Sea Ghost Archives - Various Small Flames

February 2016 Roundup – A Mixtape

Jon Doyle — Wed, 02 Mar 2016 14:00:31 +0000

That’s right, February 2016 is a thing of the past. We think it’ll live on in our ears though, because there was some exceptional music floating around that we’ll be going back to all year. Here’s a playlist featuring every act we wrote about, hosted on the brand new (at least to us) Playmoss platform. As ever, click on the artist’s name in the tracklisting to be beamed off to the specific post.

Tracklisting:

1. A Hospital + Crucifix Made of Plastic – Florist
2. Richmond – talons’
3. Say – Indoor Voices
4. Aeroplane – House Plants
5. When I Was an Island – David Karsten Daniels
6. The Gentleman’s Apocalypse – JR Green
7. Hitman – Mrs. Hopewell
8. sun drops – ratbath
9. A Cruise – Brian S. Cassidy
10. Orpheus – Matt Kivel
11. Your Love – Jeremy Squires (INTERVIEW)
12. Blood Moon – C.M. Slenko
13. Bake – Broken Beak
14. Brushes Like a Fox – Saint Corsair
15. daniel – francie cool
16. Baby Blue – Mount Moriah
17. For You – Free Cake For Every Creature
18. Have This Dance – Govier
19. Goodness (trailer) – The Hotelier
20. The River Because – Sawtooth
21. why are you so cool? – Dying Adolescence
22. cockroach – tall friend
23. Waiting – Faint Peter
24. Heart Destroyer – Lazy Legs
25. Take it Forever – Beat Radio (INTERVIEW)
26. Every One of Them, Dogs – Quarterly
27. like a feather or a pawprint – Field Medic
28. Lay For June – Old Earth
29. 2 old 2 broke – Gorgeous Bully
30. Funny Man Routine – Table People
31. House & Home – Arlo Aldo
32. Cave Song – Sea Ghost
33. Everywhere (Fleetwood Mac cover) – Boosegumps (from Sugar Rush)

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Sea Ghost – SG

Liam Doyle — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 14:58:21 +0000

Sea Ghost are a four-piece indie rock band from Georgia who make what they describe as “ghost pop jams with guitars”. This album, SG, was released in autumn of last year (and made our Fav Free Music of 2015 list), but has recently been given the cassette treatment by our friends at Z Tapes so we thought we would take the opportunity to write something a little more in-depth.

The band’s brand of bright and energetic indie pop is slightly weird and slightly wistful, coming across as an amalgamation of some of indie rock’s big hitters. You could cite The Unicorns and fellow Georgia acts like Deerhunter and Of Montreal as base influences, plus acts such as Arms and Radiator Hospital poke through too. ‘Cowboy Hat’ is our first taste of this, with lots of hammered percussion and slightly nostalgic, carefree vocals. Indeed frontman Carter Sutherland’s vocals are a focus point across the record, possessing a trembled blend of hope and fear that shoots life into everything he sings. ‘Blood’ begins with some spiky guitars before it goes barrelling into another hectic indie rock track, ending in pounded percussion and Sutherland’s yelps and cries, before the slower opening of ‘Cave Song’, a track which grows in intensity, its instrumental lulls adorned with plonking xylophone.

‘Goldfish’ has lean and wiry guitar lines and these big stuttering, manic interludes, and ‘BBQ’ marries shoegaze and hip hop, its glitchy beats and mesmeric vocals bringing to mind Majical Cloudz. ‘Dog 69’ comes to life with luminous synths and strummed guitars, a sample-filled interlude around the 2/3 mark, before ‘Spokes’ and its raucous energy and refrain of “I would never guess again”. ‘Lalala’ has warm strummed guitar and lacksidasical percussion and deceptively dark lyrics, “i want your pretty symptoms ive seen in cold museums /
i want that mausoleum, Christian love in my throat.” And then closer, ‘Lakes’, reigns things in, slow and sedate, mainly acoustic guitar and DIY percussion.

“if there’s no ocean
we’ll go swimming in a lake
if there’s no islands
we’ll be fine with pretty fakes”

The band also recently put together a video for the track ‘Dog 69’, directed by Mike Ellwood. Check it out below:

Then all that’s left to do is head over to the Z Tapes Bandcamp page to get SG on cassette or as a digital download.

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Favourite Free Music of 2015: S-Z

Jon Doyle — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 18:57:29 +0000

Here’s the fifth and final instalment of our Favourite Free Music of 2015 list. Check out the other parts here. Remember, while it’s always tempting to put a big fat zero for ‘name your price’ releases, you can give a little something. Bands need to eat too, and would doubtless appreciate even the smallest donation for their efforts. It’s the least they deserve.

Sabbatical Wilderness – Night Life in the Lemon Town of Büshka (REVIEW)
(RIYL: experimental, narrative-driven music, J-RPGs)

Sad Girls Club – Sad Girls Clubbing
(RIYL: bedroom artists, 90s/00s pop, crying in discos)

Sailor Jupiter – S/T
(RIYL: punk, noise, Riot Grrrls)

Schapero – Girls EP
(RIYL: catchy pop, Toro y Moi, LCD Soundsystem)

Sea Ghost – SG
(RIYL: punk, powerpop, The Unicorns)

Single Colour Fields – Jaundiced Views
(RIYL: dream pop, freak folk, splits)

Sister Something – Duds EP / The Tongue Davids EP
(RIYL: indie rock, post-pop, Mac DeMarco)

Sleeping In – EP
(RIYL: shoegaze, Speedy Ortiz, Sonic Youth)

Slows Down – S/T (REVIEW)
(RIYL: dream pop, drone, post rock)

SNCKPCK – LAVA PAL
(RIYL: Electronic, chill, positivity)

Spirit of the Beehive – You Are Arrived (But You’ve Been Cheated) (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie rock, lo-fi, dream rock for disaffected youth)

Sports Day Records – RELAY (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie pop, bedroom pop, compilations)

Stolen Jars – Kept
(RIYL: math pop, folk, Dirty Projectors, Freelance Whales)

Strange Friends – Summer Recordings (REVIEW)
(RIYL: fuzz pop, lo-fi, Gorgeous Bully)

Stray Amour – S/T
(RIYL: indie pop, shoegaze)

Sun Hotel – Coast / Fight Off You Demos
(RIYL: folk, “swamp pop”, Lord Huron)

Sunshine Faces – Peaked / Letting You Know
(RIYL: dream pop, lo-fi, bedroom pop)

Ursidae – Tape 4
(RIYL: drone, field recordings, sonic collage)

The Wailin’ Smithers – S/T (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie rock, laidback summer fun)

The Wandering Lake – From James’ Garden
(RIYL: psych folk, experimental, meditative vibes)

The Washboard Abs – WHATEVERLAND (REVIEW) / The Beaming Pts. 1 & 2 (REVIEW)
(RIYL: bedroom pop, folk, Mount Eerie)

Wished Bone – Pseudio Recordings
(RIYL: dreamy lo-fi, Elliott Smith, Sharon van Etten)

Yesses – S/T
(RIYL: lo-fi, pop, The Beatles)

We’ve shared a new section of the list every day this week, so be sure to check back for the complete collection. If you find something you like, or think we missed something life-changing, then why not let us know on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr or good old email.

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