“Music large and loud and lively, the kind of great so-serious-its-not (or maybe so non-serious-its-serious) energy that should be filmed for a live concert VHS-special”

Not content to stop there, the intervening months have seen Pace looking for ways to further flesh out his sound. The answer to moving forward it seemed, involving digging through the past, gathering the multitude of loose ends that constitute his favourite hits and weaving them into one long and complicated rope. As Pace describes: “For this latest batch of tunes, I figured since I’m probably never performing live again, why not indulge my myriad musical tastes by jumping headfirst into hard-to-replicate mini-epics?”

Get Soft is the resulting EP, a release of four songs which “travel from sleek mid 80’s inspired ‘sophisti-pop’ to smooth jazz fusion to mid-tempo psych groove-fests to melancholy synthesized mediations and back.” If this sounds quite the journey then that’s because it is, packing the sort of energy unique to pre-millennium TV, where everything is loud and bright and bursting with positivity.

Opener ‘Audits & Surveys’ is the perfect example, kicking things off like some glorious new dawn of old feelings. With lead vocals by Alana Amram, the track plays like an early 90s corporate lifestyle, maintaining a flashy optimism that seems both genuine and not, as though beneath this world of surfaces lies a fear or dissatisfaction that triggers not some deep existential demise but rather a deeper love of the shiny top layer. So while the lyrics are packed with self-deprecation and regret, the music itself never slips from its jubilant tone, and, because Pace never leans more to one direction, the track feels like neither a sugary nostalgia-trip nor some ironic attack. Instead, and this could be said of the entire Child Actors output to date, it’s more a symbiosis between the two, a celebration that’s as interested in the fun banal stuff as it is with the more human centre.

“I cut corners like a real close shave
Business casual is my middle name
I may look like a fool but I’m really a knave
four out of five would agree”

The title track plays like the theme to the best sunny cop farce never written, Adam Swierczynski and Ian Evans setting the tempo with bass and drums before the delightfully big guitar finale. ‘Caravan the Coast’ sees Lira Yin offer dreamy backing vocals, the track a glad-to-be-alive ode to cross country travelling, and a pop number for optimists more generally. There’s more than a hint of melodrama behind the buoyancy (the enthusiasm for utopian escape must suggest there’s something to run away from, after all), though again Pace refuses to let the elated tone slip, the track building into a frenetic crescendo which serves as a figurative ride into the sunset, even if a literal one is some way off.

“Soon enough we’ll be somewhere warm just beyond the chill
Caught outside in a summer storm
Like you hope we would

Long time leaving – tougher than most
But I’d love to have you join me
Join me as we caravan the coast”

The electronic instrumental ‘Eleuthera’ closes the release with a slice of digital tropicana, perhaps the clearest sign of melancholy on the record. However, with its swelling synths providing a near-spiritual promise of sustenance, it’s unclear whether it’s that late-evening vacation sort of emotion that’s somehow linked to transcendence, or a deeper sadness triggered by the confrontation of yet another image. Maybe the seascape here is being beamed from the fogged-up window of a travel agency’s concrete office, the warmth on your face merely the promise of sun, or just radiation from the screen’s cathode glow.

Get Soft is out now and you can get it on a ‘name your price’ basis via the Mike Pace Bandcamp page.

Cover photography by Greg Andreacchi

The post Mike Pace & The Child Actors – Get Soft appeared first on Various Small Flames.

On a related note, things are gradually getting busier for us in other areas – Liam works full-time and I’ve gone back to school – so the old two posts a day routine might not be maintained too often any more. That said, in an effort to keep things ticking over, we’re going to introduce a new ‘Flash Review’ feature where we cover albums in less words than we would otherwise use. It’s not ideal but a short piece is better than no piece. There’ll still be a good smattering of the usual style too.

Tracklisting:

1. Birthstone (Reprise) – Pet Cemetery
   2. Vice – Roundheels
   3. Forever – Boosegumps
   4. So Long – Heavy Boots
   5. Long Walk To All Sorts of Place – Fanpage
   6. Feathers & Leaves – Ocean Floor
   7. Down Predator Souvenirs – Lejsovka & Freund
   8. Vacation – Florist
   9. 2. – Old Earth
   10. Never Good Enough – Eerie Summer
   11. EZ River – Wilder Maker
   12. Thumbs – Claire Cottrill
   13. If I Were A Portal – Evening Hymns
   14. Jenny Come Home – Andy Shauf
   15. Only Friend – Valley Maker
   16. The Flood – Mike Pace & the Child Actors
   17. Close Call (Adderall Anxiety) – Shaky Shrines
   18. Nancy Kerrigan – Frog
   19. Kaleidoscope – Arbes
   20. The Book of Love – ARMS

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

“Best Boy is for the children of the 80s and 90s, reminiscing about the age where entertainment exploded, where VHS tapes and cable TV transformed us into constant consumers… a wistful celebration of what we had [which] presents some convincing reasons for why we feel the way we do”

Pace is back with a double A-side single which may or may not have been recorded at The Rolling Stones Mobile Recording Unit with the help of “a murderers’ row of jazz ­fusion session talent” including Bill “Church” Wellington (keyboards), Du’vel DiGiorgio (bass), Coke Stevenson (trumpet), Tony Kukoc (soprano guitar) and Dan Van Dyke (drums), the non-fictitious Lira Yin (vocals) and producer Matt LeMay. The release sees Pace expand on the new direction hinted at on Best Boy, pushing toward a more expansive, poppy sound. As he explains:  

To paraphrase REO Speedwagon, badly, it was ‘time for me to [spread my wings and] fly, musically. I don’t really play live these days. I have a young family. I exclusively buy bargain bin progressive and AOR records. I recently got really into tennis. In other words, I like to push the boundaries, and I may as well use all of these things to help  inform and craft my new songs.

The release opens with ‘The Flood’, giving the first taste of the new boundary-pushing Child Actors. Opening with sparkling synths, the track develops into a jubilant pop song which finds glory in a seemingly miserable/dangerous life (the opening line, for example: “Here comes the drugs wash over me/their wake will take us out to sea”). Right up to the final triumphant horns and keyboards, the track does not let up in its elation, pushing a Hold Steady brand of transcendental joy/love, the sort which creeps through the cracks of a life filled with high stakes and morning afters.

“Here come the drums, rain over me stuttering start of the daylight dawning
fathers yell and mothers weep crawl on our knees soon enough we’re walking shed a tear at ‘Hey Nineteen’ another love crashed in-between

Open the floodgates, cut us loose then we’ll catch our stride
Close your eyes and stay by my side the realest thing that you can do tonight”

Second single ‘Red Sauce Revisited’ combines the various ingredients of radio hits from through the ages, opening with 60s surf strums and touching upon 70s rock solos, 80s power pop cheese and 90s melodrama to become a four and a half minute singalong homage to the good old FM stations of the US of A.

“Signs are on the ceiling, writing’s on the wall
There’s a terrifying feeling I won’t see you anymore
and I cannot stop the bleeding so I’ll learn to love the pain
I never thought that this is how it ends”

So basically, if you like your music large and loud and lively, the kind of great so-serious-its-not (or maybe so non-serious-its-serious) energy that should be filmed for a live concert VHS-special, look no further. Michael Pace has arrived, and he has company.

The Flood / Red Sauce Revisited is available for download on a pay-what-you-can basis via Bandcamp.

The post Première: Double A-side single from Mike Pace and the Child Actors appeared first on Various Small Flames.

January was a bit of a scrappy month in terms of regular posts, but we still managed to cover some excellent artists. Why not catch up with any you missed with this tailor-made mixtape? Click the artist names in the tracklist to be whisked off to the review.

Tracklist:

1. Jesus in the 70s – Siskiyou
2. 2 Broke 2 Old – Gorgeous Bully
3. Another Way To Go – Adeline Hotel
4. Scene Sick – Diet Cig
5. Dog Burial Theme – Dicktations
6. Up the Academy – Mike Pace and the Child Actors
7. Con/ A Sewer/A Cat – Amateur Love
8. The End is a Vicious Thing – Puzzlecuts
9. Manic Pixie Dream Girl – Furnsss
10. Party Girls – Gleemer
11. Soft Reputation – Unlikely Friends
12. Passing Through – Harley Alexander
13. Coward’s Luck – Hip Hatchet
14. Memphis – The Wandering Lake
15. How a Resurrection Really Feels – The Hold Steady
16. Fire in My Eyes – Yours Are The Only Ears
17. Traffic is Okay – Sitcom
18. Gold & Rose – Dear Sister

Also make sure you check out our mammoth collection of our Favourite ‘Free’ Music of 2014. Finally, if you enjoy long, rambling pieces that try and draw connections between my favourite music and my favourite books, check out this piece on The Hold Steady’s Separation Sunday (Craig Finn said he enjoyed it, so it carries his stamp of approval).

January 2015 Roundup from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

The post January 2015 Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.

So opens Best Boy, the debut album of Oxford Collapse frontman Mike Pace in the new guise of Mike Pace and the Child Actors. Well, with a bit of imagination. Maybe it’s just my overblown reaction to the news that a major part of Oxford Collapse is back and making music. One of the well-respected-but-only-moderately-successful bands that saw me through the mid to late 00s, Oxford Collapse represent a good time in my life, a rose-tinted period filled with new experiences and old comforts. Aptly, Pace’s album is concerned with these very things, exploring the promises the past made and how our future selves are still looking back at them. After the initial triumphant build-up, ‘Up the Academy’ sets out this idea of uncertainty and unfulfilled dreams, “And we hope and we pray like we did yesterday that everything’s gonna be fine”, and even more global views about the lack of the utopia that was expected. “Cracks increasing, Continental Divide… Moral compass clearly not aligned”.

If all this talk of unfulfilled dreams has you expecting a dour album then think again. Listen to ‘Summer Lawns’ and tell me that it’s anything other than joyous? Even with lines like “And we drive on highways past abandoned stores stocking things we always wanted but could not afford.“ Tracks like ‘Summer Lawns’ and ‘Cold Calling’ typify the generally straight-up and sincere attitude Pace employs, an all-so-American blend of joy, hope and disillusionment. ‘The King of Corona’ is a pop song in the best sense, a catchy chorus, slight melodrama, a sprinkling of 90s cheese, but it still manages to confront expectation, disappointment, loneliness etc. in an interesting and nuanced way. Similarly, ‘Kiss & Fly’ goes for the stadium electro-rock feel, channelling Springsteen and Simon, without losing sight of the important stuff: “’Someday soon we’ll be alright,’ he said with conviction while locked out from the inside.”

Best Boy is for the children of the 80s and 90s, reminiscing about the age where entertainment exploded, where VHS tapes and cable TV transformed us into constant consumers. Of course, as consumers we were sold promises, told we merely needed x, y and z to be happy and successful and pretty and popular. It’s kind of ironic that a time built on visions of the future is now seen as a utopia locked in the past. Pace gets at this feeling by writing feel-good songs tinged with longing, nothing too sad or serious (80s/90s kids don’t take ourselves too seriously), nor a Father John Misty-style ironic assault. Instead, Best Boy is a wistful celebration of what we had and presents some convincing reasons for why we feel the way we do.

The album is being released on the 13th January. Check out the official Mike Pace and the Child Actors site for more information. Stream the album over at Stereogum and watch the video for ‘Fire Sale’ below.

The post Mike Pace and the Child Actors – Best Boy appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The video below has a brief sample of every track off of the new album. The only downside is that they are all playing at the same time. So, unless you have some particularly tight-lipped political prisoners to interogate, or belong to the psy-ops division in some far away army, the video only serves to whet your appetite and give you some idea of Mike’s sense of humour.

If you want something a little more listener-friendly, check out the lead single from Best Boy below. ‘Summer Lawns’ is everything you could want from a project rising from the ashes of Oxford Collapse.

Best Boy is pencilled for release on the 13th January via The Self-Starter Foundation. We will be putting up a much more in-depth review in good time.

The post New Album From Mike Pace and the Child Actors appeared first on Various Small Flames.

This is good-time rock and roll with a weird edge, with frontman Ryan Walsh addressing the complications and absurdities of modern life in a way that is more often seen in modern lit. The album kicks off with a manic drum roll and dives head first into a manic indie rock track, ‘We Are What We Say We Are’, complete with rousing shout-along chorus.

The album doesn’t really waver from thereon, with a continued description of the incongruities in contemporary life, lyrics that are both funny and terrifying and very much now. While having the lyrics to hand would make writing this review a lot easier, the pleasure of Have You Ever… comes from repeated listens, each re-run unearthing a new lines or phrases.

“Just read me my rights in the cadence we agreed on” from ‘Try This Instead’, and: “I’m doing okay I guess, I’ll walk with a limp but I’ll do my best to hide it / I’ll show up to your party with bandages on, covering every part of my head but my eyes. You’ll see me don’t worry” from ‘Destroy This Poem’ are just a few that jumped out in my time with the record so far. ‘I Stand Corrected’ another smart, lean indie rock song (which I do have the lyrics to), opens with the lines:

“You’ve been selected to participate
In a survey about this call.
You can press 3 to get on with it
Or smash the phone into the wall.”

and goes on to the Salinger-esque:

“You can always press the star key to see if I’m around
But I probably won’t be around
Because the world tends to swallow us whole
and I’d rather risk oblivion
Then wait around to play some phony role.”

The track comes complete with a self-made video in which the band take you on a tour of Boston’s legendary (and completely fictitious) music landmarks. Check it out over at Youtube.

But if this social commentary stuff isn’t your thing, don’t let us put you off. These are still spirited rock songs that bring to mind some of my favourite bands – Titus Andronicus, Oxford Collapse, Wintersleep, The Walkmen, not to mention the impressive HtH back catalogue. Whether this triumphant tone is ironic or genuinely celebratory is up to you to decide. I’d say a bit of both. And I’d also ask whether it matters, this is easily my favourite rock and roll album of the year so far.

Have You Ever Done Something Evil? is out on the 13th of May on Discrete Pageantry Records. You can pre-order it via the Hallelujah the Hills Bandcamp page.

The post Halleujah The Hills – Have You Ever Done Something Evil? appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Bos Taurus is out now on Hit or Heist Records and can be bought here. Have a listen on Spotify and there are some other bits and pieces on Bandcamp.

The post WTD’s Advent Calendar – 4 – Fantasy Rainbow appeared first on Various Small Flames.

We’ve tried to include new stuff but there are a few favourites thrown in. If any song has appeared on one of our mixes before, apologies but it probably just fitted in nicely to our idea of chronology. Hopefully it’s sunny with you this weekend to enjoy this.

Part I // Day – Tracklisting:-

1. Time To Run – Lord Huron
2. Who Knew – You Won’t
3. Murderous Joy – Carter Tanton
4. My Nature – Kissed Her Little Sister
5. Blood Brother – The Daredevil Christopher Wright
6. Messing Up My Mind – Fletcher C. Johnson
7. Summer Lawns – The Child Actors
8. Midnight Psalms (Alright!) – LANTERNS.
9. Football Hero – Bonjour
10. Oregon – Junk Culture
11. Conor, Oh Burst? – Playlounge
12. Heatstroke – Brick + Mortar
13. SOLO (‘4’ CLAIRE) – Wise Blood
14. This Summer – Superchunk
15. Electric Fever – Free Energy
16. About To Walk – Throw Me The Statue
17. All Of Me – Tanlines
18. Kiola Beach – HOT SPA
19. Whale Song – Lemolo
20. Summer Music – Advance Base
21. Mane – Conveyor
22. Certain Songs – The Hold Steady
23. Nothing To Say – Paul Baribeau
24. Late July – Shakey Graves
25. Bones -The Act Of Estimating As Worthless

Summer Mix – Day from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

Enjoy the mix and if you like what you hear, be sure to head over to the artist’s website to buy some music, a t-shirt or two and maybe some gig tickets. It’s the right thing to do!

The post WTD’s Summer Mix: Part I – Day appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. From Stardust To Sentience (High Places cover) – Banjo or Freakout
2. So Prone (SLUTEVER cover) – Ghost/Light
3. I Will Always Love You (Dolly Parton cover) – Howth
4. Salvador Sanchez (Sun Kil Moon cover) – Little Silver
5. Brother (Annuals cover) – Manchester Orchestra
6. Darling (Magic Man cover) – And the Giraffe
7. When You Were Mine (Prince cover) – John Heart Jackie
8. I Wanna Be Adored (Stone Roses cover) – Coma Cinema
9. Crying (Roy Orbison cover) – Austra
10. Streets of Philadelphia (Bruce Springsteen cover) Casiotone For The Painfully Alone
11. Iron Man (Black Sabbath cover) – Four Tet
12. The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight (R.E.M. cover) – Oxford Collapse
13. My Proud Mountains (Townes van Zandt cover) – J. Tillman
14. Chelsea Hotel #2 (Leonard Cohen cover) – Sarah Jaffe
15. If I Handle You With Care (Trembling Blue Stars cover) – Evening Hymns
16. Left & Leaving (The Weakerthans cover) – Beat Radio
17. I Know What I Know (Paul Simon cover) – Graham Wright
18. Some Things Last A Long Time (Daniel Johnston cover) – The Twilight Sad
19. Unicorn (Gay Against You cover) – Dananananaykroyd
20. See U Again (Miley Cyrus cover) – The Mae Shi

Click on the band name in the tracklisting to be whizzed off to a specific page for each artist. Buy some music if you like what you hear. I didn’t bother with Dolly Parton, Springsteen etc. but if you need some pointers on where to find out more about them give us a shout.

Enjoy.

The Covers Mix: Volume #2 from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

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