The week saw the second such collaboration, this time with Philadelphia blog sensation Swell Tone. Curated by Shana Hartzel, Summer of Sad is a ten-song release featuring a range of styles and genres linked by the common themes of being 1) summery, 2) sad, 3) great. Or, as Shana puts it:

“Summer of Sad is about the quiet moments of the hottest season. It’s the warm breeze on a moonlit night and the mellow release of melancholia as you float down the river on an inner-tube in the hot, hot sun. A collaboration between Philly music blog Swell Tone and Slovakian tape label Z Tapes, the compilation combines 10 songs from female artists and female-fronted bands to create a dual atmosphere of summer’s brightness and the depths of longing. As if time were being kept by the creak of an old, back porch swing, the songs sway with an effortless sincerity.”

‘Icebergs’ by Bevelers opens, playing like some mountain hymn for the twenty-first century, while ‘Bad Way’ by Pop & Obachan is a slow, dreamy rock jam that seems caught between light and dark. “You arrived a surprise in the strangest way,” sings Emma Tringali, “what started as hate ended as a beautiful thing”. Lomelda’s glitchy folk rock follows, ‘Ya w/Me?’ insular and downbeat yet also somehow warm in its incredibly human heartbreak:

“So you don’t wanna be a family
You told me
Sitting at the table that my grandparents left for me
I just poured you another glass
Did ya notice
The silence that passed is all that lasts?
Where did ya go?”

Summer Flake’s ‘Shoot and Score’ is a slightly off-kilter rock tune, the vocals sliding over the music in monotone sheets, always threatening to deepen into something more dark or dangerous but never quite following through. ‘bat’ by CBMC’s ÓOR is a submerged bedroom number, the instrumentation rippling like the surface of a pond, while Queen of Jeans’ cover of Roy Orbison’s ‘In Dreams’ is seized by a timeless, romantic melancholy, the dramatic drums and crooned vocals conjuring that perfect tortured state unique to country singers and Hollywood actors.

The second cover, Candace’s rendition of Buffalo Springfield’s ‘Way Home’, is similarly arresting, snaking between fond sadness in the verses and the carefree forgiveness (or at least forget) in the chorus. Mia Loucks follows this with ‘summer’, a song both muffled and bright, as though sung the bottom of a swimming pool, lit electric blue during a sweaty August night. Sarah M.’s ‘t-shirt’ worms its way gradually out from beneath heavy bass, the energy rising across its run-time, before Deer Scout closes the release with ‘Haus’. Half-paced and soft, this is a song for those late summer nights where autumn comes knocking, darkness arriving a little too early, cool damp creeping into the fabric of things. Luckily, Dena Miller’s vocals are the perfect antidote, weaving a blanket in which to wrap yourself, through the night and winter both.

Working as a stellar release in its own right, as well as an introduction to ten acts that will soon be amongst your favourites, Summer of Sad is pretty much the perfect compilation, and a great example of the special things that can happen when enthusiastic people team up and combine their energies.

Summer of Sad is out now and you can get it now from the Z Tapes Bandcamp page, including a rather lovely cassette edition. All digital sales will be donated to Slovakian charity, Esther, who help people live again after domestic abuse.

Cover art drawn by Victoria Engle, colored Caitlin McCann

The post Summer of Sad – Swell Tone & Z Tapes appeared first on Various Small Flames.

This week we welcome Shana Hartzel from the wonderful Swell Tone, who is also the assistant director of Philadelphia’s Y-Not Radio, and hosts the show ‘Aussie Unlocked’ (2nd Fridays, 9-10pm).

Into the Pines

by Shana Hartzel

Follow the playlist below into a path through the woods that you’ll never return from. Like any good hike, it starts off sunny and confident. But, panics as the trail and that sunlight disappear.

Song that reminds you of being somewhere special

The Jungle Giants – Mr. Polite

When I worked my first ever music festival, I was living in Brisbane, Australia. I only knew about three of the acts on the festival bill of 100. Hungry Kids of Hungary was a recommendation I had gotten but their tiny showcase maxed out before I could get there. I wandered blindly into the next silliest named band I saw: The Jungle Giants. As I stepped into the wooden sweatbox of The Zoo, they jumped right into this song. It was arguably the band’s first hit track and immediately swept the whole vacuum-packed crowd into a sequence of pleasurable, almost involuntary jumping. This song marked the first moment I felt fully immersed in a musical experience and became the go-to soundtrack of my happiest memories of Brisbane.

Song with a food in the title

Smokes – Lemonlime

This song riiiiips from beginning to end. It matches its name in acidity and really sinks its teeth into those guitar lines. The Oh Hi Collective just put out the track a bit ago on their second compilation that’s brimming with artists that deserve to be heard.

Song that reminds you of your favourite film

John Gold – Vampire’s Kiss

I don’t have a favorite anything really so that applies to films as well. But, I do love a good straight-from-the-barrel, stereotypical teen flick. So, I’m subverting the system and going with a song that reminds me of a genre. (Sorry, Jon and Liam ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) I think we can all agree that teen movies (and teen TV) are a great place to discover new music as the audience is a cross between receptive to new things and constantly consuming. Somehow, this song also fits all of the teen movie stereotypes as well. In Gold’s smooth hum, it’s suffers through passion howling words you are right for thinking you can’t understand. “Siri Guru Devay Nameh” is a healing mantra used during yoga that loosely translates to “I bow to the great, unseen wisdom.” It’s a saccharine love song complete with crickets and and I still love it.

https://soundcloud.com/vagrantrecords/john-gold-vampires-kiss

Song that sounds like the prehistoric world

Young Men Dead – Courageous

My first thought on this was something tropical with a lot of drums and then I knew exactly which track I had in mind. This band doesn’t exist anymore. In fact, I think they only existed for quite a short time and called it quits just as they started to pick up steam. But this song has a clear heartbeat and drive that for some reason reminds me of the land before time.

Song that makes you want to smash things up

Violent Soho – Covered in Chrome

Wow. If this doesn’t make you wanna smash things or at least violently thrash about, I honestly don’t know what will. The verses give you a breather so you can regain your sanity.

Song with an animal in the title

Shannen Moser – dog

It’s short and not too sweet but those colliding guitar lines and sing-a-long chorus make it the perfect tune for a night drive through the city.

The Kossoy Sisters – In The Pines

Courtney Barnett put this song on a playlist she made for a radio interview I did with her back in 2014. It sent me down the rabbit hole of the song’s undetermined origins. This 1956 version featuring guitar work from Erik Darling is one of the first recordings of the tune. Nirvana also sang a version of the same song on their 1993 MTV Unplugged special. Something about this haunting melody in close, exact harmony just makes it dig in further to the creepy crevices of the brain.

For those of you that favour a bit of continuity in life, here’s the whole thing as one neat playlist – Shana’s Mystery Mini EP.

Head on over to Swell Tone for more from Shana, and be sure to pop in again next Wednesday for the next instalment of Mystery Mini Mix.

The post Mystery Mini Mix: Shana Hartzel appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Today we are delighted to share a piece by Shana Hartzel, one half of the excellent, Philly-based music blog Swell Tone. If you are unfamiliar with the site, Hartzel and her partner in crime Victoria surf the high seas of new music and write about the best of it, with well-written reviews, cool sessions, innovative (and often pizza-based) guest appearances and regular mixtapes full of unearthed gems. Basically, it offers everything a music blog should.

As if that wasn’t enough, Shana also writes for The Wild Honey Pie, and is the assistant director of Philadelphia’s Y-Not Radio, and hosts the show ‘Aussie Unlocked’ on 2nd Fridays, 9-10pm (or you can find them on-demand via Mixcloud).

Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park
by Shana Hartzel

Though I’ve never been the most dedicated reader, my adoration for Jane Austen hasn’t waned since my first required reading of Pride and Prejudice. The English novelist’s romantic yet satirical fiction is an ideal match for my constantly shifting mental stream of humor and enchantment. It is a rare literary love that, at its peak, led to a full day of my life being dedicated to baking scones and lemon tarts, wearing frilly dresses, and plowing through the film adaptations of her three biggest novels in the company of a large pot of tea and my equally nerdy best friend.

There is something especially intriguing about Mansfield Park. Austen’s third novel is arguably her strongest exploration into the cloudy dichotomies of the British middle class and her most controversial work. Amongst an examination of the period’s morals and privileges and a slew of amorous entanglements, the story centers around the life of Fanny Price. Fanny is relocated at age ten from her markedly poor family to live with her wealthy relatives at Mansfield Park where she becomes a tiresome burden to everyone but her cousin Edmund.

Thanks to Edmund’s kindness, Fanny survives through an upbringing of monetary privilege and emotional abuse to become the most morally centered resident of the estate. As a character, Fanny isn’t nearly as agreeable or as openly charming as Austen’s other protagonists. Her emotional fragility appropriately reflects her constant treatment as an inferior. Yet, she always manages to imperfectly persevere through matters of affairs, slavery, debauchery, and consanguineous relationships. Seemingly unaffected by normal rules of decorum, her free will and clarity of thinking are always her best defense against the surrounding negativity. In the many ways it both defines and guides her, Fanny’s sincere approach to life is what has always drawn me back to this story in particular.

While the book itself portrays music as a skill that elevates character or a means by which affections are exchanged through dance, I have aimed to take a more modern musical approach to the grandeur and societal confines of Mansfield Park. Below, you’ll find an assortment of songs that challenge structural and melodic conventions in the way that Austen’s characters grapple with the expectations of their environment and upbringing. The sonic mix paints the spirit of the novel’s colorfully quaint world in stokes of humble grace, fearsome defiance, and (of course) irrevocable declarations of love.

Tracklisting

1. 1914 – Florist
2. Looking Out for You – Joy Again
3. For You – Free Cake For Every Creature
4. Super Rat – Honeyblood
5. The Garden – Flinter
6. Don’t Feel So Alive – Gabriella Cohen
7. p r e s c r i p t i o n – Good Try
8. Hey – The Twoks
9. Your Best American Girl – Mitski
10. Don’t Go – CBMC
11. Jogalong – Rozi Plain
12. Girl! – Terror Pigeon
13. Right Now – Amber Arcades
14. Tame One – Your Friend
15. All Day and All Night – And The Kids
16. No Room For Doubt – Lianne La Havas Ft. Willy Mason
17. Running with the Wolves – Aurora
18. You and I – Margaret Glaspy
19. Geranimo – Aphra
20. The Sun – BATTLE AVE.

You should most definitely add Swell Tone to your ‘blogs to check regularly’ list, and you can also find them on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Soundcloud and Playmoss. The Quiet, Constant Friends compilation is still available on our Bandcamp page, including a rather nice limited edition tape and art print bundle. All profits go to Worldreader so why not treat yourself?

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