Tender, the debut solo album by Colorado’s Allison Lorenzen on Whited Sepulchre Records was marked by “a transience which feels deeply compassionate,” as we described in our review. “Hope manifest as an understanding of the potential for change.” Follow-up single ‘The Fourth Cycle‘ continued this examination of change, detailing the gamut of emotional states involved with any upheaval, and latest track ‘MTO’ feels like the next step along the process. Described as sounding like a “final climax of a Mark Fisher-influenced hauntological prom scene,” the song looks to recognise the repeating patterns of the past so that Lorenzen might heal and move forward.

Bad Tiger – Enough

Last year, we described how Bad Tiger’s 2020 album The Goat and the Bad Tiger was “far from being the full realisation of [Yasi] Lowy’s goals,” but instead “merely opened the doors to new possibilities.” The San Francisco outfit are back with ‘Enough’, a new single which focuses on the precariousness of the present moment. With Lowy’s tender and confessional vocals, the track paints a vulnerable, open-hearted mood which longs for certainty within the painful fervour of love.

City Dress – Empires of Honey

“Music is for everyone who spent their childhoods obsessively reading the lyrics to their favorite songs.” That’s how Brooklyn‘s Christina Skramstad describes her folk pop project City Dress. Together with guitarist Johnny Simon Jr. (Wilsen), she writes lush and literary folk songs, which we last featured back in 2020. Fast forward a few years and City Dress is back with a new single, ‘Empires of Honey’, a rhythmic and resolute exploration of the self-deception involved in ego and boundless ambition. “The song is about standing at a crossroads and making decisions you imagine will bring you joy and contentment,” Skramstad describes, “but realizing that sometimes your wants and needs are misaligned.”

‘Empire of Honey is out now via streaming services.

clay pigeon – Come Down

Having released an EP and album under his own name, Montreal-based songwriter James Clayton has now adopted the moniker clay pigeon for his new material. Clayton recently recorded the project’s debut album at Hotel2Tango with Howard Bilerman and Shae Brossard, and debut single ‘Come Down’ gives a glimpse into what to expect. A simmering blend of shadow and rhythm, where the understated mood grows taut as it progresses, threatening to snap into an all-out crescendo but never quite breaking its controlled progress.

Lael Neale – White T-Shirt

Following the release of her sophomore record Star Eaters Delight back in the spring, LA’s Lael Neale has released standalone single ‘White T-Shirt’, a take on one of her older songs that didn’t quite fit on the album. As producer Guy Blakeslee describes, “White T-Shirt’ dates back a number of years to when I used to follow Lael around LA to all of her barely publicized performances. The song never ceased to silence the chatter in the room…it’s a raw gem that stands alone and cuts through the noise” Blakeslee is not wrong. Clocking in at under two minutes, ‘White T-Shirt’ has an almost uncanny timeless quality, stripped back to guitar and Neale’s distinctive vocals

‘White T-Shirt’ is out now via Sub Pop and available via the Lael Neale Bandcamp page.

Left Tracks – Strawberry Moon

LA‘s Kabir Kumar (AKA Sun Kin) and Oakland‘s Phil Di Leo (DI LEO) first met in 2016, though it is only now they’ve decided to combine their skills. Enter Left Tracks, a brand new project that sees Kumar and Di Leo use all of their skills as composers, vocalists and multi-instrumentalists to imagine a new future in the wake of COVID and the adjacent catastrophes. What emerged was End Times Hauling, an EP which sits on the precipice of disaster but makes a decision to envisage a different world, working on the logic that no significant change can occur without first rekindling a sense of imagination. Opening track and single ‘Strawberry Moon’ introduces the left-field folk-inflected pop sound, as well as the compassion and collaboration which marks the release.

Nina Keith – Blow Up Yr Life (U Need To)

LA-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Nina Keith first caught attention in 2019 with MARANASATI 19111, an LP which decorated piano arrangements with a whole host of flourishes from flute to field recordings to better explore ideas of memory and death. With a tour opening for Youth Lagoon fast approaching, Keith has returned with ‘Blow Up Yr Life’, a single featuring Barrie and Qur’an Shaheed which again combines classical and contemporary styles to urge its audience to break from from their circumstances and live on their own terms. “Lately the more I wear the turmoil of my life on my sleeve the more often I find myself in conversations with strangers and loved ones that reach a similar end,” as Keith explains. “I can never be the one to tell someone to burn it down and start over. They see the ash stains on my shirt and ask to borrow a match so they can play with it, save it for later, but sometimes it’s like ‘girl, the house is already on fire, you can’t stay in there’.” Check out the visualizer by Nik Arthur below:

‘Blow Up Yr Life (U Need To)’ is out now and available from Bandcamp.

Ratboys – The Window

Later this summer, Chicago indie rockers Ratboys return with The Window, a brand new record via Topshelf Records. Having already released two singles – the epic ‘Black Earth, WI’ and expressive ‘It’s Alive’ – they have now unveiled the title track, an uber-personal song that forms the record’s emotional centre point. “I wrote that song a few days after the death of my grandma” explains lead Julia Steiner. “She didn’t have Covid, but because of the pandemic my grandpa wasn’t able to visit her in person at the nursing home to say goodbye. He ended up standing outside her room and saying goodbye through an open window.” It starts quiet and sober, but this is not your standard sad song. It soon kicks up a gear, becoming a country-tinged rock song that displays the Ratboys knack for combining tenderness with raucous noisy energy. Watch the John TerEick-directed widescreen video below:

The Window will be released on 25th August. Pre-order a copy from the Ratboys Bandcamp page.

Upper Narrows – Tinker’s Darn

Based in Portland, Maine, Upper Narrows is the recording project of songwriter and producer Tyler Jackson. Jackson’s process is an unusual one, swapping out drums and guitars for programmed beats and an array of synths. In October he will release While We’re Warm, the debut Upper Narrows full-length via Repeating Cloud, and debut single ‘Tinker’s Darn’ is our first taste of what to expect. A deep and spacey sound that balances its digital soundscape with a very human emotion, resulting in something as immersive as it is affirming, even if the lyrics hold a more conflicted view.

hungover when I cry
my bucket of bolts on fire
preach forgiveness around the clock
pretend I’m not a liar

fathoms of forgiveness
from the magazine to the gun
the apples inside her are turning to cider
the terror of not having fun

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Not content with all that streaming stuff, Ratboys recently released a new single, ‘Go Outside’, their first new music since last year’s Printer’s Devil on Topshelf Records. The song was written in 2019, but is eerily relevant to our current predicament. “It’s this carefree and wistful, totally innocent song about wanting to travel and spend time with loved ones,” says lead Julia Steiner. “We didn’t realize that we wouldn’t be able to do either of those things before long.”

Perhaps most notable of all is the move back towards the style of earlier releases, shedding a little of the punk rock steel of Printer’s Devil in favour of something more organic. In fact, this is the band’s most “Country” moment yet. They’ve always had that lyrical storytelling (and even a little twang) in amongst their rockier moments, but ‘Go Outside’ embraces it and then some. Pat Lyons’s pedal steel sits front and centre, and the whole atmosphere is unapologetically sun-kissed and sincere. Check it out below:

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Here is a list of songs from 2020 that we liked but didn’t get around to writing about.

If you find something you like, follow the link in the embed to support the artists and labels on Bandcamp. And of course, there is a whole year’s worth of pieces on releases we did manage to write about, so have an explore through our reviews, previews and interviews from 2020.

The post Music We Missed in 2020 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Locate S,1 – Personalia

Recording under the moniker Locate S,1, Christina Schneider stretches the boundaries of pop to create strange, beguiling songs that play light and dark off of one another. Following a successful tour with Frankie Cosmos in 2019, Locate S,1 signed with Captured Tracks and will release their second album, Personalia, this April.

The title track is the record’s first single, and represents the ideal welcome into the world of the album. Taking it’s title from a Mary Ruefle poem, ‘Personalia’ rises from a period of personal darkness toward something brighter, its clever, determined lyrics pitched somewhere between honesty and self-deprecation. It’s a potent mix, a spell which conjures life, and by the close Schneider is fired into orbit by her own energy once again.

Almost killed myself so I went home
I just cannot take these local shows
Tom T. Hall said don’t let your music kill you
But I’m no country boy
I’m just some punk

Personalia is out on the via Captured Tracks and you can pre-order it from the Locate S, 1 Bandcamp page.

Ratboys – I Go Out At Night

After the success of previous records AOID (2015) and GN (2018), Ratboys are back this month with the third album, Printer’s Devil, on Topshelf Records. Crafted around themes of instability and change, the record seeks to make peace with upheaval by defusing the fear it brings, and such a headspace proved conducive to a real development of the band’s sound. “There’s definitely a lot of uncertainty about what’s next,” explains lead Julia Steiner. “But I like to think that, in the midst of creating a lot of vulnerability for ourselves, we’re confident and becoming more self-assured.”

Latest single ‘I Go Out at Night’ makes good on that sentiment, finding Ratboys building upon the style they’ve been developing across their previous records. Settling as a four-piece, with Marcus Nuccio (drums) and Sean Neumann (bass) joining founding duo Dave Sagan and Steiner, the project has fully transcended its acoustic beginnings while preserving the original spirit—delving into power pop, garage rock and alt-country to not only highlight the Ratboys range but also best chart the ever changing world in which it is created.

Printer’s Devil is out via Topshelf Records on the 28th February and you can pre-order it now.

Sea Offs – Will (You)

The collaborative project of songwriters Olivia Price and Rashmit Aror, Sea Offs make an atmospheric collision of folk and rock that manages to inject a tangible urgency without puncturing the enveloping ethereal tone. Released in 2017, album What’s the Point? displayed just how evocative a blend this can be. “Every moment on the album, from the dazzling highs to the locked-away lows,” we wrote, “is threaded not just with an unshakeable sense of isolation but the equally persistent suspicion that things need not always be this way.”

This spring sees the band return with a brand new release, and lead single ‘Will (You)’ shows that they have lost none of their impact. Let loose into a delicate miasma of ambient tones and driven by a deep drum beat, Price’s vocals move from crooned questioning to steely determination, eventually rising into a cathartic closing section. Thematically, the song “discusses body ownership in a relationship,” the band explain. “The detachment one can feel sexually when there is no emotional connection to serve as a basis.”

Greg Mendez – Bike

Philly native Greg Mendez has been making music since 2006, self-releasing CDs from home alongside his presence on Myspace and the not-yet blossoming DIY scene in the city. Years struggling with addiction, homelessness and mental health issues meant that his output was sporadic through the 2010s, but Mendez released his debut full-length ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ in 2017, and is now back with a brand new record, Cherry Hell.

A joint release between Forged Artifacts and Devil Town Tapes, the album represents another link the chain of American songwriting, taking the themes of Townes Van Zandt, Connie Converse and Elliott Smith and casting them in the bedroom pop spirit of today. Lead single ‘Bike’ is one such example, a song based around “wanting to change and longing to be someone else” that dreams against the restrictive nature of our one single life—pining for experiences wide and disparate so as to exist more fully, free from the accumulated dirt of our positions in the world.

Mount Sharp – Ordinary

Writing back in August, we describe Mount Sharp‘s ‘Apostate’ as a song “indebted to the past but shaped by present conditions, concerned with the personal and the political when exploring what it means to be pushed away from someone or something.” The track was the first single of forthcoming album That Shadow, a record that will finally be released this month.

To increasing the anticipation, the Brooklyn band have release a brand new single, ‘Ordinary’. Ramping up the energy from the half-paced ‘Apostate’, the track is one of jangling confidence, bringing to mind the way Nap Eyes juxtapose loose-limbed inquisitiveness and deadpan lyrics, though injecting a punk energy too. There’s a dark humour to the way the track ebbs and flows, the lulls shaking into intense collisions of noise, as though firing itself through its own gathering motion, all tied together by the cutting lyrics.

How many times before it starts to feel ordinary
How many (how many) before
Cause I heard I’ll start to feel things relatively
And I don’t know if that sounds good or bad anymore

Normal’s just what you’re used to
And you’re surprised
So find all the space your anger takes
And try not to make all of it about you

That Shadow is out on the 22nd February and you can pre-order it now from the Mount Sharp Bandcamp page.

Silo’s Choice – Annwn

Silo’s Choice is the moniker of Chicago resident Jon Massey, a musician interested in pushing the boundaries of rock to further its conceptual and political scope. Forthcoming album Twilight on the Trail dials back slightly on the more idiosyncratic elements of previous releases, allowing a sincere immediacy to flourish (“less Mahler and more Joni Mitchell,” in the words of the artist), yet still the art-rock foundations remain. As such, the record seems perfectly positioned to explore big themes without straying too far into the inhuman abstract.

Lead single ‘Annwn’ is a clear progression in this sense. Named after the otherworld of Welsh mythology, the track takes on theme of death and mourning from an oblique angle, focusing not on the usual sadness and suffering but rather the mystery life’s end. Annwn was a world of peace and eternal youth, death with the pain removed, and Silo’s Choice uses it as a foil to examine mortality in a new manner—melancholic perhaps, but also joyous, lost in the sublime of that which we do not know.

and how i long to see the old things
the old world written in the old words
consumed with my body in a long fire
and wake up to the sound of a new chord

do you float?
does your spirit sink into the earth?
i think you slip sideways into a new birth

Jesse Blake Rundle – Radishes and Flowers

“A story of longing arranged into a bed of radishes and flowers.” That’s how Jesse Blake Rundle described his latest single, aptly named ‘Radishes and Flowers’. Adapted from Wallace Stevens’s ‘Cy Est Pourtraicte, Madame Ste Ursule, et Les Unze Mille Vierges’, the song is the title track of an entire collection inspired by the poetry of Stevens, crafted to match the source material in both theme and shape.

Rundle is a self-taught musician who utilises unconventional tuning to form a singular style, an aesthetic that proves the perfect mode with which to capture the nuanced life of Stevens’s Florida. As the title track shows, Rundle’s arrangements are capable of both whimsical creeps along the small details of our world and grand swells of emotion, achieving a balance between macro and micro that makes for a striking and beautiful sound.

Ursula, in a garden, found
A bed of radishes.
She knelt upon the ground
And gathered round,
With flowers blue, gold, and green

Isadora Eden – Anhedonia

Hailing from Colorado, Isadora Eden is a songwriter who pairs dark, searching lyrics with a moody sound, ranging from intimate simplicity to something altogether fuller and more striking. The lead single from a forthcoming EP, ‘Anhedonia’ makes this apparent, its stark style lending the sound a haunting edge.

The track is produced by Corey Coffman of Gleemer, and there’s certainly a shared emotional depth between the projects, the sounds so rich and evocative that their undoubted melancholy takes on an affirming quality. Opening with little beyond a simple acoustic guitar and Eden’s poignant vocals, the track soon welcomes jags of guitar and a driving drum beat, swelling beyond its minimalist beginnings and taking on an elevated form.

i’m alone again
like i wanted to be
didn’t i say
that i wanted to be
i guess it’s easier now
i guess it’s easier now

there’s gotta be a break
someday
i don’t wanna be left behind

Shadwick Wilde – Rain

You might know Shadwick Wilde as the front man of Louisville band Quiet Hollers, though he is writing solo music too. Latest single ‘Rain’ was written after Wilde was asked to perform at the Climate Strike in 2019, in particular a song for Greta Thunberg who was in attendance via her solar powered yacht. Originally averse to the idea, Wilde latched onto a a song he had started months earlier, the line “clean on the inside, free as the sun” suddenly taking on a new meaning as this young person arrived on her boat.

With help from Sarah Balliet (of Murder by Death) on cello and Shelley Anderson on bass, Wilde crafts a sullen soundscape of dark tones, the plaintive strings weaving their way over backdrop and conjuring a place of perpetual rain. There’s a fatality to the track, though hope too, as though the narrator has given up their own future but retains a vague belief in the possibility the next generation might somehow succeed.

We’ll leave our home to you
our fugitive daughter
and all we’ve built for you
will be reclaimed by the water
giver of life and destroyer of worlds
red, gold and coral, mother of pearl

Wilde expects to release an album later this year so be sure to follow him on Twitter for more news.

Thanks for stopping on by! Be sure to check out the Reviews and Previews sections for more in-depth writing, and do let us know what you’ve been listening to on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.

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Various Small Flames’

Songs of 2017

Anamon – Kneel Old
Android Automatic – Dark Roads*
Angie McMahon – Slow Mover
Basement Revolver – Johnny Pt. 2
Baxter Roy Long – Paribanou
Bea Troxel – Let Them Know
Big Thief – Mary
Black Belt Eagle Scout – Soft Stud
Bully – Running
Cayetana – Mesa
Charly Bliss – Percolator
Chastity Belt – Different Now
CHUCK – Happy Birthday
The County Liners – Maria
The Courtneys – Tour
Craig Finn – God in Chicago
Crumb – Locket
Crushing – Emery Board
Cut Worms – Like Going Down Sideways
David Bazan – Care
Distant Reader – First Try
Emperor X – God Save Coastal Dorset
Fits – Ice Cream on a Nice Day
German Error Message – 2017*
Gleemer – Soothe Me
Great Grandpa – Favorite Show
Haley Heynderickx – Oom Sha Lala
Hiccup – Teasin’
Horse Culture – Texaco
Illuminati Hotties – ‘(You’re Better) Than Ever’
Japandroids – No Known Drink or Drug
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit – If We Were Vampires
Jay Som – The Bus Song
Jeremy Squires – Night Cars
Katie Ellen – Drawing Room
Lizzie No – Monuments
Lomelda – Bam Sha Klam
Mike Pace and the Child Actors – Audits & Surveys
Meursault – The Mill
Mount Eerie – Crow
Nice Legs – Mighty Three
Oceanator – Nowhere Nothing
Ohyeahsumi – Daisy
Old Earth – Pit Dynamics
PASTEL – Stammer
Peter Silberman – New York
Phoebe Bridgers – Motion Sickness
Pope – Talk Me Out of It
Protomartyr – Windsor Hum
Rainwater – Place
Ratboys – Elvis is in the Freezer
Rick Rude – Bald & Fat in Houston, TX
Roadkill Ghost Choir – Classics (Die Young)
Rose Dorn – Dirt
See Through Dresses – Lucy’s Arm
Shannen Moser – A Funeral, A Friend, My Sanity
Sinai Vessel – Died On My Birthday
Slaughter Beach, Dog – Phoenix
SOAR – Fort Funston
Soft Fangs – Jordan // Jackson Elementary
Spartan Jet-Plex – We Believe
Strange Ranger – House Show
Strawberry Runners – Garden Hose
Timid, The Brave – Alice
Us and Only Us – Bored of Black
Vagabon – Cold Apartment
Viewfinder – Instant Moonlight
The Washboard Abs – Veil
Waxahatchee – Never Been Wrong
Wild Pink – Albert Ross
William Ryan Fritch – In Our Blood
The Wooden Sky – Swimming in Strange Waters
Ylayali – Cherry Tomatoes

*Strictly released in 2016, but barely, and we covered it in Jan. 2017.

If you missed it, you can see our Favourite Albums of 2017 list here. Also, the curious can find such lists from previous years here.

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Much has been said recently about how political turmoil and social instability will provide fertile conditions for great art, and whether or not you subscribe to this idea, we’re pretty sure that paying artists makes for even better soil in which to sow creative seeds. The title to this post says ‘free’ music because it’s snappier than ‘name your price’ music, but really that’s a convenient/attention-grabbing misnomer. Bandcamp provides pretty much the most direct way for us to connect directly with musicians and support their work from all over the world, so why don’t we utilise this tool and ensure that art perseveres in the face of everything else that’s going on?

Anyhow, here’s the first segment of the list, covering artists beginning with A – D. We don’t pretend to be in any way comprehensive, so let us know if we missed your favourite and maybe we’ll add it to the list.Albosel – Container
(RIYL: folk, dream pop, magic woods)

Alexandra Gordon – Rain Songs
(RIYL: bedroom pop, folk, Free Cake For Every Creature)

BB Cream – s/t
(RIYL: pop punk, bedroom pop, lo-fi, grrrl power)

Bedbug – if i got smaller grew wings and flew away for good
(RIYL: experimental, twee, sincerity)

Betty Becky – s/t / All the Boyfriends
(RIYL: bedroom pop, punk, lo-fi)

Blue Smiley – Return
(RIYL: garage rock, fuzz, dream pop)

Bois – Asleep with Songs of Longing
(RIYL: pop, soul, indie rock)

Boy Scouts – Homeroom Breakfast
(RIYL: bedroom pop, folk, self-reflection)

Cabbage/Oxblood – Split
(RIYL: bedroom pop, post-grunge, slacker rock)

Candy – Azure
(RIYL: jangle rock, dream pop, lo-fi)

猫 シ Corp. – News at 11
(RIYL: vapourwave, 90s TV, mass media)

Cayetana – Tired Eyes
(RIYL: indie rock, jangle pop, punk)

Cereal + Sounds & Z Tapes – FRY YR BRN
(RIYL: indie rock, covers, TV theme songs)

Coping Skills – Relatable Web Content
(RIYL: lo-fi, bedroom pop, Millennial angst)

Constant Companion – Curious Design
(RIYL: pop punk, lo-fi, indie rock)

Corvus B. – France, Later
(RIYL: poetry, spoken word, haunting banjo)

Crabapple – Further Out
(RIYL: indie pop, summer jams, lo-fi)

Daytime TV – DAYTIME TV 2
(RIYL: indie pop, lo-fi, rock)

Deer Scout – Customs
(RIYL: folk, singer songwriter, Gregory and the Hawk)

Dogbreth – Second Home
(RIYL: pop punk, Cloud Nothings, Joyride!, rock ‘n roll fun)

Dowsing / Ratboys – Split
(RIYL: indie rock, pop punk, emo)

Dying Adolescence – Dear you, It can’t wait.
(RIYL: bedroom pop, lo-fi, teenage feelings)

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