“Grow/Decompose… shares [David Foster] Wallace’s metamodern style – a postmodern web of motifs and strange humour countered with a modernist sincerity and genuine sense of hope …if played on repeat Grow / Decompose never ends, a musical ouroboros of well-worn paths that are both doomed and blessed and quite possibly all we have.”

We were lucky enough to get the opportunity to ask John and Eric from the band a few questions.

Jon: Thanks for speaking to us John. How is life in LA this time of year? Why did you decide to move from Chicago? 

Young Jesus: Life in LA is good. It’s certainly a strange place, easy to let it own you in a way, but also a highly motivating and inspiring place. There is a lot going on here that I really was not exposed to in Chicago. Chicago’s a wonderful place for me in many ways, but it became ‘home’ too much. I had an idea of what it was in my mind, so I wasn’t really open to a lot of the interesting things the city had to offer. It became a place where I drank a lot and played a lot of videogames. Both have their merits, but I personally needed to get out. It’s interesting that Home, to me, is a pretty straightforward record– almost journalistic. And I was hazy and drunk through a lot of it. Grow / Decompose is meandering, questioning, more subtle I hope. But I’ve never been more clear-headed. I guess the easier it is to think, the more questions come.

One thing I’ve noticed while reading up on Young Jesus is that no-one seems to agree as to who you sound like. I’ve seen Smashing Pumpkins, The Replacements, Staind, The National etc. etc., while I picked up some strong Hold Steady vibes, both in terms of your writing style and the dark-and-joyful sound. Do your listening habits reflect this wide(ish) range comparisons? Or are journalists and bloggers trying too hard to pin your sound? 

We listen to a lot of different things. From The Hold Steady and Pile to William Basinski and Stars of the Lid. It all plays a part in the thinking of a record. It might not be obvious while listening, but our musical influences affect things beyond melody/rhythm. Little eccentricities come out in strange ways. That’s what makes it interesting hopefully.

As a follow-on to that, how do you feel after releasing a new record to the world? Do you like that reviewers each come to their own conclusions? Or do you feel pretty certain of the narrative you’re trying to conjure? I was kind of guilty of bringing a lot of my own thoughts into my review of the album, and I guess I was conscious that perhaps that isn’t always a good thing for the artist? 

We have a narrative in our heads definitely. But a huge part of the narrative is that there is no absolute correct narrative. We’re glad to see people put their own interpretations on it cause that means they’re interacting with it. They’re having a similar process sorting through the album that we had sorting through life to create the album. I have a huge mental picture of records like Brand New’s Devil and God… or Weezer’s Pinkerton. And it’s probably so different from how they view it! That’s so great. That we ultimately have a point of intersection/relation and have– potentially– come to it from totally different places. Albums (as Roger Ebert said about movies) can be machines that generate empathy.

Grow / Decompose, just like your previous album Home, seems to focus on a defined set of themes and characters in a way that makes it not quite a traditional album but perhaps not quite a concept album. How do you feel about the term ‘concept album’ in relation to your releases? 

I became pretty engrossed in this album over the past year. It took over my life in a lot of ways. I gave myself to this record rather than to people, and at one point couldn’t really see a love that was there for me because I was so absorbed in the story/writing. I loved Neil, Milo, and May. So the concept is a strange reflection of life. Grounded in reality. Without a traditional arc because life doesn’t have that. Some things end, some don’t.

There is a decidedly novelistic feel about your writing. Would you say literature has an influence on your writing style? (If yes) Which authors would you say have had the biggest impact? 

I work in a bookstore and am reading more than I’m listening to music probably. Literature has had a major influence. The five main books are Hilda Hilst’s The Obscene Madam D, Clarice Lispector’s Near to the Wild Heart, Mircea Cartrescu’s Blinding, Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor, and Suicide by Edouard Leve. And Muriel Spark. So six. These books very literally changed my life this past year. Oh and Jesse Jacobs By This Shall You Know Him.

Lispector/Cartrescu/Hilst showed me that it was okay (and beautiful) to think in absurd, non-normative logics. That you could create your own, and these logics are capable of carrying emotional/sentimental weight.

Reading Leve felt like breaking the law. It’s a work he turned in to his publisher and soon after killed himself. In fact, I could read it and feel safer. I do think it is a dangerous book, not for everyone, but for me it was a powerful life-affirming read. Almost named the record Les Atomes which is a band mentioned in one of Leve’s books (either Suicide or Autoportrait, I forget).

O’Connor and Spark deal with religion (specifically Christianity) in a rare way. They are ultimately believers, but are not afraid of examining the grotesque byproducts of belief. It’s easy to write off organized religion, maybe a bit harder then to look at it very honestly and specifically and turn the lens onto yourself as well. I’m an atheist, but some of my favorite thinkers (Spark, O’Connor, Jeff Mangum) are oddly Christian. Who knows what that means. Time to become a priest.

With its stories of addiction and general sadness shot through with a sense of hope, I compared Grow / Decompose to David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest. Where do you stand on the whole irony vs. sincerity debate? Do you subscribe to the New Sincerity movement, or do you feel cynicism and darkness have role to play in the best, most enlightening/comforting art?   

I think you can confront darkness with sincerity and that the best stuff acknowledges the light that is in the dark and vice versa. We’re on board and interested with what New Sincerity could be about, and if people want to group us in with that, that’s okay. But we can also be sarcastic and ironic. So watch out.

You guys run the label Hellhole Supermarket that is putting out Grow / Decompose and take care of all of your own press and management. Is this sort of control important to you? I mean, I know there are some great labels out there, and some PR companies who make the effort to connect as human beings, but I can’t tell you how nice it is to get personal emails from acts about their new music. Does this increased involvement lead to a more rewarding process overall? Or is it an annoyance that gets in the way of music (or watching TV or whatever)?

I always tell Harrison, “if this label gets in the way of BBT (Big Bang Theory) one more time I’m gonna lose my smoothie.” I love those bang boys.

Finally, could you name 4-5 artists you are currently enjoying? They can be old or new, hidden gems or radio darlings, whatever you find yourself returning to at the moment.

Fragile Gang‘s For Esme, Pope, Mitski, Princess Reason, Earl Sweatshirt (‘solace’ is connecting a lot today).

Read our review of Grow / Decompose and then buy the album from Bandcamp or Hellhole Supermarket.

The post Interview: Young Jesus appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The label’s next release will be, Maybe This Summer, the third album from Canadian lo-fi popsters Family Video, an album of lovely, summery pop gems, all shot through with a double helping of casio keyboards and wistful longing. I first listened to this album sitting on a train, and among my scrawled notes and initial impressions I wrote the words “Languid Lethargic Lovelorn”. I think that pretty much nails it.

The album opens with ‘Ten Years Will Pass’, a tale of summer romance which opens with the line, “All I know is ten years will pass so fast, you just wish that you could slow down or stop here for a while”. Next up is’She Reminds Me’, a small-town summertime jam, complete with awkward romance, dreams of moving away and a catchy little woo-ooh chorus. Check it out:

‘Sitting In My Room’ is an indie rock paean to self-doubt and fear of the future, opening with the line “And I think about everything too much all of the time”. Lead Jam King voices this doubt directly in the chorus, singing, “Oh my God, I don’t know, the path of the future and what it holds”. Another standout is ‘Pour Warm Water’, with it’s chorus of, “It’s okay to feel that way sometimes, it’s okay to make mistakes sometimes”.

The band have perfectly captured the spectrum of emotions of long hot youthful summers. At one moment they sound like an exuberant get-together with friends and the next they’re the hazy evening sun slanting through your faded bedroom curtains as you cry into the phone because Johnny doesn’t love you. It’s about being young in the hot eternity of summer, about the joy and heartache that vie for your consciousness as the sun sets and the insects buzz and somewhere beyond your small town, the whole world continues to spin.

Maybe This Summer is due for release on the 1st of September. Pre-order the limited edition cassette via the GoldFlakeTapes. The album is also available for download on a pay-what-you-want basis over at the GoldFlakeTapes Bandcamp page.

P.S. Amazingly, this is the band’s second album of the year (the first already holding a place on the draft for this year’s Best Free Music list). So after you have finished listening to this, check out their previous albums.

The post Family Video – Maybe This Summer appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The Parmesans – Wolf Eggs

(RIYL: neofolk, light hearted lyrics, spicy cigarettes)

Princess Reason – Princess Reason // Always Pretty EP

(RIYL: indie pop, lo-fi, Guided By Voices)

Push & Run (Label) – Tings in Boots Vol. 2

(RIYL: electronic, garage, dubstep, James Blake)

Raven Shields – Above My Head/Forest Fire

(RIYL: acoustic, Dear Sister, Laura Gibson)

Rice Cultivation Society – sky burial

(RIYL: indie rock, folk, Grizzly Bear)

The River Has Many Voices – Division

(RIYL: folk, country, singer songwriter, Gregory Alan Isakov)

Rod Hamilton – Atitlán

(RIYL: ambient, new age, marimba)

Run The Jewels – Run The Jewels

(RIYL: hip hop, rap, El-P, Killer Mike)

Salvia Palth – melanchole

(RIYL: bedroom pop, emo, drone)

Shells – In A Cloud

(RIYL: instrumental guitars, fuzz, meteorological imagery)

Slow Warm Death – Slow Warm Death

(RIYL: garage rock, punk, Snowing)

Soda Bomb – The Future Is Going To Suck

(RIYL: pop punk, slacker rock, lo-fi)

Soda Eaves – Like Drapes Either Side

(RIYL: lo-fi rock, reverb, poetry)

Some Ember – Asleep In The Ice Palace

(RIYL: 80s synth pop, Joy Division, Depeche Mode, Tears For Fears)

The Son Of The Sea – Old House EP

(RIYL: folk, home recordings, J. Tillman)

Sparkling Wide Pressure – Gripping the Shore // Touch the Ground to Bear Witness

(RIYL: experimental, ambient, psychedelic).

Spazzkid – Desire 願う

(RIYL: electronic, glitch pop, post-dubstep, Bibio)

Squanto – Every Night Draws the Same Crowd

(RIYL: experimental folk, slowcore, The Microphones)

Streets of Laredo – Volume I & II

(RIYL: indie pop, folk, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes)

Sun Glitters – Take Me To The Ocean // Forward and Reverse

(RIYL: electronic, dream pop, Soosh, Balam Acab)

The post Favourite Free Music of 2013 (P-S) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The album is available on a pay-what-you-want basis over at the Princess Reason Bandcamp. Also be sure to check out the Always Pretty EP.

The post Advent Calendar [13th]: Princess Reason – We Are Splitting appeared first on Various Small Flames.