The Estok’Gna have survived hundreds of years of genocide and oppression since the arrival of Europeans, and continue to face severe threats to their culture, history and way of life. Now, three natural gas pipelines are planned on traditional Carrizo/Comecrudo Tribe territory, which would destroy scared sites and make it a felony for the Estok’Gna to occupy them. Not to mention the project’s lack of consideration to it’s non-human impacts—current plans will see it destroy over 300 acres of important habitat that is home to 21 endangered species.

As you would expect from Keeled Scales, the album contains recordings from a whole host of great artists. From indie rock heavyweights like Big Thief and Sharon Van Etten, to the countless whose releases we have written about and loved over the last few years, including (takes breath) Black Belt Eagle Scout, Erin Durant, Jess Williamson, Jo Schornikow, Karima Walker, Sun June, Will Johnson, and Tenci.

There is considerable diversity across the 31 tracks, but all are united by a common spirit. Renée Reed brings her distinctive and dreamlike Cajun folk with ‘J’ai Trouve’, while Christelle Bofale shows off her wonderful soulful vocals with a stripped-back demo titled ‘And I’ll Go’ and Aisha Burns sets the tone with the collection’s first track, the beautiful and immersive ‘Chinati’. A personal favourite is Little Mazarn’s take on the classic cowboy folk song ‘Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie,’ which sounds at once bright and mournful.

100% of donations from the album will go directly to the Estok’Gna to support their fight for their land, culture and very existence. As Keeled Scales put it: “As indigenous people continue to lead the fight against the reckless fossil fuel industry, we are honored to offer this compilation and its earnings in solidarity with everyone in the fight for racial justice and a livable future for all beings on planet earth.”

To the People of the Land is out now and available via the Keeled Scales Bandcamp page.

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The Album Wall is a one-man blog run by Joel Dear, who writes all sorts of great things like this recent piece on CHUCK’s masterpiece and this not so recent piece on the legends that are Okkervil River, plus shares super controversial opinions like this semi-insinuation that Hospice isn’t the one of best albums ever committed to tape (though his original review used the word ‘essential’, so it’s all cool).

If You’re Beautiful

by Joel Dear

Song from a different continent to your own

Caetano Veloso – O Estrangeiro

Caetano Veloso is a Brazilian musician whom I was lucky enough to see live at the Primavera Sound festival in Porto a couple of years ago. I bought his Definitive Collection CD from one of the merch stalls while I was there, and while this track isn’t particularly typical of the compilation as a whole, I do enjoy the way it sounds a bit like Nine Inch Nails so here it is.

Song for the coldest day of the year

Sharon Van Etten – Tarifa

Few songs warm me up like ‘Tarifa’. When Sharon Van Etten recorded this track, she created a sort of audiowomb that almost envelopes you as you listen to it – perfect for simulating that warm ‘n’ toasty feeling on cold days.

Sure, it’s a pretty melancholy song. But it’s a cosy kind of melancholy, y’know?

Favourite song from this year

Mothers – Nesting Behaviour

There are currently a fair few tracks in contention for my personal ‘Song of 2016’ award (and obviously there are several exciting new releases still to come this year), but ‘Nesting Behaviour’ is certainly among the front-runners right now. Its sparing arrangement is a masterclass in not overdoing things, and the way Kristine Leschper’s voice swoops and wavers before soaring up to hit those last few high notes (“Reminding me not to bloom…”) gives me the trembles every time. Stunning.

Song that reminds you of someone awful

John Grant – Jesus Hates Faggots

When I was in sixth form – about eight or nine years ago now – I spent more time than I would have liked in the company of a truly awful person whose name I won’t disclose here. Let’s just call him James.

There was lots to dislike about James. He was irritating. He was lecherous. He was not very bright. He had more money than everyone else. He seemed to have no concept of personal space or boundaries; once, upon noticing my larger-than-average Adam’s apple, he literally reached across the table to try and touch it, the absolute freak.

Worst of all, though, were his religious beliefs. James was – if I remember correctly – a Baptist, and he genuinely held some of those scary beliefs that you don’t really expect to encounter nowadays outside certain parts of the USA. Most notably, he had very little tolerance for gay people; in fact, he once informed me that, if he encountered any “gays”, he would chain them to the back of his car and drag them around behind him as he drove. (Ironically, his favourite musician was Elton John, so either his homophobia was very selective or he missed a memo somewhere down the line.)

Frustratingly, most of the other people in my year seemed to think that James, for all his foibles, was a great laugh and a fun person to have around. For my part, I hated being around him – I think he’s still the closest thing I’ve ever met to the biblical bigots that John Grant imitates in this song’s choruses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDFg7kuX97U

Song that reminds you of your favourite book

The Magnetic Fields – Asleep and Dreaming

My all-time favourite book is The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which means that the obvious choice here would have been Paranoid Android from Radiohead’s OK Computer (named for Marvin the Paranoid Android, a character from Hitchhiker’s Guide who isn’t actually paranoid so much as clinically depressed).

However, I didn’t want to take the obvious choice, so I instead turned to one of my very favourite albums, the titanic three-disc pop odyssey that is 69 Love Songs by The Magnetic Fields. The beautiful Asleep and Dreaming is track number 42 of 69, and the number 42 – according to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – is The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe and Everything.

There aren’t really any parallels beyond that. I just like this song a lot and I’m kind of a sucker for number stuff.

Here’s the entire ‘EP’ as one thing, if that sounds like something you might prefer:

Be sure to add The Album Wall to your list of sites to check on Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays, and follow his Twitter and Facebook pages as a reminder.

Artwork by Vicky, Joel’s girlfriend (he can’t remember why she drew this)

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“No One Knows That You’re Lost is an album inspired by the Norwegian coast and a human interior, by tight itching doubts and wide open spaces. Here, fragility, strength and beauty become one and the same, parts of a landscape in constant flux yet remaining fundamentally unchanged”

Tina very kindly agreed to write a guest post for our ‘Lit Links‘ series (part of the Quiet, Constant Friends project), where artists and writers create a playlist of songs based around a book of their choice. Arm yourself with headphones and have a read below.

Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding
by Tina Refsnes

I’ve never felt comfortable with answering questions that ask for «the best» or «your all time favourite» as I just feel there’s too much good and different material in the world to hold them up against each other like that. So, I’ll say that one of my favourite books that I enjoyed immensely reading is one called The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. It’s set in an American College and with baseball as the back-drop, and it’s one of those slow books with great meaning but without the drama. It deals with the big hopes that young people usually have to life, with self doubt in performance, and with the social difficulties or shyness that young people sometimes struggle with. But, in a very down to earth way since, at least the main character, is so un-academic. I also imagined this suburban North-American setting for it: Long, wide streets with tall leaf trees on both sides of it. Really big and old campus buildings, and maybe since the characters were so alone in their minds I kept picturing everything as with never that many people around.

Tracklisting:

1. Jenny Come Home- Andy Shauf
   2. Gather, Form and Fly – Megafaun
   3. Own Side – Caitlin Rose
   4. Casimir Pulaski Day – Sufjan Stevens
   5. Easy – Laura Marling
   6. Blue Train – Emmy Lou Harris, Linds Ronstadt and Dolly Parton
   7. Out of the Woodwork – Courtney Barnett
   8. Big Black Road – Thousands
   9. That Knot Unties? – David Karsten Daniels
   10. Mr. Rodriguez – Rayland Baxter
   11. We Are Fine – Sharon Van Etten
   12. Horizons – The Staves
   13. Archie, Marry Me – Alvvays
   14. Friends – 22-20s
   15. Poison Oak – Bright Eyes

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Young Jesus

“I think you can confront darkness with sincerity and that the best stuff acknowledges the light that is in the dark and vice versa” – an interview with Young Jesus, chatting about concept albums, life-changing novels & the balance between darkness and light.

Sharon Van Etten

“Heartfelt, brave and benevolent, not exactly an answer but a reassuring hand to hold while you’re working on the question” – You should be excited about the new EP from Sharon Van Etten.

Elvis Depressedly

“Elvis Depressedly will not mend broken bones or cast out demons or have you walking across hot coals. Instead they… offer an achievable version of optimism, one which does not require manic enthusiasm or God-like goodwill but instead a pinch of determination and a firm belief in love” – we get to grips with the new Elvis Depressedly record New Alhambra.

Bells Atlas

“Blending the visceral emotions of R&B and soul with an off-the-wall, avant-garde vibe akin to Dirty Projectors and tUnE-yArDs” – ‘Bling’ welcomes you to the eclectic world of Bells Atlas.

Gay Angel

“The sound of one creative mind expressing itself in the most maximalist way imaginable” – The second floret of Gay Angel’s 100-song bonquet is .

Zee Town and the Dog Boys

“Think Beach House in their sad teenage bedroom years” – the self-titled album from Zee Town and the Dog Boys combines shoegazy fuzz with intimate bedroom pop.

Aisha Badru

“The confessional, angry-but-still-in-love style of all the best break-up songs” – an introduction to the organic folk of Aisha Badru.

Noah Gundersen

“A rousing, textured love song that would be a radio hit in any just world” – we get the first taste of the new Noah Gundersen album with ‘Slow Dancer’.

Ruth & Trudy

“An unorthodox brand of lo-fi pop that blends a laidback hipness with heartfelt naivete” – Still Pond Songs, an album from Ruth & Trudy, out on Slovakian label Z Tapes.

Alynda Segarra

“Blues women foreshadowed a movement of feminists of color that is vibrantly alive today… leaving behind the embarrassing and soul crushing caricatures of women of color that I was fed my whole life” – Hurray for Riff Raff leading lady Alynda Segarra (who we have had the pleasure of talking to) has written a great piece on the feminist legacy blues women for American Songwriter.

The Weather Station

“Country songs are always about driving, journeys, and these sorts of things. I found that these songs were about journeys but not” – Exclaim talk to Tamara Lindeman about Loyalty, the excellent new album from The Weather Station.

Bedroom Pop

“The qualities they share are somewhat intangible, more emotional than sonic, and can be more easily felt than described” – Jacob W. Moore wrote a primer on bedroom pop for the uninitiated, citing bands such as R.L. Kelly, Ricky Eat Acid, Alex G and Foxes in Fiction, as well as the overwhelming influence of the folks at Orchid Tapes. Head to Flavorwire to check it out and then browse our ‘bedroom pop’ tag as further reading.

Sufjan Stevens

“The striking sense of solemnity hangs like a noose around its neck, rugged and impossible to ignore, from the first moment to the last” – A little late to this one, but GoldFlakePaint’s review of Sufjan’s new album is really lovely (and mentions Cormac McCarthy, which is never a bad thing).

King of Cats

DIY Magazine are streaming the new King of Cats album, which will be released on Art Reeks, a joint label that combined Art is Hard and Reeks of Effort…

Barna Howard

…and you can stream the new Barna Howard album at Line of Best Fit.

Bellows

Bellows did a Tiny Desk Concert at NPR!

And Finally… the 8tracks Playlist of the Week

The inaugural winner of this coveted accolade is Ratfriend, with this round-up of the best music so far in 2015:

Be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and 8tracks to keep up to date with the best new music.

The post Week in Review: #1 (11-15th May 2015) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

As always with Van Etten, the EP is chock full of lyrics which speak of emotions in a straight, unashamed way. Like late-night, life-affirming conversations with loved ones, Van Etten’s writing manages to cut out all the junk, the false statements and vain declarations and grey lies which constitute the peculiar charade of Real Life. What results is heartfelt, brave and benevolent, not exactly an answer but a reassuring hand to hold while you’re working on the question. As she sings on the title track:

“When dreams grew black
I didn’t want to see the light
Cross through hell in snow
Dreams were gone within yourself
Taught me to know what it’s like

Don’t shout it, stay
I don’t want to let you down
Plead your cause
I don’t want to let you down”

You can stream the first two songs right now:

I Don’t Want To Let You Down will be released on the 9th June via Jagjaguwar. You can pre-order it now.

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Lyrically, Rough River is again close to the classics, using landscapes and natural imagery to paint tales of love, life, loss and grief. The current favourite line I have stumbled across so far is from ‘Sometimes’, which reads:

’And sometimes I can’t care to find 
what it is that makes me feel good about this life.
And I’ll float back to you
on a raft, steady and true,
and you say,
maybe it’s meant to be that way?’

You can buy the album via Bandcamp as a download or as a lovely limited-edition CD (designed by Sarah Hopfer).

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Opener ‘Liars & Thieves’, is pretty much a folk song, with an acoustic strum rotating beneath Lauren Brown’s sultry vocals. ‘Constellation Lines’ has a slightly more electronic flavour, with a persistent drum beat and slightly ominous sounding synths.

Brown’s vocals are great throughout and add a real intimacy and dreamlike quality to the album. There is also a sliver of melancholy which permeates through the album, providing that strange tinge of sadness that all the best dreams leave behind.

The band list Cat Power, Mazzy Star, Sharon Van Etten and The xx as influences, and (perhaps with the addition of Beach House) that sounds pretty accurate to me. If you like any of those artists then you should definitely give The Lion’s Den a try.

Get the album via the Twin Oaks Bandcamp page for the ludicrously low price of just $5 (just over three quid for us in the UK).

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The album is a beautiful one. The sound (prehaps aided by the meadow artwork) evokes a summer wilderness. Not a harsh desert or tropical forest, but rather a sweeping landscape of sepiatone hills and fragrant grasses. For the ‘dream folk’ label, the vocals are very clear and I think it’s fair to say the driving force of each song. The result is somewhere along the lines of First Aid Kit, Sharon van Etten, and Mountain Man if they were based somewhere in the past; luscious voices crooned over smooth and gentle tracks that meander by like childhood summers (in the track ‘New Love’ they even proclaim ’Summer drags on, these sunsets keep on coming’).

Valley is an album of escapism, a record that allows you to slip out of whatever grey scenery that surrounds you and into a world of golden sunshine and gentle winds. There is a sense of sadness here too, as if both you and they know that such a time and place is hard to find and all too fleeting when you do.

You can buy the album on Bandcamp and the single ‘Valley’ is available for free. be sure to check out their debut album The Living Room from which the video below is taken.

West from Magic! Magic Roses on Vimeo.

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Tracklisting:

1. On A Good Day (Joanna Newsom Cover) – Jordan Klassen & Brian Chan
2. Storm Windows (John Prine Cover) – Jeffrey Foucault
3. I’m Going Home (Hank Williams Cover) – Teen Suicide
4. You Are the Everything (R.E.M. Cover) – Redbird
5. You and I Are a Gang of Losers (The Dears Cover) – Admiral Fallow
6. Won’t Back Down (Tom Petty Cover) – Benjamin Francis Leftwich
7. I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine (Bob Dylan Cover) – Dirty Projectors
8. Storms (Fleetwood Mac Cover) – Matt Sweeney & Bonnie Prince Billy
9. It’s Not Happening (Be Good Tanyas Cover) – Lowpines
10. Two Headed Boy (Neutral Milk Hotel) – My Latest Novel
11. Cruel Summer (Bananarama Cover) – Superchunk
12. Southern Girls (Cheap Trick Cover) – Cold Warps
13. Tambourine Man (Bob Dylan Cover) – Cloud Cult
14. Black Cat (Donkeys Cover) – Advance Base
15. Save Yourself (Sharon Van Etten Cover) – Brendan Losch
16. Learning (Perfume Genius Cover) – The Bearcat
17. Wicked Game (Chris Isaak Cover) – Widowspeak
18. John Wayne Gacy Jr. (Sufjan Stevens Cover) – Bryan John Appleby
19. Reason To Believe (Tim Hardin Cover) – Evening Hymns
20. You Are My Sunshine (Oliver Hood Cover) – Peter Broderick

As ever, please please please support the musicians we feature if you enjoy what you hear. The artist names in the tracklisting will take you to a page for each so please explore their music catalogues.

The Covers Mix: Volume #5 from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

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