Seen as a spiritual successor to Swell Tone’s Summer of Sad comp on Z Tapes, the release features takes on tracks by everyone from Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young to Björk, Mazzy Star and even Mr Rogers. Better yet, all proceeds are going to Homeward Bound Animal Rescue, which gives dogs a second chance at life. So when not support the release and relax in the knowledge that you are helping a good cause too?

The release is ostensibly one of love songs, but such a description belies the depth and ambiguity of emotions on offer. Opening the album, Basement Revolver gloss a layer of melancholy sweetness over Springsteen’s ‘I’m On Fire’, subtle percussion and winding guitar allowing Chrisy Hurn’s vocals to come to the fore. Changing tack completely, Anna McClellan takes on ‘Dear Someone’ by Gillian Welch, transforming the original into a romantic piano song that sounds haunted by a sense of long-lost nostalgia, as if it’s floating across a quiet room from a war-time gramophone.

This diversity continues across the rest of the compilation. Yes these are all love songs, but stylistically no two sound quite alike. From Lucy Stone’s heartfelt guitar ballad (a contemporary update of Bonnie Raitt’s ‘I Can’t Make You Love Me’) to the gentle droning pulse and ghostly vocals of Ora Cogan’s Björk cover, the album twists and turns through styles and emotions, from naked declarations to heart-broken longing to that lingering wistful feeling that’s woven into the fabric of things. There’s no sugary Hollywood sentiment here, rather love in its true, maddening form, so closely related to pain and sadness as to make the distinction obsolete.

The mood is perhaps best captured in Rosie Tucker‘s singular take on Connie Converse’s ‘How Sad, How Lovely’, a track which manages to hold tender beauty and creeping loss in the same hand. “How sad, how lovely,” go Converse’s lyrics. “How short, how sweet / to see the sunset / at the end of a street.” To take notice of the small wonders of the world is to notice their slow dissolution, but to take no notice at all is to already have died.

Sixteen Jackies lift the mood with a bouncy rendition of Pete Townsend’s ‘Let My Love Open The Door’, before Honey Moon arrived with their sultry take on ‘Lovefool’ by The Cardigans. Both tracks come with a technicolour finish, their sounds so lush and textured that you can wrap yourself within them, which juxtaposes well with Porridge Radio‘s stripped back version of Neil Young’s ‘Only Love Can Take Your Heart’. However, despite the track’s stark simplicity, the earnest tone and authentic delivery forms an enveloping texture of its own, radiating warmth and a kind of nostalgic grace.

The collection ends with a a hushed and intimate cover of Mr Rogers song ‘It’s You I Like’ by Ings, Inge Chiles delivering Rogers’s trademark earnestness and sentimentality in a near-whisper. The gently plucked guitar keeps its voice down too, leading to a finale as quiet and peaceful as it is suffused with feeling.

Summer of Love is out now digitally and on cassette, and you can get it from Bandcamp.

The post Summer of Love: A Compilation appeared first on Various Small Flames.

This spring, the band put out two standalone singles with Memorials of Distinction that hinted at this newly vibrant sound. The first Porridge Radio songs to be recorded in a studio, the songs feel like both the end product of a band that have put in the hard yards, cutting their teeth with live shows, and the first steps into a new era where Margolin and co. are more fully-equipped to realise their artistic visions.

“The song displays a newfound clarity,” we wrote of ‘Give / Take‘, “the weirdo lo-fi bedroom pop vibes replaced with sharp and confident melodic pop.” But most importantly, the switch sees not a hint of betrayal of their DNA. “Best of all,” we continued, “this evolution is managed without sacrificing any of the emotional intensity that made Porridge Radio so great in the first place,” opening up an avenue of possibilities and representing a watershed moment in the band’s life.

Today the band release a video for ‘Give Take’, directed by Dream Wife’s Bella Podpadec, which probes further into the strange and tactile world of Porridge Radio, a dissociated cool juxtaposed with bright colours and absurd imagery. Despite a playfulness that veers between a decidedly 90s goth teen angst and even more 90s kids TV show bustle, mortality lurks behind every frame, as well as a bodily squash of flesh and fluid. “The video,” Popadec explains, “is a juicy exploration of messy polyamory, messy fruit, sex, death and that your pals and music are just as important as any of that shit.”

Indeed, the video helped to further develop exactly what the song means, even to Margolin herself. “We had a lot of fun with it, but we also had some big honest conversations about what the song was about,” she says, “and I think that openness translated into something really exciting and quite raw, and I love how it turned out.”

‘Give / Take’ is out now via Memorials of Distinction, as is the other stand alone single, ‘Don’t Ask Me Twice’, and you can buy them both from Bandcamp.

Photos by Christopher Fenner

The post Porridge Radio unveil new video for Give / Take appeared first on Various Small Flames.

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.

But that’s not to say Porridge Radio, now a four-piece lead by founder Dana Margolin, have been laying low. Instead they’ve played lots of shows, and gained a reputation for live performance both locally (in Brighton and London) and beyond. New single ‘Give / Take’ is therefore a landmark for Porridge Radio. Not just because it breaks a 2+ year drought, but because it’s the first recorded in a studio.

And it really shows. The song displays a newfound clarity, the weirdo lo-fi bedroom pop vibes replaced with sharp and confident melodic pop. Best of all, this evolution is managed without sacrificing any of the emotional intensity that made Porridge Radio so great in the first place.

Margolin describes ‘Give / Take’ as a track “about desire and confusion and being a robot with constantly changing emotions,” and “also about learning how to know what you need, how to ask for it, how to take it,” a fact confirmed as she sings the lines:

And how do I say no?
And you do as you’re told
And how do I say no?
And I say what I need

It’s a very exciting step forward for Porridge Radio, and it leaves us eager to see where they go next.

‘Give / Take’ is out now via Memorials of Distinction and you can get it via Bandcamp.

The post Porridge Radio – Give / Take 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.

Peach Club – The Bitch Diaries
(RIYL: punk, rock, lo-fi)

Pet Cemtery & Henoheno & Brittle Brian & Francie Cool – Split
(RIYL: bedroom pop, sad music, lo-fi)

Porridge Radio – Rice, Pasta and Other Fillers
(RIYL: lo-fi, bedroom pop, carbohydrates)

Post-Trash – Volume Two
(RIYL: compilations, bedroom pop, indie rock)

Psychic Shakes – Psychic EP
(RIYL: lo-fi pop, chilled out vibes, down-tempo beats)

Ratbath – Dead Skin Cells
(RIYL: bedroom pop, folk, sad)

Ravetank – Wasting Your Life From 9-5
(RIYL: alternative, pop, lo-fi)

Real Swell – everything else is terrible!
(RIYL: lo-fi, experimental, lo-fi pop)

Rhucle – Rustic Lullaby
(RIYL: ambient, mindfulness, field recordings)

Ryan Tanner – Promised Land
(RIYL: folk, Americana, country)

Ryder Eaton – Peach Pit
(RIYL: folk, lo-fi, experimental)

Saint Clementine – If We Are Falling / I Wish I Knew What You Did Last Summer
(RIYL: indie rock, lo-fi, pop punk)

The Saxophones – If You’re on the Water
(RIYL: ambient folk, dream pop, alternative)

Sea Offs – Sea the Blind
(RIYL: ambient, folk, dream pop)

See You At Home – The Future’s Here and It’s Terrible
(RIYL: indie, emo, dream pop)

Shalash (or, ШАΛАШ) – X
(RIYL: ambient, drone, compilations)

Skittish Arm – The Dog EP
(RIYL: ambient, drone, experimental)

Soccer Mommy – For Young Hearts
(RIYL: bedroom pop, lo-fi, indie)

Svelte – svelte EP
(RIYL: post-rock, noise, shoegaze)

Swell Tone & Z Tapes – Summer of Sad
(RIYL: bedroom pop, sad songs, compilations)

Be sure to check out the previous sections of our favourite free music list here.

The post Favourite Free Music of 2016: P – S appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1) Lost (Season One) – Camp Cope
2) Johnny – Basement Revolver
3) Can U Hear Me Now? – Porridge Radio
4) All 4s – ARMS
5) If You’re on the Water – The Saxophones
6) In Ribbons – Psychic Shakes
7) a good pet – Real Swell
8) Breadcrumbs – The Perennials
9) Father is a Craftsman – Modern Studies
10) Aligning With the Sun – Dear Tracks
11) Cake Bath – Cloud Cover
12) Postdoc Blues – John K. Samson
13) Room For Love – Wooden Dinosaur
14) Crab Line – Trust Fund
15) 1 – Young Jesus
16) Life’s Rough – Serial Chiller
17) Never Lonely – Space Mountain
18) I Wish I Was Plural – Free Space
19) More Than Science – Sunshine Faces
20) Maya – Competition
21) Fireball – Albosel
22) It Hurts- A Day Without Love
23) That Went Well- Guppy
24) Kids Playing Outside – Almanac Mountain
25) Patience To Undo the Patience – Psalmships

You can check out the previous monthly roundups here, and our various other playlists and mixtapes here. Be sure to pop back throughout September and beyond to see what autumn brings!

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

Galloping drums herald the entrance of ‘Danish Pastry Lyrics’, a song that updates the morning routine of Blur’s Parklife for 2016, all twitchy self-loathing and existential woes:

“the first thing I can do
when I wake up in the morning on any given day is say hello
I am alive
but I do not do this
I stumble out of bed confused and upset
that the world exists
and so do I”

‘Lemonade’ has a sassy drumbeat and cooing vocals, a track that, at least at first glance, sounds more lo-fi pop than punk and probably the sunniest two and a half minutes on the album. ‘Barks Like a Dog’ opens in near silence, the almost a capella vocals creeping from the gloom, eventually climbing out and becoming increasingly frantic, with twanged guitar and crescendos of percussion and harmonic background vocals joining the desperate lead.

Then there’s a rumbling lo-fi take on Daniel Johnston’s ‘Walking the Cow’, Margolin’s disaffected vocals adding a hefty does of irony compared to Johnston’s signature childlike croon, and ‘Can U Hear Me Now?’, an epic seven-plus minutes of clattering catharsis, descending into the album’s heaviest moments as Margolin repeats the same lines over and over, by the end in little more than a howl.

“I am talking to you
I wish you were here
Can you hear me now?”

‘Sorry’ is a lo-fi pop song about finding yourself at the bottom of a hole (“There’s one hundred ways of dealing with this shit / but I think i’ve only got the energy to cry”), while ‘worms’ sounds a lot brighter, at least on the surface, and ‘And I Was Like’ is a messy and fun pop song about birthday girls in birthday worlds and cringing at your mother when she get her genre labels mixed up. Closer ‘Eurgh’ snakes into life, a soft love song which gradually builds into something less than romantic, the refrain of “don’t be a jerk” repeated a few times too many for the narrator as she tries to erect a barrier between herself and her would-be other

“Don’t touch me I’m afraid of feelings rushing back in
God knows you know how to make me feel like shit and
God knows I know how to make myself feel sick and
God knows how long it took me to get over it”

You can get Rice, Pasta and Other Fillers now on cassette or name your price download via Memorials of Distinction or the Porridge Radio Bandcamp page.

The post Porridge Radio – Rice, Pasta and Other Fillers 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.

West America‘s offering is ‘Past is Personal’, a messy garage rock song which lurches from slow to quick to slow again, always feeling on the cusp of something erratic and dangerous. Think the rough noise of Times New Viking meets the peculiar delivery of Krill. The vocals are difficult to discern for the most part (the lyrics read “♩є(･◇･｡)э♩є(･◇･｡)” over and over on Bandcamp), adding to the unsettling feel, as if you are amidst something important but impossible to understand, all meaning and context reduced to sharp energy in the air.

Porridge Radio‘s track ‘Born Confused’ is less ramshackled, an odd and desperate pop song which somehow manages to twin the deadpan drawl of disaffected youth with a fervid, otherworldly catharsis.  To go out on somewhat of a limb, the track sounds like a lo-fi version of a great punk song The National never wrote, offbeat and dreamlike and curiously detached, the attempts to communicate to an unnamed second person through this fog building into frantic, Berninger-esque regurgitations of a simple phrase. What emerges is a track enormously relevant to our generation, the tide of anger and fear and hope breaking through the barriers which normally keep it below the surface (that is, feelings of loneliness, ineptitude, an intense aversion to appearing naive) to make a song uplifting but never glib, and true without ever really understanding why. Thank you for making me happy.

hello dog friendly is out tomorrow (Wed 13th) on Memorials of Distinction. If you are in/near Brighton (UK) then there’s a release show tomorrow evening at Green Door Store (doors at 19:00, 18+), so get along to that, and we’ll try and get a full review of the release written up ASAP.

The post Song Première(s): West America & Porridge Radio appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Naomi Pop – S/T (REVIEW)
(RIYL: lo-fi, indie rock, other Z Tapes artists)

naps – one hundred percent confident (REVIEW)
(RIYL: ambient, experimental, naps with an uncapitalised-n)

Naps – You Will Live in a Cool Box (REVIEW)
(RIYL: lo-fi, garage rock, indie pop, Naps with a capitalised-N)

Nadia – I’m your protector now
(RIYL: dream pop, healing, electronic)

Newfoundland – Good News is Too True (REVIEW)
(RIYL: atmospheric folk, dream pop, Youth Lagoon, Meursault)

Noël – ’10
(RIYL: punk, emo, indie)

Ocean Floor – Old Haunts (REVIEW)
(RIYL: bedroom pop, lo-fi, Mount Eerie)

Oddigtl – solarium
(RIYL: beats, lo-fi, electronic, laidback summer soul)

Old Gray – dex
(RIYL: sad, bedroom pop, slo-mo emo)

Pasture Dog – Southern Gothic (REVIEW)
(RIYL: lo-fi, hymnals, all things Southern Gothic)

Prairie Empire – Sad Winter Songs (Outtakes and Demos)
(RIYL: folk, acoustic, sad bastard music)

Pet Cemetery – dietary requirements (REVIEW)
(RIYL: bedroom pop, ambient, Coma Cinema)

Phargo. – Rende’s
(RIYL: emo, Braid, anime)

Plums – Jen
(RIYL: dream pop, summer crushes, nostalgia)

PONY – CRUSHED (REVIEW) 
(RIYL: indie pop, Best Coast, Vivian Girls)

Pope – Fiction
(RIYL: noise, grunge, No Age)

Porridge radio – im not sure anymore
(RIYL: lo-fi, sadcore, bedroom pop)

The Pretty Greens – Lonely Hearts Club No Jerks Allowed
(RIYL: The Raincoats, Bratmobile, Brill Building pop)

Radiator Hospital & Martha – Split EP
(RIYL: indie rock, power pop, Radiator Hospital, Martha)

rchrd prkr – it’s getting worse
(RIYL: emo, punk, lo-fi)

Robbie Bankes – Through February Snow (REVIEW)
(RIYL: folk, Tyler Butler, winter)

Romantic States – s/t
(RIYL: minimalist pop, garage rock, blends of quiet & loud)

Ruth & Trudy – Still Pond (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie pop, experimental, lo-fi)

We’ll be sharing a new section of the list every day this week, so be sure to check back for the complete collection. If you find something you like, or think we missed something life-changing, then why not let us know on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr or good old email.

The post Favourite Free Music of 2015: N-R appeared first on Various Small Flames.