and I think naturally over time the record developed that arc, from wallowing in my depression and distrust to rediscovering love in the new places I went to and the beautiful people I met.

One of the things I got most from the record is the importance of place, both past and present, good and bad. It’s strongest (and most positive) on ‘Kind Living’. Is it a real place you describe in that song? Of, so where is it and why is it so important to you?

I think place is a really important part of our mental health and wellness, and we need different places at different times in our lives. I was living in a busy bustling inner suburb of Melbourne when my relationship fell apart and being around people and commotion all the time just wasn’t doing me any favours. Unintentionally and in quite a rush I moved to another suburb about 30 minutes further out of the city and the positive effect it had was overwhelming. It was still definitely Melbourne, houses and roads everywhere, but it was near lots of parkland and it was on a quiet residential street where you could hear the birds during the day. From there I just wanted more quiet and nature in my life and have now been living out of Melbourne in the country for just over two years, nestled in the bushland where it’s extremely quiet and peaceful. Don’t see myself leaving anytime soon.

There are several lines, particularly on ‘Stubborn Fool’, that seem to reference the current ecological disaster. I may be looking for something that isn’t there, but is that something you had in mind when writing the record? And how on earth does an artist begin to explore big world-altering themes like that?

Australia is currently going through one of its most appalling political periods. The atrocities our government is committing against refugees, the Aboriginal community (the rightful owners of this land), & the environment is just unbelievable. I definitely wrote stubborn fool about suppressive male figures, politicians and fathers alike, and the damage they cause through their inability to listen and unwillingness to change. We have so little time to do something to fix the environment, and their complete lack of interest, as well as the measures they’re taking to damage our eco-systems further, feels like the final nail in the coffin most days. It was that place of frustration the song came from. I was also thinking about Jeff Tweedy’s tune One Sunday Morning at the time, another song about overbearing fathers. I think big social and world issues are some of the hardest things to write about for sure. It can feel impossible to do them justice or to capture the ideas in one song. But I think songwriting and music is such an important part of inspiring change and some of the best songs to have ever been written were protest songs of some kind – think Archie Roach’s ‘It’s Not Too Late’, Alynda Lee Segarra’s ‘Everybody Knows’, and Dylan’s ‘Hurricane’.

You record under your own name, but many songs on Black Dog sound as complete and rich as any full-band. Who are the people who helped with its creation? And what’s the importance of this collaboration in the writing/recording process?

Very very special people. Engineer Alex Bennett runs the most incredible studio in country Victoria. It’s a fully analogue set up, recording and mixing to tape, housed in an old converted barn. Plenty of natural light and a wood burning stove. The magic of the live room and Alex’s ability to capture the truest sound really gave the record the warmth and honesty it needed. My very very dear friend Matthew Colin picked up the bass specifically to play on this record (as well as Georgia Spain’s) and he plays like no one else I know. The runs he does at the end of ‘Stubborn Fool’ make me smile every time, and his subtle playing on Fast n Free was so on point. Matt’s an incredible songwriter himself (look him up right now) and I think that gives him a very special ear as an accompanier. Another good friend Craig Mattingley came in for a day and laid down all the amazing piano and organ you hear on the record. Beautiful friend and soul Glendon Blazely is responsible for the gloriously lonely and bendy trumpet you hear on Pheasant’s Country, as well as playing the saw on ‘Black Dogs’. And Ben McAtamney stepped in last minute and was the perfect fit for the drums, starting out as a friend of friend and becoming a good friend over the 5 days we spent together. And of course I can’t forget Georgia, who was the inspiration for so many of the songs and who realised the vision I had for the cover so beautifully. The things you discover about yourself, and the malleability of music and songs, by working with other people is invaluable.

Last of all, could you name 3-4 artists that you’d like to share with our readers? They can be old or new, well-known or obscure, its completely up to you.

Georgia Spain – Trouble Isn’t Something You Can Hold – Georgia put out her new record in early May and I just think it’s so so incredible. I learnt the drums for it, Matt learnt the bass – that’s how badly we needed to be part of this!!! Her voice, her lyrics, her songs, she’s just unlike anything else. The songs deal with the death of her sister and how the current state of the world mirrors her grief and growing up and changing with all this going on. Get ready to have a cry.

Lambchop – I’ve been listening to a lot of Lamchop (AKA Kurt Wagner) lately. I think ‘Is a Woman’ is slowly becoming one of my favourite records of all time, and I’ve been delving deeply into ‘Flotus’ as well.

Lonnie Holley – Such an incredible artist and life story. He put out his new record MITH late last year, and it’s an absolute whirlwind of a record – sometimes a nightmare, sometimes a soft dream. A total fusion of everything. We were lucky enough to catch a performance recently in a small bar in Melbourne and it was hands down one of the most incredible gigs I’ve seen. His philosophy and the way he translates it into art is so important in America’s current climate, as well as the world at large.

Grouper – Speaking of incredible gigs, I was also lucky enough to catch Grouper (Liz Harris) performing at the Melbourne Recital Centre recently. The lights were dimmed so so low, you had to squint to see her on stage – sitting with her tape decks and loopers, one guitar & one piano. There was no applause, except at the end, and the songs blended seamlessly into each-other. Never seen a gig that left me feeling so meditative. People were drifting off into sleep all over the hall, but I think that’s what she had intended. Recommended listening – ‘The Man Who Died in His Boat’.

Black Dog is out now and you can get it from the Oscar Lush Bandcamp page.

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Ruth Garbus – Strash
Mauno – Vampire
Outer Spaces – Gazing Globe
Benjamin Shaw – Long Ago and Oh So Far Away
Erin Durant – Islands
Daughter of Swords – Dawnbreaker
Melissa Mary Ahern – Maria, Maria
Oscar Lush – Kind Living
Midwife – Angel
Young Elk – False Paradise
Wilder Maker – Love So Well
Big Joanie – Way Out
Secrecies – Life We Live
Beat Radio – Everyone I Know, Just Holding On
American Poetry Club – pro pic?
So Totally – sike
halfsour – Paper Window
Joyer – Here
Marbling – Wisdom Teeth
High Sunn – Grateful
Slow Pulp – New Media
Molly Drag – Out Like a Light
Van Houten – Moon
Birdspotter – Riverbed
Tender Perennial – Delivered
JR Samuels – In Brend 2
Elly Swope – Habits
Derek Piotr – The Sign
Fighting Kites – Kita Senju
Nathalie Joachim – Papa Loko (Interlude: September 24, 1918)
Kali Malone – Sacrificial Code
Kate Tempest – Holy Elixir
Little Musket – Fever Blister
Gold Baby – 500/1
Tennis Club – Stay
Young Mammals – Lost in Lima
Abe Hollow – Paradise
bdrmm – Question Mark
Briston Maroney – Fool’s Gold

Check out our previous Monthly Roundup playlists, and be sure to read or Reviews and Previews throughout the month.

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

Black Dog is a record mostly about people. It’s about changing and whether we do or don’t recognise the way we’ve changed. There’s also a lot about accepting things we can’t change. A fair bit about death and loss, and some of the things we go looking for and never find.

‘Pheasant Country’ is a patient folk song that burns with quiet intensity, Glendon Blazely adding flourishes of trumpet to gild the otherwise stark landscape of acoustic guitar and Lush’s formidable baritone vocals. Lyrically it is the perfect introduction to the record, a string of strong images from a previous time, hunting dogs and flooded rivers and muddied carpets, stories that have inhabited a countryside house for as long as the people who live there.

‘Another Life’ has a similar atmosphere, slow guitar and wistful harmonica twining around the vocals, although it has its gaze focused on a much more recent past. It’s a leaving song, one full of road-borne introspection that reflects on the fact that houses are not necessarily homes, and how we’re obliged to keep searching until that changes. “Will I miss the old life? Won’t say I will,” Lush admits, “I never planted roots deep enough for any darker dirt to spill.”

But Oscar Lush can operate at more than one pace, injecting an alt-country energy when the feeling takes him. Maybe the album’s best example, the drums and guitar at the opening of ‘Stubborn Fool’ sound bright and golden as a new morning, although lyrically it is born of frustration. It’s a song for summer sun and open highways, a rare moment on the record when Lush steps out of the gloomy rooms of introspection and confronts things directly. The shadow Lush confronts is never mentioned by name, but there are clues that point towards ecological themes. “Stubborn fool – stubborn fool! Dark sea’s rising, ain’t got long,” he sings in the penultimate verse, “you’d stand and watch your daughters drown before admitting you were wrong.”

Not that anger or exasperation are default emotions on Black Dog. Wrapped up in an elegant country sway, ‘Kind Living’ sounds undeniably contented, bathed in honeyed evening light and suffused with that gladness and inner tranquillity that comes with finding a place where you seem to fit. In Lush’s case it’s escaping the city (where “we were living like prisoners up on the second floor”) to the freedom of the countryside, a place where “the grass ain’t greener but it’s wide and moves for miles.”

Living out here, I think it’s changed me.
I ain’t dreaming about dying all the time.
Listen for the creek flowing by my door,
and all through the night I hear the great bats soar

There are also songs about strange dreams (“had a game show dream,” goes ‘Game Show’, “Mumma won it all”), the value of art in contemporary society (‘Fast n Free’) and even trees (on the Richard Powers’s Overstory-esque ‘Port Jackson Cypress Pine’). Finale ‘Black Dogs’ ends with a stripped-back lament as dark and syrupy as a moonless night. It sounds like a moment of cutting clarity in the early hours, all the worry and hope and general noise of the usual waking hours tamped down into earnest reflection. The final message is one reminiscent of the late great Jason Molina, a soothing reiteration of the fact that the uncertainty you’re feeling is normal, that even though it’s not always visible, we’re all chasing these black dogs together.

Everybody drives through the dark blue night
with nowhere to go at all

Black Dog is out now and you can get it from the Oscar Lush Bandcamp page.

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But somehow, amidst the drugs and fighting and perversion, Pollock managed to create characters interesting beyond black curiosity, taking up the mantle of Southern greats such as William Gay and Flannery O’Connor in his ability to induce sympathy or at least complicate the antipathy his characters will garner. This style was developed (and potentially mastered) with Devil All The Time, his debut novel which cast the reader into world in which the membrane between reality and nightmare is leaky at best, with blood sacrifice and serial killer couples complicating an already bleak coming-of-age tale.

While Donald Ray Pollock’s latest novel, The Heavenly Table, takes us back to the 1917, it’s still rooted in the area of America he is making his own. The narrative is snappy and unsettled, the short chapters jumping between various locations and points of view, slowly drawing inwards in an inescapable ring which corrals the characters into the inevitable finale at the town of Meade. We have Ellsworth Fiddler, a swindled farmer trying to save face, Jasper Cone, a painfully afflicted sanitation inspector, Lieutenant Bovard, a jilted husband turned homoerotic (would be) war hero, and finally the luckless Jewett brothers, Cane, Cob and Chimney, who grow tired of the poor life and turn to robbing banks as a path to salvation.

With the graphic violence, crude sex and odd scatological humour, this appears to be more or less Pollock’s odd twist on the standard Western fare. Where things get interesting is that the Jewetts are inspired by a cheap dime novel, The Life and Times of Bloody Bill Bucket. Every cliche can therefore be read as a secondhand gesture, the Jewetts wearing Bloody Bill’s persona like a tacky fancy dress costume, hoping some of his magic (ie. his fictional bravado, success, imperiousness to pain/failure/death) might rub off on them. Furthermore, as their ‘spree’ gains traction so does the media’s reaction, with stories of ‘Jewett’ crimes emanating from newspapers in other areas and states, despite the brothers never having been there.

So not only are the boys distorting fiction into reality, but their reality is distorting into fiction, leaving them having to live up to the magnificent/terrifying tales on both ends. And while it’s apparent the trio are not well-equipped for such pressures, they sure give it their (quite literal) best shot, working on the logic of faking it ’til you make it:

‘Leaning over the horn of his saddle, Chimney spat and then said, “Well, I don’t know who those ol’ boys are back there, but I don’t figure they can shoot any better than we can.”

“Maybe, but there must be fifteen of them in that pack.”

“So?” Chimney said. “That many don’t even amount to one box of shells.”‘

Here are some dust-strewn, blood-spattered songs to listen to as you read.

Tracklisting:

1) Devil Town – Bright Eyes
2) Blood Red Sentimental Blues – Cotton Jones
3) Bury Me in the Garden – Tyler Butler and his Handsome Friends
4) Tom Justice, The Choir Boy Robber, Apprehended at Ace Hardware in Libertyville, IL – Casiotone For The Painfully Alone
5) Murderous Joy – Carter Tanton
6) Christ Jesus – Deer Tick
7) You Should’ve Seen the Other Guy – Nathaniel Rateliff
8) Buriedfed – Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson
9) Fire & Fast Bullets – Blitzen Trapper
10) Brother’s Blood – Kevin Devine
11) I Dreamt of My Brother Dying – Oscar Lush
12) Drunk and On a Star – Kevin Morby
13) Weather of a Killing Kind – The Tallest Man on Earth
14) Whore – Low
15) Liars – Gregory Alan Isakov and the Colorado Symphony
16) Closer to Heaven – Pink Mountaintops
17) Killer – Samantha Crain

The Heavenly Table is out now via Harvill Secker and Doubleday. You can read about Donald Ray Pollock’s other works on the Knopf Doubleday website.

The post Lit Links: Donald Ray Pollock – The Heavenly Table appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. Fire – Mal Devisa
2. wild fire/flowers – Trust Fall
3. Home Alone – Max Gardener
4. Your Love – Jeremy Squires
5. Veins – Camp Howard
6. How To Dance – Mount Moriah
7. Good Evening – Adeem the Artist
8. Shallow – Candy
9. Francie Cool – Francie Cool
10. Bad Vibes – Zebrafi
11. Piece of Ivy – Jake Bellissimo
12. Snow Day – Julia Brown
13. Alive – Dear Tracks
14. Ted the Radical Westy – Ravetank
15. ft1 – naps
16. We Have The Perimeter Surrounded – Hallelujah the Hills
17. Bullet in a Broken Gun – Oscar Lush
18. Color Peels – The Wandering Lake
19. Nowhere Nothing – Oceanator
20. Suagr Skull – The Washboard Abs
21. Of Wandering – Littler
22. bicycle – Twelve Gardens
23. Ya Ya Ya – You Won’t
24. Find You – Family Video
25. Jack Campbell (Quick Jammer) – Dingus.
26. Candy – Fish Food
27. It May Very Well Do – 100 Watt Horse
28. Life – Whim
29. Meg – Hovvdy
30. Piano Player – The Hotelier
31. Calvary – Chris Bathgate
32. Postman – Sam Moss

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

“Lush positions himself on the outside looking in, avoiding any danger of appropriating suffering by making the song very much from his own POV. The result is a track disbelieving but not surprised, a modern tragic ballad shot through with senseless loss.”

The rest of the EP continues with the theme of tragedy, like updated versions of classic heartbroken folk songs. ‘How’d the Night Get So Low?’ is gentle and haunting, finger-picked guitar ticking over behind Lush’s vocals, the words echoing ever so slightly, as if sung from an empty room. The track is reminiscent of Jesse Marchant’s writing, an intense regret clawing from below. ‘O’The Fire’ has more of a folk rock vibe, the instrumentation driving the song along, although the track is one of pain and loss. Here a mother wakes to find her house ablaze, her children lost within the halls. “There was smoke in the hallway,” he sings. “Smoke on the stairs/And a great bright light, like no other pain/Was it god or the devil calling my name?” ‘Bullet in a Broken Gun’ loses the percussion in favour of a country-style strum along, complete with Lush’s familiar harmonica. The tale here unfolds from a dense tangle of lyrics, the classic existential cowboy song of working hard and dying young, the narrator channelling all his doubt to ask if there is anything more to life than hard labour and liquor.

“So they turn to drinking and hoping to die,
Hoping god forgives them when they finally arrive.
But there ain’t nothing forgiving bout living nine to five,
Don’t take a man who’s seen the world to know it is a lie.”

Closer ‘Miranda’s Birds’ is a beautiful song where the past is reduced to a series of nostalgic images and gesture, regret and loss and lingering love. The track is the perfect summation of Oscar Lush’s music – evocative and well-written and detailed beyond measure, timeless folk songs dated only by their strong root in the present, their hard gaze at the past.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind is out now on Hawk Moth Records and you can buy it from the Oscar Lush Bandcamp page, including CD and cassette options.

Artwork by Jane Lush

The post Oscar Lush – Out of Sight, Out of Mind appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. Amerika – Wintersleep
2. Born Confused – Porridge Radio
3. Catchyalater – Frog
4. Water – Opals
5. Listerine – Foxall
6. Nightmare Song – Oscar Lush
7. October Mirage – Island Eyes
8. Past is Personal – West America
9. Roller – Quilt
10. Unattached – Two White Cranes
11. On the Nights You Stay Home – Donovan Woods
12. Call Out – Minor Moon
13. Consolation – The Chairman Dances (Lit Links)
14. First I’m Sorry – Haley Heynderickx
15. Waitress – Soft Lions
16. Vanitas – Hanging Hills
17. Waiting – Faint Peter
18. Farewell Navigator – Naomi Pop
19. Gifts – Real Swell
20. Future Wife – Jacob Faurholt
21. Wall – Slows Down
22. Olly Oxen Free – Creature Speak

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

“The songwriting is very strong (it came as no surprise to discover he writes poetry in his spare time), each track spinning stories of love and loss and fear and isolation and all those other things that really good art tries to deal with”

Lush is back with ‘Nightmare Song’, the lead single from a forthcoming EP. The song was written following the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner last year, exploring violence by white men and officers of the law against people of colour both in the US and in Lush’s native Australia. “The song [also] explores my own country’s history with the mistreatment and death of Aboriginal peoples in police custody,” Lush explains, “particularly the death of John Pat. I’ve always felt strongly that music and art is something that can be used greatly to bring about awareness and from awareness hopefully we can achieve change and equality.”

Lush positions himself on the outside looking in, avoiding any danger of appropriating suffering by making the song very much from his own POV. The result is a track disbelieving but not surprised, a modern tragic ballad shot through with senseless loss. The crimes are described simply and without flourish so that nothing clouds the plain simple truth of matter. These men and boys were murdered by people in authority.

“How can you walk free
knowing what you did?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOgpJf9DK3A

Oscar Lush’s new EP, Out of Sight, Out of Mind, will be released on the 1st February on Hawk Moth Records (check out the artwork below). If you missed The World Is Round so I’ll Go Round when it came out, then grab a copy here.

Art by Jane Lush

The post Oscar Lush returns with new single ‘Nightmare Song’ appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Listen to the mix via the player below, and be sure to check out the other volumes which can be found here, and are available on our 8tracks page.

Tracklisting:

1. Midnight City (M83 Cover) – The Last Bison
2. Anthems For A Seveteen Year Old Girl (Broken Social Scene Cover) – Dancing Years
3. Goodbye Horses (Q Lazzarus Cover) – Hayden Thorpe & Jon Hopkins
4. Native American Summer (Beat Happening Cover) – Small Wonder
5. Semi-Charmed Life (Third Eye Blind Cover) – Frontier Ruckus
6. Passionate Kisses (Lucinda Williams Cover) – Shakey Graves
7. Do You Realize (The Flaming Lips Cover) – Fossil Collective
8. Crazy In Love (Beyonce Cover) – Melissa Laveaux
9. Car (Built To Spill Cover) – Emily Reo
10. Perfect Day (Lou Reed Cover) – Phosphorescent
11. Father & Daughter (Paul Simon Cover) – The River Has Many Voices
12. Blues Run the Game (Jackson C. Frank Cover) – Oscar Lush
13. In Spite of Ourselves (John Prine Cover) – Kyle Morton & Danielle Sullivan
14. Around and Around (John Denver Cover) – Mountain Man
15. I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry (Hank Williams Cover) – Fog Lake
16. The Way the Whole Thing Ends (Gillian Welch Cover) – Night Beds
17. I Am Not Waiting Anymore (Field Report Cover) – Blind Boys of Alabama
18. Will the Circle be Unbroken? (Traditional) – Emily Lacy
19. Oblivion (Grimes Cover) – Wilsen
20. Teenage Spaceship (Smog Cover) – How To Dress Well
21. Fare Thee Well (Dink’s Song) (Dave van Ronk Cover) – Oscar Isaac

The Covers Mix: Volume #10 from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

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Our January 2014 mix is a little light on numbers as during the first fortnight or so we were busy with our year-end lists and whatnot. But there are still thirteen great tracks for you to check out. As always, there’s a variety of genres so you should find something you like.

January Mix from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

The post January 2014 Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.