But somehow, amidst the drugs and fighting and perversion, Pollock managed to create characters interesting beyond black curiosity, taking up the mantle of Southern greats such as William Gay and Flannery O’Connor in his ability to induce sympathy or at least complicate the antipathy his characters will garner. This style was developed (and potentially mastered) with Devil All The Time, his debut novel which cast the reader into world in which the membrane between reality and nightmare is leaky at best, with blood sacrifice and serial killer couples complicating an already bleak coming-of-age tale.

While Donald Ray Pollock’s latest novel, The Heavenly Table, takes us back to the 1917, it’s still rooted in the area of America he is making his own. The narrative is snappy and unsettled, the short chapters jumping between various locations and points of view, slowly drawing inwards in an inescapable ring which corrals the characters into the inevitable finale at the town of Meade. We have Ellsworth Fiddler, a swindled farmer trying to save face, Jasper Cone, a painfully afflicted sanitation inspector, Lieutenant Bovard, a jilted husband turned homoerotic (would be) war hero, and finally the luckless Jewett brothers, Cane, Cob and Chimney, who grow tired of the poor life and turn to robbing banks as a path to salvation.

With the graphic violence, crude sex and odd scatological humour, this appears to be more or less Pollock’s odd twist on the standard Western fare. Where things get interesting is that the Jewetts are inspired by a cheap dime novel, The Life and Times of Bloody Bill Bucket. Every cliche can therefore be read as a secondhand gesture, the Jewetts wearing Bloody Bill’s persona like a tacky fancy dress costume, hoping some of his magic (ie. his fictional bravado, success, imperiousness to pain/failure/death) might rub off on them. Furthermore, as their ‘spree’ gains traction so does the media’s reaction, with stories of ‘Jewett’ crimes emanating from newspapers in other areas and states, despite the brothers never having been there.

So not only are the boys distorting fiction into reality, but their reality is distorting into fiction, leaving them having to live up to the magnificent/terrifying tales on both ends. And while it’s apparent the trio are not well-equipped for such pressures, they sure give it their (quite literal) best shot, working on the logic of faking it ’til you make it:

‘Leaning over the horn of his saddle, Chimney spat and then said, “Well, I don’t know who those ol’ boys are back there, but I don’t figure they can shoot any better than we can.”

“Maybe, but there must be fifteen of them in that pack.”

“So?” Chimney said. “That many don’t even amount to one box of shells.”‘

Here are some dust-strewn, blood-spattered songs to listen to as you read.

Tracklisting:

1) Devil Town – Bright Eyes
2) Blood Red Sentimental Blues – Cotton Jones
3) Bury Me in the Garden – Tyler Butler and his Handsome Friends
4) Tom Justice, The Choir Boy Robber, Apprehended at Ace Hardware in Libertyville, IL – Casiotone For The Painfully Alone
5) Murderous Joy – Carter Tanton
6) Christ Jesus – Deer Tick
7) You Should’ve Seen the Other Guy – Nathaniel Rateliff
8) Buriedfed – Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson
9) Fire & Fast Bullets – Blitzen Trapper
10) Brother’s Blood – Kevin Devine
11) I Dreamt of My Brother Dying – Oscar Lush
12) Drunk and On a Star – Kevin Morby
13) Weather of a Killing Kind – The Tallest Man on Earth
14) Whore – Low
15) Liars – Gregory Alan Isakov and the Colorado Symphony
16) Closer to Heaven – Pink Mountaintops
17) Killer – Samantha Crain

The Heavenly Table is out now via Harvill Secker and Doubleday. You can read about Donald Ray Pollock’s other works on the Knopf Doubleday website.

The post Lit Links: Donald Ray Pollock – The Heavenly Table appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The post Wake The Deaf’s Favourite Songs of 2015 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“Music has the power to change minds and to nudge humanity down a different path… I feel like most music just wants to follow the mass around asking what they like and what they want from them. There are bigger things going on, music and art needs to direct attention towards those injustices”

As you might expect from such lofty intentions, Under Branch & Thorn & Tree is an ambitious, far-reaching album, a collection of songs that sound fresh and new yet somehow timeless, as if Crain and her genre-defying style is merely a conduit for stories that have played out for as long as people have lived.

The record opens with ‘Killer’, a misleadingly buoyant track, with it’s jabbing drums and off-kilter synths, born out of a grim truth. The African-American community is suffering at the hands of the police and others. Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Raynette Turner, Samuel Dubose… the list has grown since I started this review’s first draft. While the media is alight with opinions and suggestions and politics, Crain heads for the heart of the matter, challenging not only the events but the surrounding coverage and politics, stripping back the details so that the only important fact remains: People are being murdered and it is not right. Thus, the song, and accompanying video with Evan Horsley as a kid cop, serves the twin purpose of increasing awareness amongst the privileged and urging the disadvantaged to persevere in the hope of a just, equal society.”They say the worst is over, Crain sings, “the lowest reached / But it’s such a long road, keep marching!”

‘Kathleen’ is more of a traditional folk sound, albeit sung with a rare confidence, the verses streaming forth in little rivers:

“A grumble at the telephone
A whispered cuss at the break of dawn
A hardened heart wasn’t in the game plan
But there was a golden braid and an open ear
A funny joke and a lack of fear
The clock out of work
The joy of Kathleen”

‘Elk City’ is perhaps the finest piece of classic folk storytelling I’ve heard this year, Crain’s whispery, warbly vocals spinning the yarn of a 17 year old girl who left home on her boyfriend’s coal wagon chasing promises of fortune. But of course, this is a folk song, and things don’t go exactly to plan. The boyfriend leaves unannounced when “boom turned to bust”, leaving our heroine to become with-child after a night with the washing machine repairman, a night Crain describes brilliantly, “Well that night turned into 9 months / Sitting on my ass / Waiting for a baby / My first and my last”. But hope is not lost as the song ends on a surprisingly (and stirringly) happy note which sees the baby grow up and go to college and beat her mama out of Elk City. These lines convey the hope that many of Crain’s songs contain, not a rosy happy-ever-after fairytale but a bullish refusal to give in to Life’s cruel games, illuminating, like all the best folk songs, an inextinguishable human spirit that unites us all.

Next we get the melodic march of ‘Outside the Pale’, and then ‘You or the Mystery’, a stark and foreboding track that serves as a kind of obituary for a recently deceased neighbour, a man the narrator does not know. “He looked like a sad man”, Crain sings. “Slammed all the doors / never drew up his curtains / He was small and pale on his porch.” The song has a plain, matter-of-fact style that is reminiscent of so much of my favourite American literature, detailing the simple and oddly elegant lives of those in small towns.

‘When You Come Back’ is a slow and sad country song, a jilted lover’s message to the man who left her for another gal, “When you come to the bar could you not bring her? / I don’t want to see you with another lover”. The voice is vulnerable but not beaten, fiercely fragile and ready to rebuild – as is so beautifully captured in the last verse:

“When you come back could you bring my heart?
Its kinda hard livin since you took it so far
I know you broke it but I got spare parts
So when you come back could you bring my heart?”

‘Big Rock’ is a twangy and crunchy slice of rock, the closest thing the album has to runaway good-time country. The narrator here is celebrating their isolation and misfortune, making something out of the hand they’ve been dealt. “I’m stuck on a rock for the longest time…even though I’m all alone the view’s alright”. ‘All In’ is a steady and melodic folk song, while ‘If I Had a Dollar’ sways as if floating up from a jukebox in a smoky twilit bar-room, surrounded by men nursing cool bottles and glasses and a sense of injustice. ‘Moving Day’ is a slow and subtle finale where the titular event feels like the consequence of a long history, the culmination of love and loss and passing time. The character here is wistful and sincere, as if aware that relationships are brittle and unpredictable, or else feeling any present pain insignificant in the face of all the good they once shared.

Crain excels in her ability to grant humanity to all of her characters, leaving us with a strange mixture of pity and joy rising in our chests upon recognising someone as similar to ourselves. Therefore she is the ideal person to write nuance and life into groups usually denied it. These are songs played like inner thoughts or secret diary entries of persons not usually able to or justified in expressing their true sentiments, people who are not as tough as they let on, but tougher than they think in the middle of the night. A selection of underdogs living the lives they have been given, not pining for more or complaining at a cosmic injustice. Quiet, noble people in the trenches of everyday life, those with the broadest shoulders and smallest voices and a hard, buried sense of pride who treat hardship like a member of the family.

Under Branch & Thorn & Tree is out now on Full Time Hobby. You can buy it here (US) and here (Europe). Check out our interview with Samantha here.

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Yowler

“Water permeates the record in all of its guises, in rain and in blood and in sinks, in rivers and seas and oceans, in sheet ice and snow melt and the film over an eye” – The Offer by Yowler gives Maryn Jones a chance to create something intensely personal.

Samantha Crain

“Music has the power to change minds and to nudge humanity down a different path but for the most part I feel like most music just wants to follow the mass around asking what they like and what they want from them. There are bigger things going on, music and art needs to direct attention towards those injustices.” – We chatted to Samantha Crain her forthcoming album Under Branch & Thorn & Tree.

Late Night Music in the Museum

“The evenings showed that museums can be innovative, adaptable and welcoming to all, centres of the community rather than simple tourist novelties…What better way to ensure the survival of an institute than to make it central to the lives and well-being of the people it serves?” – We were left feeling inspired by recent events at the National Museum in Cardiff.

Fevered Press, Fevered Certainty

Cool people cover cool songs by cool bands for a cool zine. What’s not to like? The Epoch Fanzine from Fevered Press, Fevered Certainty.

Right Away, Great Captain

“The journey is an epic one, written in novelistic detail that surpasses the overwhelming majority of albums – tracing the sailor’s time at sea…and his return to land” – Andy Hull’s Right Away, Great Captain release entire catalogue in one anthology.

Harley Alexander

“Just the right blend of luminous and languorous to occupy your headphones during the summer (or dreams thereof)” – Glorious summer vibes from Harley Alexander on Gold Shirt.

Fazed On a Pony

Fox Food Records continue their hot streak with this slice of “raucously rad” indie rock from Fazed On a Pony.

Star Horse

“Keepin’ it dreamy with yearning vocals and a resounding crystalline shimmer” – A few words about ‘Slower Now’ by Star Horse, which premièred on No Fear of Pop earlier this week.

May Roundup mixtape

If you missed the chance to read everything we posted during May, do yourself a favour and catch up with all the cool bands via this handy mixtape.

Introverted Stars

“When I hear Alessia [Cara] valorize her love of staying at home, it feels like an affirmation that my preternatural quietness is a bearable tic rather than a curse. She wants to be alone in her room, and she has the courage to tell it to the whole world” – Molly Long wrote a fantastic piece for The Fader about being introverted and shy… while also being a pop star.

Mark Kozelek Being Offensive Pt. XXVI

“He can use sexually violent language to reduce female critics to the status of groupies, knowing that while male musicians’ misogynist acts are examined for nuance and defended as traits of “difficult” artists, women and those who call them out are treated as hysterics who don’t understand art” – Laura Snapes wrote about her recent run-in with Mark Kozelek for The Guardian…

“Maybe a feminist reimagining of popular music doesn’t just involve putting more women onstage. Maybe it includes creating spaces without stages: where power is fluid, where no one can play god, where art can be shared without elevating artists three feet above their audiences” – …and Sasha Geffen wrote a great piece for Consequence of Sound about Kozelek’s recent behaviour and how he is far from the only example.

Sufjan or ETs?

If you’re like me then you quite like Sufjan Stevens, and you ABSOLUTELY LOVE UFOs and all that weird stuff. Test your knowledge (of either category) with this fun list from Mandala Laura over at McSweeney’s.

Jenny Hval

You can stream the new Jenny Hval album over at the New York Times:

Titus Andronicus

And Titus Andronicus unveiled another track from their forthcoming album ‘The Most Lamentable Tragedy‘:

And Finally… the 8tracks Playlist of the Week

This week’s winner is this gem from Badical Turbo Radness.

The post Week in Review: #4 (1st-5th June) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“A kind of communal voice for the people of native cultures being ignored into oblivion by those with influence in modern America… [a celebration of] the people who are under-represented in US entertainment”

We are saving our review for nearer to the July release date but in the mean time we were lucky enough to get a chance to speak with Crain and delve into her writing process and influences.

Jon: I was writing about an album called Grow/Decompose by Young Jesus which seemed to be somewhere between the traditional album and narrative-driven concept album, and it struck me that this seems not only clever and enjoyable but also a very modern way of writing. That is, fragmented and but cohesive on a wider scale. Under Branch & Thorn & Tree (not to mention your previous albums) strikes me as much the same, a collection of songs that are loosely related but without a single clear narrative. Do you feel the same way? Is each song a separate story, so to speak?

Samantha: Each step of the process involved in making an album is very focused for me, in that, it happens in bursts. I usually write most of the songs in a concentrated amount of time, then completely fixate on the arrangements of those songs for a time, then move to recording and production ideas, and then on to the packaging and art and media surrounding the album. So yes, it makes sense that most of my albums including this one have a theme running throughout them because of the manner in which I work on them. I remain largely the same person throughout the process of the album because it moves very quickly. My creativity comes in bursts, as I said. In the case of this one, Under Branch & Thorn & Tree, I was focused on the importance of painting women as multi-dimensional people in a working class, blue collar world. It moves outside of that small focused area at times to include underdogs of all types, any set of marginalized people. After writing “Kid Face”, my last album, I felt I had really dried up my well of personal experiences because that album was so autobiographical. So I needed to look around me for inspiration. But, back to the songs relating to each other, yes, they all do relate to each other because I wrote them with a target in mind. Each song is its own instance though and exists encompassing the bulls-eye.

You told Stereogum that you “don’t write protest songs in the traditional sense, but I’m always listening to the voices of people around me.” I recently read an article by Alynda Segarra (of Hurray For The Riff Raff) where she calls on folk musicians to ‘fall in love with justice’. Do you feel that folk still has the influence and reach to have a positive impact on societal matters?

I definitely think music still has the power to influence politically and socially, it is just a matter of bringing it back into the popular mainstream. I would love to see a time when art does not just imitate life, but art creates the kind of life it imagines. I think this has manifested before in the 60s folk scene, punk in the 70s, a lot of Mento and Reggae, I could go on…. Music has the power to change minds and to nudge humanity down a different path but for the most part I feel like most music just wants to follow the mass around asking what they like and what they want from them. There are bigger things going on, music and art needs to direct attention towards those injustices. Its a good challenge too, to try to do that in a creative way, not just a blatant, literal way.

To return to that Stereogum piece, you said that the songs are written from the perspective of the underdog, “the 99% of us that are working people.” Do you feel that folk (or at least the semi-mainstream line) has been somewhat taken from the working class? Would you lay the blame with the deluge of super-popular middle-class banjo strummers that have flooded the airwaves over the past few years? Or do you think true folk continues independent of popular trends?

The music of the people will exist regardless of what is going is on in the mainstream, there has always been an underground and there will continue to be because zeal and passion will always remain. However, I do think that the music successfully reaching our ears is based on the interests and experiences of a Lilliputian and privileged party. As controversial as the idea may be, coarseness and affliction have been the backdrops for the most moving art, and, yes, the fading recognition of a passionate 99% in favor of a white and heterosexual deep pocket has made music and art quite insipid.

On the note of folk being taken away from the people, the Segarra piece I mentioned earlier focusses on how folk music is has become something made by and for white heterosexual men, something which I think could be applied to art (or rather: Art, the important capitalised sort) in general. I’ve read a few similar pieces recently: Mitski said she feels she has to be “150 percent and better than everybody in the room to be considered competent,” author Claire Vaye Watkins recently had an epiphany via Twitter where she realised she had been writing to impress white males, and Anwen Crawford wrote about how female music critics aren’t taken seriously. Do you agree that the whole idea of approval/praise in Art is geared towards what men want to consume? Do you feel you have ever put out something which went against your artistic instincts in order to gain patriarchal approval/validation? What needs to change to ensure people have creative freedom in the future?

I do know this is something that happens, artists, especially female artists, feeling they must pander to men in order to be successful, but I’m much too obstinate to let anyone have much influence over what I put out into the world. Not everyone has the same disposition though so the main thing here that we need to work towards imparting is gender and race equality, I’m not talking about legally (although that is a huge first step), I mean really injecting those principles into the framework of society. The more widespread and standard those principles become, the closer we get to a place where artists create freely, and, even more importantly, where people live freely.
I read that you once studied Creative Writing to some extent in college? Do songs blossom from your story writing, or vice versa? Or are they separate endeavours without much crossover?

My “extent” of college lasted just under 2 semesters, so like 8 months. I hated college and I got out of there as soon as I saw another option. Anything I learned about writing, I learned from just reading a lot. I used to write short stories as a kid and into my teenage years but the minute I started writing songs, that all went out the window, I had found the most fitting form of writing for myself. So songwriting is all there is now. I’ve dabbled with the idea of play writing and maybe getting back into short story writing but I’d need to really switch gears to fully focus on and learn that discipline.

Does literature have a big influence on your music? [if so] Who would you say are the writers who have had the biggest impact on your work?

Yes, most of the words that inspire me most weren’t set to music. D.H. Lawrence, Breece D’J Pancake, Dylan Thomas, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Louise Bogan, Flannery O’Connor.I know it’s kind of par for the course of a musician but is it ever a struggle releasing new music? I’ve always wondered how artists feel when complete strangers at their shows know all the words and cherish the songs as something personal to them. Is it difficult to hand over the songs to the listeners after expending so much energy and emotion?

I don’t find it difficult. For me, by the time the album is coming out, by the time the songs are reaching a public, my energy has already cleared the intensity of the connection with the songs. I can still speak about them and sing them with fervor and dedication because they are mine, but the hypersensitivity has mellowed, a bit like “I can see clearly now the rain is gone”.

Finally, could you share four or five of the acts you are listening to at the moment. They can new or old, popular or obscure, whatever you find yourself returning to.

Favorite music right now: Frazey Ford, Chad VanGaalen, Eef Barzelay, Chopin Nocturnes, and Sibylle Baier.

Samantha Crain’s new album, Under Branch & Thorn & Tree, is out on the 17th July. You can pre-order it now from her official website or Full Time Hobby, and if you sign-up to the mailing list then you can get ‘Outside The Pale’ as a free download right now. The impatient among you should head over to the store and delve into her back-catalogue. Crain is also touring extensively this summer, including some UK dates (see below). A full list can be found here.

31^st July : Perth – Southern Fried Roots Festival

1^st Aug: Perth – Southern Fried Roots Festival

2^nd Aug: Glasgow – Broadcast

3^rd Aug: Leeds – Brudenell Social Club

4^th Aug: Manchester – Gullivers

5^th Aug: Bristol – The Louisiana

6^th Aug: London – Sebright Arms

7^th Aug: Brighton – Hope and Ruin

The post Interview: Samantha Crain appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The May Roundup mix below contains a track from every artist we featured during the month (apart from Sharon van Etten and Noah Gundersen, sorry!), so plug your headphones in and enjoy some new music. Click the artists’ names in the tracklisting below to be taken to the post in question.

Tracklisting:

1. No More Sad Songs – Elvis Depressedly
2. Catchyalater – Frog
3. The Day Draws Near – The Washboard Abs
4. Every House is On Fire – Island Eyes
5. Forever – Boosegumps
6. Open Casket Hidden Meaning – Molly Drag
7. The Arp – Aidan Knight
8. Atheist Money – Adam Stafford
9. Lynx – The Tarantula Waltz
10. Milo – Young Jesus
11. Slow Dark Water – Furnsss
12. Aubrey – Debris Slide
13. Foreign Hands – Aisha Badru
14. I Need Never Get Old – Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats
15. Outside the Pale – Samantha Crain
16. Home – The Modern Folk
17. Staggers and Rise – Small Houses
18. Yannina – Jake Houlsby
19. To the Black Horizon – Mark Timmins
20. Heart – Bobby’s Oar
21. Bling – Bells Atlas
22. And You Meant the Sea – Ruth & Trudy
23. Party – Lake Michigan
24. Growing Leaves – Gay Angel
25. On and On – Zee Town and the Dog Boys
26. Travel Map – Hip Hatchet
27. Zoa – Batte Ave.
28. The Bird – Kathryn Joseph
29. …Until They’re Called – Old Earth

May 2015 Roundup from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

The post May Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“I don’t write protest songs in the traditional sense, but I’m always listening to the voices of people around me. These stories are told from the perspective of the underdog, the 99% of us that are working people. They might not be literal protest songs, but the lives of the people within these songs speak at the same volume if you listen.”

Check out the track in the player below:

The album, Under Branch & Thorn & Tree, will be released on the 17th July and you can pre-order it now from Full Time Hobby.

The post Samantha Crain – Outside the Pale appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Nicholas Krgovich – Who Cares?

Nicholas Krgovich, the man behind projects like Gigi, No Kids and P:ano, is back with a solo album under his own name. With little more than a guitar/ukulele and his voice, the LP is a minimal acoustic folk record. This, however, does not do justice to the multitude of styles he manages to reference/borrow from. Who Cares? is out now on Jaz Records.

M. Lockwood Porter – Chris Bell / Secrets

M. Lockwood Porter is an Oklahoma-born, San Francisco-based folk/country artist. Last year he released an album, Judah’s Gone and opened for acts such as John Moreland and Samantha Crain. Porter recently released a new double A-side 7″; one a country-tinged tribute to Big Star’s Chris Bell, the other a “Malkmus-esque” ballad. You can buy both songs on a pay-what-you-want basis over at Bandcamp.

Family and Friends – Love You Mean It

Family and Friends are a folk rock band from Atlanta, Georgia. They describe their sound as, “Equal parts indie, rock, and sincerity, sliced, diced, smothered, covered, and rooted in folk.” This is a pretty accurate description, and if you like bands such as The Head and The Heart, then I’d highly suggest checking out Family and Friends. The band recorded their debut EP, Love You Mean It, after a successful Kickstarter campaign, and you can get it right now for just $5 over at Bandcamp.

Nicole Dollanganger – Observatory Mansions

Toronto’s Nicole Dollanganger makes a haunting brand of bedroom pop that juxtaposes gently crooned vocals with weird, often extraordinarily violent lyrics. It’s a strange listen that delves into some really interesting areas, challenging the presumptions of the listener. Observatory Mansions is taken from the book of the same name by Edward Carey, a story about love set in a sad, strange setting inhabited by odd people. I can see the link.

Fronts – Kind Rays

Next up is Fronts, a singer-songwriter from the German city of Jena. ‘Kind Rays’ is a beautiful little indie folk song, perfect for the dawn of Spring. Fans of bands like Blind Pilot will love this. There is currently very little information available, but what I do know is that ‘Kind Rays’ is the first track from a forthcoming EP. I’m certainly excited to hear more.

Joe Nolan – Tornado

What is it about Edmonton and folk singers? Joe Nolan is a singer-songwriter from the Albertan capital who makes everything from Americana tinged folk-rock to delicate, melancholic slow burners. His latest album Tornado, was released back in January on Six Shooter Records. Check out ‘Pawnshop’ in the player below and then order the album here.

The post Feet On The Ground: Vol. 6 appeared first on Various Small Flames.