The EP opens with ‘Beamer’, which captures the fee of the record in under two minutes, part fun rock and roll, part something a little darker:

“beamer
i can hear ya but i can’t see ya
when i’m dreaming
of my old house,
it burned to the ground
but you’re still hanging
by the mini-ramp
sitting on your mother’s grave”

The title track has loud chugging guitars but softer, earnest vocals which ruminate on relationship problems (“i can forget about it / i can be with someone new / i can drink and get lit / until i’m seeing two”), ‘Roof’ is a manic sub-sixty second blast, and ‘Yesterday’ has acoustic guitars and mumbled vocals which detail a good day hanging out with good people (“yesterday was a good day / mini-van highway with greg / and me with wind in my eyes”). Penultimate track ‘Birds’ is the album’s longest at just under 2:30, a meandering instrumental track that juxtaposes nicely with the short sweet bursts of the other songs, and then closer, ‘Death’, ties things up rather nicely with a slice of lo-fi DIY pop, kind of reminiscent of You Won’t:

“i’m sitting next to you
and i’m putting back a few
and i’m starting to feel the love
this time i know it’s true”

You can download LOSE on a pay-what-you-want basis over at Bandcamp.

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“Eskimeaux is basically me: it’s an empowered persona that has brought me warmth and fulfilment in times of isolation and confusion about my origins”

And with this knowledge of the origins of the name comes a glimpse into what has shaped Smith’s sound. This is not a beginning. Smith has more or less grown up with Eskimeaux, grown into Eskimeaux. New album O.K. feels like the product of that development, borne out of a sense of purpose and artistic confidence that comes with long hard years of trial and error.

That said, while Eskimeaux is Smith, it would be a misnomer to label the project a solo venture. Quinn Moreland‘s pretty extensive history of Smith’s music career to-date for Impose hints at the influence other musicians have had on Smith, tracing the evolution of Eskimeaux from inception to present, which sees Smith at the centre of a talented group of people in Brooklyn (partly as The Epoch collective) who work together on their various musical projects. When you thank the likes of Told Slant, Bellows, Yours Are The Only Ears, Florist, Small Wonder, Sharpless and Mitski for helping create your record, you know you are in good hands. As our preview of the album stated back in March:

“While the proof will be in the pudding, it seems O.K. is a testament to the power of gathering good friends and kind strangers who are all pulling in the same direction, a reminder that good, carefully put together art has infinitely more value than whatever the PR men and women try to push at you”

O.K. feels like an epiphany, where Smith has found the required confidence (almost certainly with the help of her friends) to speak openly without distortion or the safety-net of irony. The biggest temptation when feeling isolated and alone is to accentuate the feeling of dissociation, to lie to yourself or others by claiming that being understood (ie. less alone) is not needed. This could be through angry, primal art which strives to remind everyone that they are merely phony, bullshit-ridden animals who will grow old and die, or by creating art so abstract and inhuman that no-one can recognise it, retreating into the false security of faux-mysticism which aims to transcend the need for human connection. While Eskimeaux was never near the extreme ends of these avenues, Smith’s early work did see her feelings/message buried beneath a haze of ambient noise. O.K. sees this stripped back in favour of candid pop songs which fit very nicely into The Epoch back catalogue.

The album confronts loneliness head-on, outlining the strange but undeniable fact that each of us are distinct creatures cut off from the thoughts of anyone else, even those who mean the world to us. In lieu of telepathy, we are forced to communicate in crude alternatives, arranging words and gestures haphazardly in the hope of them saying what we really mean. ‘I Admit I’m Scared’, a song which worries about the effects you have one your loved ones, puts this quite beautifully:

“And everything I said
spewed like sparklers from my mouth
they looked pretty as they flew
but now they’re useless and burnt out”

While all the songs are linked by sincerity, there is a variation of sounds and styles across the album. Opener ‘Folly’ is a folk song bathed in reverb and guitars, the narrator casting a significant other as something magnificent and unknowable. ‘Pocket Full of Posies’ is a creepy, gritty track of vulnerability, while ‘Broken Necks’ is a bona fide pop song, a heartbreaking collapse of a relationship rendered danceable with synths and clap-along percussion and a catchy chorus. Current favourite ‘The Thunder Answered Back’ is more fierce, bubbling with certainty before exploding in the cathartic refrain of “You coward, you hummingbird”. The track continues with a dramatic closing, euphoric and elemental: 

“I screamed out how’d it get this bad? And the thunder answered back
if you know not what you lack then you must unturn your back
Your inside is overcast you are tethered to your past
and it must feel like fucking hell to be a patchwork of yourself,
a bunch of scraps thrown and sewn around your bones
and though you’re alone it’s holding you too tightly.
But who are you?
From where do you come?
What do you believe in?
Whom do you love?”

The sense of loneliness never leaves, but it’s joined by the acceptance of the weird paradoxical truth that you can never be OK without first recognizing the fact that you won’t always be OK. And, perhaps more importantly, the understanding that everyone is in the same boat. Obviously, for this to be a comfort then people need to make it known, so it’s lucky indeed that ‘Alone at the Party’ is the anthem of this realisation, finding solace and community in the fact that we are all at some level lonely. This is what Eskimeaux does best, she says things that might not be cool or pretty or ‘normal’ in order to help. In this way O.K. is like an unveiling, an opening of the chest, with Smith delving into herself to show us every gruesome detail that we too possess. We see her heart and lungs and rounded ribs, the fragile threads of nerves and blood vessels which twitch and tremble in the spotlight, we see a space lined with thorns or glass or thick black bile in which sits something hard and smooth and bright, something that we recognise despite it having no shape or weight or name. Closer ‘That’s OK’ concludes the viewing, cleansing the cavity with peace and sewing herself back up safe in the knowledge that communication has finally been achieved:

“Frankie is face down in our bed,
you are downstairs
and all I want is to hear you say
is ‘we’re not the same but that’s ok’.”

O.K. is about reality, the moment we live in and the people we share it with. It’s about the things we want and the things we wish for and the things we can’t control. It’s about doing the best you can and hoping it’s enough, about accepting and learning and growing so that whatever hand you’re dealt, you carve out some semblance of meaning and happiness to make everything worthwhile.

You can buy the album digitally from Eskimeaux’s Bandcamp, on CD/vinyl from Double Double Whammy or on beautiful cassettes from Mt. Home Arts (see below).

Embroidery artwork by Susannah Lee Cutler

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Father/Daughter Records are back with their second instalment of the Faux Real series where cool real bands cover the songs of cool fictional ones. Faux Real I saw the likes of Levek, Radiator Hospital and Body Parts covering The Muppets, The Cattanooga Cats and Disney’s Goofy, and now a fresh roster of are back to take on some of the most iconic songs in pop culture (sort of). The tracklisting is as follows:

Tracklist
1) Chumped – “Threshold” (Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World)
2) Krill – “Billy Madison Victory Song” (Billy Madison)
3) Quarterbacks – “You Painted My World” (The Adventures Of Pete & Pete)
4) Running In The Fog – “Killer Tofu” (Doug)
5) Allison Crutchfield (of Swearin’) – “Special To Me (Phoenix Audition Song)” (Phantom Of The Paradise)
6) LVL UP – “Somebody Kill Me Please” (The Wedding Singer)
7) Sharpless – “Franz Kafka” (Home Movies)
8) Rivergazer – “Fever Dog” (Almost Famous)
9) Paint Sepsi – “I Must Be In Love” (The Rutles)
10) Small Wonder – “Margerine” (The Simpsons)

While it’s hard to believe of a compilation that contains a song from Doug, this release was rejected by Record Store Day as it was “not compelling enough” for their release list. You can see the final RSD list here and, while there is some cool stuff, there is also what seems to be quite a lot of flab (seven Springsteen releases?). But, hey, what do I know? Luckily, Faux Real II lives on. And that’s a good thing, because aside from being an entertaining collection of obscure-ish made-up bands, the real artists have actually done a great job in making ten enjoyable songs that will still be listenable once the novelty wears off.

You can pre-order the compilation now from the Father/Daughter website or Bandcamp page. It will be released on 28th April on “Fake Grape” vinyl and limited to 500 copies. It’s not going to be repressed or released digitally so get in quick.

P.S. Father/Daughter head honcho Jessi Frick spoke with Stereogum about the compilation and the issues surrounding Record Store Day. It’s worth a read for those interested in how those things work.

The post Father/Daughter Records Presents: Faux Real II appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklist:

1. Kids Will Be Kids – Praything
2. Do You Have Romantic Courage – Hallelujah The Hills
3. The Shore And The Coastline – Now Wakes The Sea
4. The Corrections – Alphabetical Order Orchestra
5. Give Me Time – Roo & The Howl
6. To Remember – City States
7. Vow – Sales
8. In The Rain – Cut Ribbons
9. Feel What – Jacques Greene
10. Down On My Luck – Vic Mensa
11. Greater Than – Sharpless
12. Tennis Court (Flume Remix) – Lorde
13. Warehouses – Kane Ikin
14. Wild Geese – Small Sur
15. Youth – Best Wishes
16. Early Morning – Eagle Lake Owls
17. Dust To Settle – Rough River
18. Slow Down – Scott Orr
19. Gray Lodge Wisdom – Will Stratton
20. Brother, Do You Know The Road? – Hiss Golden Messenger
21. Something Like That – Wolf Collage
22. Muscle and Bone – John Joseph Brill
23. All Your Promises – Jesse Marchant
24. Echo Tropism – Inventions
25. Veiled Grey – Christian Löffler
26. All I Want – Dawn Golden

If you missed them, we have such mixes for January, February, March and April too.

May Mix from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

The post May 2014 Roundup – A Mixtape appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Musically, the album is a patchwork of influences. The uplifting refrains of Modest Mouse, the energy of Dinosaur Jr., the strangeness of Flaming Lips, autotune, a rap verse (!)… all of these bind together to form an album that is experimental yet undeniably pop music. This is a dynamic album that refuses to settle into one box, accelerating and decelerating at will, changing from boisterous (‘The Hardest Question’, ‘Gemini’ etc.) to poignant (‘Mom and Dad’, ‘Greater Then’, etc) with little warning, and it’s all the better for it. It kind of brings to mind experimental legends The Mae Shi, or rather, The Mae Shi covering Arcade Fire and Cursive and Weezer and Miley Cyrus (trust me) and God knows who else. It is every bit as good as this sounds.

Greenleaf is a close friend of Henry Crawford, AKA Small Wonder (who we featured here), and Crawford appears on the album. In fact, you could say he does more than that: “Jack Greenleaf and Henry Crawford have been writing songs together for as long as anyone can remember,” says The Epoch page, “if you are listening to a Small Wonder song, you are also listening to Sharpless whispering along behind the singing. When you listen to Sharpless, Small Wonder sits nearby, playing along on the floor.“ In a world of blog-driven buzz bands and label-pushed clones, it’s good to know that communities like this still exist. The pair have even put out a small release together, which you can hear here.

You can buy The One I Wanted To Be via Bandcamp, where there are plenty of past releases to explore too. Be sure to keep up with The Epoch, they are involved in some great stuff at the moment.

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