‘Seattle’, a rowdy track of glo-fi pop, comes complete with a video from Chicago-based Ryan Ohm and Weird Life Films (Twin Peaks, Gauntlet Hair, Yawn). Shot onto 16mm film in the Weeping Willows at Elmhurst, IL, the footage has a weirded-out 90s vibe, a time of neon-drenched puddles and mass UFO sightings within the dead limits of big cities. The loner lead character passes through these scenes operating to his own logic, feeling a few notches loose from society and reality and the curious freedom that can bring. As Ohm explains: “Amidst packing bags and hitting a new coast, a boy falls deeper into alien conspiracies while drifting through his mind on his moped. Maybe the fumes are getting to him.”

Still, he manages to conjure enough lucid thinking to dream of something more satisfying, namely escape to the West Coast.

“Ima find a job in see see Seattle
Maybe I will see ya there

I’m waving bye to shit hole Chicago
Baby you don’t even care
I will find another band to take care of me
I will find another girl who never loved me
I will find another band to take care of me
Maybe I will see you there”

Nos Vemos is set for release on the 3rd June and you can pre-order it now from the Tincho Bandcamp page.

Album artwork by Jen Kinney

The post Video Première: Tincho – Seattle appeared first on Various Small Flames.

‘Vertebrae’ is a sparse and slow folk rock track, opening with susurrant percussion before the onset of guitars and Moss’ deep and cryptic lyrics, at once corporeal and metaphysical, skin & bone and the ever-rushing passage of time.

“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”

Fans of acts such as Small Sur and Elephant Micah while find lots to like. The really good news is that I’ve had the good fortune to hear the entire album and the quality doesn’t drop one bit.

Fable will be released on the 6th of May. If you like what you hear, lend your support by preordering at the Sam Moss Indiegogo page (including some super cool bonus perks – we particularly like The Book option), or via his Bandcamp.

The post Song Premiere: Sam Moss shares new track, Vertebrae appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The EP opens with ‘Drinking Song’, a track which began life as a simple, finger-picked number but is here brought to life with full instrumentation. There is an ebb and flow to the rhythm, the lyrics expanding into hummed harmonies before contracting back into words which snap, taunt feeling, and relax once more. “There’s a light at the end where I smoke,” she sings, quite breezily, before the impassioned continuation. “And you’re name puffs and colours with people I know / and the song that was stuck in her head becomes all the words you forget”.

‘First I’m Sorry’ is almost Mitski-esque, a folk song electrified and submerged in reverb from which Heynderickx’s warbled vocals leap and dive. Detailing a change of heart or mind, the track accelerates gradually, as if the confidence in her words grows as the song progresses, before slowing into a quiet clarity in the final lines.

“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”

Here, Heynderickx’s describes a sense certainty which cannot be explained, a gut feeling, a belief that change can be right without possessing any answers or plans. The title track sees this flipped on its head, the pace dropping and ambiguity flooding into the spaces between notes. The intricate guitar and slow, steady thump of percussion lends an air of dusty Americana, and the whole song is cloaked in something strange, the vague menace of Southern Gothic backwoods. “Am I down in the river bed this time” she sings, “picking fish heads and eating out their eyes?” The understated vocals and hushed harmonies rise toward a tumultuous finale, where guitar and drums run a frenzied race leaving Heynderickx to shout through the squall. Closer ‘Sane’ emerges with renewed hope, returning to a point of comfort as an anchor against the anxiety and confusion in an Angel Olsen-style folk/rock hybrid, which is somehow vulnerable and defiant all at once.

“Why am I frightened if it’s all just a game?
But the look in your eyes kept me sane”

If that doesn’t convince you that Haley Heynderickx is worth your time, then listen to the Fish Eyes EP in its entirety below and see for yourself.

Fish Eyes EP will be released on the 29th January and you can pre-order it now via the Haley Heynderickx Bandcamp page. Heynderickx’s Facebook page hints at a full-length later this year, so keep your fingers crossed and eyes peeled.

Artwork by Hasmood

The post Album Première: Haley Heynderickx – Fish Eyes EP appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“This past year was pretty nightmarish for me – a grandmother whom I was very close to passed away after quick mental decay and hallucinatory visions, a dear friend attempted suicide by pill overdose, I left a long term relationship, and our original guitar player quit to form a new band.  My whole world flipped in a matter of months and all of the songs I began to write were dark, brooding, wallowing meditations in sadness – and quite frankly, I didn’t like it. So I hired a new guitar player (who became our producer/engineer, too – Dave Cerminara) and asked the band to help me write a record where I could be honest and scared and confused, but that remained upbeat with bright, happy melodies. I didn’t want to sing sad songs with sad music because depression sucks.”

This is a perfect summation of the record, fast-paced, energetic and strangely celebratory in terms of sound, yet lyrically honest and quite often dark to the point of bleak. From the laid back psychedelica of ‘Close Call (Adderall Anxiety)’ and ‘Sneakin’ Out’, to the heavy riffs of ‘Liar’ and ‘Yr House Isn’t Haunted’, the songs are shot through with a detached sense of doom, an understanding of personal weakness that obliterates any chance of sentimental hope or self-absorbed melodrama. The feeling is captured perfectly on the punky ‘Tomato Tomato’:

“Id rather suffer than recover from my daily addictions
because at least I know exactly what it is I am getting
its nice to feel like I am in control in control of something”

But that does not mean personality and humour are absent, far from it. ‘It Was Mine (the Whole Time)’ is a cheeky tale of teenage audacity (although is kind of sad if you think about it too much), ‘Sun Spits’ utilises some impressively weird descriptives (“the car crawls like a saturated centipede”) and the blackly triumphant sing-a-long refrain of ‘Thru The Night’ is hard not to love. All together now… “I made it through the night! I made it through the night!”

To put it simply, Shaky At Best is an album about people addicted to trouble, folks gripped by a love-hate relationship with chemicals and loud noises, stuck within the paradox of crippling anxiety coupled with a good-time death wish. It’s about living too hard as a way to escape thinking too hard. Sometimes ideals and bleeding hearts can’t save us, and it’s up to people like Shaky Shrines to make us feel less alone.

You can stream Shaky At Best in it’s entirety below, and buy it from Bandcamp right now.

If you like what you hear, be sure to check out Shaky Shrines’ previous releases, including a 7″ out on Velocity of Sound.

–

The post Album Premiere: Shaky Shrines – Shaky At Best appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tierpark are the latest act to emerge from this talent pool. Self-described as a “dreamgaze noise rock” band, the outfit draw upon a wide range of influences to create an experimental brand of post-rock. With complex rhythms, peculiar time signatures and a disregard for common conventions, the band produce songs of surprising intricacy without moving too far from the accessible pop/rock template, allowing the listener a way in to their strange dreamscapes. Their latest album, The Moment Two Worlds Meet, is out later this month, and we are delighted to share the second track with you now.

‘Shadow Play [그림자림그]’ is a perfect example of Tierpark’s atypical style. Think a mix of the idiosyncratic art-rock of Dirty Projectors and the eccentricity of Bjork, with post-rock overtones and a Minus The Bear-style mathy tinge, and you are getting somewhere near pinning down the sound. The vocals have shades of recent favourite Bells Atlas, adding a further texture to what is already a vivid track, and despite being an ignorant Westerner with no knowledge of Korean, Sehee Kim’s lyrics and delivery provide more than enough to convey the general concept behind the song. Have a listen below:

The Moment Two Worlds Meet is set to be released on the 20th September. You can pre-order it now via the Tierpark Bandcamp page.

The post Song Première: Tierpark – Shadow Play [그림자림그] appeared first on Various Small Flames.