Blood Warrior – Wooden Shade
Rosie Tucker – How Sad, How Lovely (Connie Converse cover)
Fran – Company
JAYA – Learn To Swim
Taylor Hamilton – What Is Real?
Carver Baronda – If Nothing Else Comes Along
Rose Dorn – Deathwish
Milly – Crazy Horse
Guidon Bear – Washing Machine
Joey Nebulous – Pride Month
Dorio – Shortcuts
Special Friend – Before
Sarah Pagé – Lithium Taper
Old Amica – Condensation
Blushing – Dream Merchants
Patient Hands – Stasis
Bryce Kepner – Chances
Jake Bellissimo – why fit? (Jordaan Mason cover)

The post September 2019 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“There’s always been this crazy connection between the three of us,” explains Knight. “We clicked musically, but we also felt like we’d known each other for years. We were all outsider kids in school who went through the same coming-of-age thing. When I think of a band, this is how I think it should be.”

Together Rose Dorn make indie rock songs that feel like both commiserations and celebrations of this otherness, resulting in an aesthetic that the band’s bio describes as a combination of “elements of bedroom rock, twangy desert gaze, and melancholic California pop.” After two short EPs, Rose Dorn have just released their debut full-length, Days You Were Leaving, a record which utilises this feeling of being different

Lead single ‘Champ’ sets the scene, a sweet and earnest pop song about the connection between the band members, a gaze back at the high school digital friendship that started it all. “At some point I realized I was dissociating,” says Knight, “cut off from the world around me, only able to feel peace when I was actively connecting with my two best friends through a screen. Nothing else really mattered.” The song comes complete with a video, the debut music video from director Julia Ling Kelleher, which sees a chain of dominoes snake around and tumble in perfect synchrony.

In comparison the opening of ‘Shaking’ feels big and bold, a left-field pop song that sounds like it could’ve been an underground hit in the early 90s. But after around forty seconds things slide to a halt, Knight taking over vocal duties as the guitars subside into a dreamy sway. The song morphs again towards the end, keeping things fresh and dynamic across its three minute run-time. Thematically the song is darker than it sounds. As the band explain, it’s “about a select few experiences we’ve seen spin people out of control, and the coping mechanisms that have brought them back to reality […] from the rejection by a supposed soulmate to the death of a loved one.”

Another song that deals with a sense of detachment, ‘Collar’ finds Knight pining for someone long-gone and the explores the rootless feeling of lacking a clear direction for the future.

I feel like a stray dog
with a beautiful collar
on a beautiful lawn
keep searching for someone who i’ve lost
but there’s no signs on poles
telling me to come home

There’s a considerable degree of diversity across the album. From the hushed slow gathering of opener ‘Big Thunder’, to the short shot of LVL UP-style slacker pop of ‘LRP’ and ‘HYC’, Rose Dorn continue to surprise throughout. ‘Deathwish’ is a standout, all dreamy sweetness meets a kind of morbid matter-of-factness (Rose Dorn exploring their sense of otherness with lines like “Shoelace ‘round her neck, keeps her head on tight, she says she’s talked to god, they’ve been staying up all night”). There’s also a really cool trading of vocals where Knight’s lines sound like dialogue in a short story, giving the whole thing the feel of a strange narrated daydream.

Talking of dreamy, ‘Heaven II’ feels fogged by a sleepy torpor, sparse guitar and cooed vocals combining with minimal percussion to create a kind of slo-mo lo fi pop, while closing track ‘Wish’ is also content to take its own time, although burns bright with a much fuller sound. It’s illustrative of Days You Were Leaving in lots of ways, not least in the way it approaches reflective themes in its own unique, bittersweet, way. It shows that the otherness mentioned at the beginning can often be your greatest strength, and that Rose Dorn have come to value it amidst the shifting seas of life in the twenty-first century. The band put it best in their notes on the album:

“This record is about coming to terms with the complexities of life in time, of learning to love and accept where you’ve been and where you’re going while remembering to love and accept where you are.”

Days You Were Leaving is out now on Bar/None Records. Get it from the Bar None Records webstore or the Rose Dorn Bandcamp page. The band are also playing some West coast shows soon. Check the dates below and head along if you’re able:

Thursday, September 19th – Zebulon – Los Angeles, CA – Ex Hex, Seth Bogart
Friday, September 20th – Starline Social Club / Crystal Cavern- Oakland, CA – Fake Fruit
Saturday, September 21st – Arcata, CA Blondies w/ Spirit Notes , OMW2HEAVEN
Sunday, September 22nd – Portland, OR – Vinyl Underground w/ OMW2HEAVEN
Tuesday, September 24th – Olympia, WA – Le Voyeur – w/ Flying Fish Cove, OMW2HEAVEN
Wednesday, September 25th – Seattle, WA – Vera Project, w/ Dogbreth, Bread Pilot
Friday, September 27th – Boise, ID – Castle Greyskull w/ Buttstuff & OMW2HEAVEN
Saturday, September 28th – Moscow, ID – Modest Music Fest
Monday, September 30th – Reno, NV – Holland Project – w/ OMW2HEAVEN
Wednesday, October 2nd – Las Vegas, NV – TBD
Thursday, October 3rd – Phoenix, AZ – Trunk Space w/ Like Diamonds, Gabi JR., OMW2HEAVEN

Photo by Derec Patrick

The post Rose Dorn – Days You Were Leaving appeared first on Various Small Flames.

However, as always, we want to point out that ‘free’ does not have to mean pay nothing in this context. Indeed, the title of the post says ‘free’ music because it’s snappier than ‘name your price’ music, but really that’s a convenient/attention-grabbing misnomer. Last year we spoke about how paying artists makes for the best soil in which to sow creative seeds, and things are no different now. Indeed, with the dawn of Spotify and the all-powerful algorithms, it is more important than ever to support independent artists and labels, and in reality there are already enough free ways to consume music that we don’t need to encourage another.

So please delve into the below list, curated entirely by humans, and spend whatever is left of your Christmas money when you stumble across something you like. We can vouch for the quality of everything here, so don’t be afraid to judge a record by its cover to begin with.

Here’s a handy mix featuring one song from each of the free / ‘name your price’ albums featured:

The post Favourite Free Music of 2017 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

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.

The post Favourite Songs of 2017 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

‘Dirt’ advances in an easy sway, reminiscent of Free Cake For Every Creature in its ability to fuse everyday observations with heart-on-sleeve sincerity, painting the picture of a relationship that’s not as easy as the song sounds.

“I want to go
takes 45 minutes with the traffic to get home
here I’ll take off your coat
tell your best friend that you finally got me alone”

Things are darker on ‘Goodboy’, which uses canine imagery to explore the shady side of relationships, the duo vocals presented in friction rather than harmony, while final track, ‘Heaven’ steps into a romantically retro sound, the melancholic pop vibe almost reminiscent of Mazzy Star. The song blossoms into crunchy alt-rock as the band sing,

“I wanna dive into you
you’re the bluest sea I’ve sever seen”

Speak Later is a great little collection of tracks, and hints at the diversity of paths Rose Dorn could take next. Head to their Bandcamp page to get it.

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