“At some very basic and intuitive level, [Will] Kennedy taps into the stuff that’s really important. Getting lost in the present, side by side with those you love.” That’s how we described ‘Bird Sanctuary’, the first single from 22° Halo‘s new album Lily of the Valley, coming this November on Tiny Library Records. The single introduced the style with experience of the natural world, but new track ‘Virtual You’ shows such feelings are not unique to the great outdoors. As the title suggests, the song delves into cyberspace and the abundant nostalgia it offers. But rather than finding melancholy in those old photographs of cherished moments now past, the song is delivered with something brighter. Wistful, yes, and not immune from a certain sense of longing, but always with an overarching gratitude that such times happened at all.

Chris Acker – Shit Surprise

“The most beautiful and poetic song about stepping in dog shit that has ever been written.” That’s how label Gar Hole Records describe Chris Acker’s ‘Shit Surprise’. The first track from upcoming album Famous Lunch, the song is an ode to the cosmic justice which so often comes attached to vanity. How those walking a little too tall will inevitably get slapped down again. Behind Acker’s trademark absurdity is the essential troubadour tale, where the confused dreamer collides with the banalities of life and comes to feel cursed for his failings. And, most importantly, the tongue-in-cheek style sacrifices none of the track’s emotional weight, positioning Acker alongside the likes of Dean Johnson as one of the most authentic and interesting practitioners of contemporary folk.

Watch the video directed and edited by Cooper Kenward with animation by Anubha Gupta below:

Famous Lunch is out on the 11th October via Gar Hole Records and you can pre-order it now.

Liv Greene – Katie

Described as “a reckoning with reality, a vulnerable snapshot of hard-won self-acceptance,” Deep Feeler is the forthcoming full-length from Nashville songwriter Liv Greene on Free Dirt Records. The product of a decision to finally embrace a truer self within her work, the album sees Greene cease attempts to bury personal truths, reframing songwriting from an escape mechanism to a kind of spotlight. Belonging to a rich lineage of songwriters going back through Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch and others, the album emerges defiant in its unguardedness, finding healing within the act of revealing one’s core. New single ‘Katie’ is a great example of the style. A lesson in how learning to be oneself can lead to objective good. “This came out of a relationship that wasn’t my first queer love experience,” as Greene explains, “but it was my first time allowing it to not be a bad thing. It comes from a place of tenderness—of allowing yourself to feel those romantic feelings and really revel in them.”

Deep Feeler is out on the 18th October via Free Dirt Records and you can pre-order it now.

Lutalo – Oh Well

Last month we featured two new singles from Lutalo‘s upcoming album The Academy, coming soon via Winspear. A hint at the spectrum of moods present on the record, with ‘The Bed’ offering a bright folk sound and ‘Broken Twin’ something altogether darker. Latest track ‘Oh Well’ splits the difference between the two, marbling heavy reverb with an almost transcendent falsetto to evoke Lutalo’s teenage years in Minnesota, a time set against the backdrop of his mother’s mental health challenges. What results is a spectrum of emotions packed tightly together, where confusion and desperation sit alongside fondness, and a crushing weight is always threatening to overtake everything.

Molina – Organs

This October Danish–Chilean composer Molina will release debut full-length When you wake up via Escho, an album which looks to in some way transcend the rush of contemporary living via a committed awareness of life’s small details. Thus emerges a layered brand of dream pop which eschews the nostalgia so common for the genre in favour of a close attention to the present. Latest single ‘Organs’ sees ML Buch lend their talents to push this sound further. A song “very much a fusion of our individual approaches to perceiving melodies, recordings and sound in general,” as Molina explains. “We are both fascinated by the ‘pulse’ in music and how a song can be perceived to move at different paces. We also share a mutual attraction to catchy melodies. ML tends to unfold words with the melody in an elastic manner, while I prefer more on-the-note vocals that introduce unexpected harmonic shifts. ‘Organs’ kind of holds all those elements of fascination and exploration together.”

Sam Weber – Tamarindo Sunsets

In recent months we’ve previewed the Clear + Plain, the new album from Vancouver Island-based singer-songwriter and guitarist Sam Weber, first with the evocative ‘Oregon‘ and later the warm and relaxed ‘Void‘. “But while the languid tone might suggest a track of romance and intimacy,” we wrote of the latter, “the lyrics paint a more ambiguous picture, where mortality flashes into view with an unnerving abruptness.” With the album out now via Sonic Unyon Records, Weber is back with new single, ‘Tamarindo Sunsets’. A song about “staring into the digital abyss and being confronted with greener and greener grass,” as he explains. “Reckoning with what it means to find that beauty, peace, satisfaction in your heart.”

Clear + Plain is out now via Sonic Unyon.

Soot Sprite x Muttering – Burn The Leaves

Hot on the heels of recent single I Went Swimming / Home Among Your Bones, which we described as “a refusal to romanticise difficult relationships, a determination to learn lessons and live more healthily,” Soot Sprite are back with For Joy, a new collaborative EP with London‘s Muttering. Again released via Specialist Subject Records, the three-song release sees Elise Cook and Chaz Bush share songwriting duties, with Bush taking the reins for first single ‘Burn The Leaves’. A weighty and cathartic examination of the past inspired by J. L. Carr’s A Month in the Country, drawing on the novel’s bittersweet retrospection on a time which could not last. “We all have certain anchor points that you look back on,” Bush explains. “Memories that hold significance and in difficult times often hope to rekindle. The thought of what could have been.”

This Lonesome Paradise – These Western Roads

With forthcoming album Luna Nocturna, California psych-folk outfit This Lonesome Paradise conjure a world worthy of their name, drawing the listener into a sonic environment as stark and striking as the American West of Cormac McCarthy’s oeuvre. Lead single ‘These Western Roads’ offers a path into this landscape. A dark and brooding slice of country noir which simmers with equal parts beauty and foreboding. But more than a lesson in cinematic worldbuilding, the album serves as a meditation on the American Dream with all its brutality, broken promises and betrayals. A project doomed from its very inception, destined to always be haunted by the means in which reached for its goals.

Luna Nocturna is out on the 18th October via Bad Vibes Good Friends and you can pre-order it now.

Why Bonnie – Three Big Moons

“Foregoes easy pigeonholing in terms of style, unified instead by the defiant new self-confidence which underpins it.” That’s how we described Wish On The Bone, the new full-length from Why Bonnie coming later this week on Fire Talk Records, in a preview back in June. A style fitting for the new philosophy of lead Blair Howerton, who is looking to escape preconception and expectation to embrace the freedom of constant change. Take latest single ‘Three Big Moons’, where the old Why Bonnie country twang is repurposed to tell an old story in a different way. Themes of loneliness and isolation are keystones of the genre, but here the dusty roads and full moon heartbreak are swapped out for something altogether more extraterrestrial.

I was a heavy weight
Out there in space
Took one for the team
And took a swan dive into nothing
They pinned a note to my collar
It said “we couldn’t save her”
And dropped down the american flag
Like it was a favor
Walked around a few earth hours
Until my feet got sore
Found a nice big crater
24 by 24

Wish On The Bone will be released via Fire Talk Records on 30th August and is available to pre-order via Bandcamp.

The post Weekly Listening: August 2024 #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

To celebrate the arrival of their brand new record, Embody, Hamilton’s Basement Revolver have unveiled the final single, ‘Dissolve’. We previously described how the album displays a “willingness to confront the intricacies of modern life with a newfound steel and depth,” and the new single is full of the compassion and solidarity which makes this possible. An ode to figuring things out together.

Carli & The Dark – Voicemail

Carli & The Dark is the folk rock project of Phoenix-born, Brooklyn-based songwriter Carli Naff. Latest single ‘Voicemail’ concerns losing a parent, specifically that strange half second when the urge to contact them arises out of well-worn habit, a wish to share a simple moment of a day. The song emerges from this brief period where they are still alive, still waiting, and follows it through the renewed sense of loss before culminating in a compassionate group refrain which features Naff’s mother and siblings among other loved ones. “All my peeps who grieved together,” as she puts it. “It’s a little detail that really brings me a sense of safety at the end, of being held.”

Saying my nickname in a voicemail from your car
You were there, there you are
And though you are not around,
You would love this song I found

Cinder Well x Jim Ghedi – I Am a Youth That’s Inclined to Ramble

Cinder Well and Jim Ghedi have teamed up for a new two-song single, reinterpreting traditional folk ballads. ‘I Am a Youth That’s Inclined to Rambled’ highlights how the pair accentuate the stark loneliness of the material with sparse arrangements haunted by foreboding drone. A song of vast distances and separation, sung into a soundscape as empty and inscrutable as the ocean itself.

I Am a Youth That’s Inclined to Ramble is out now via Free Dirt Records and is available from the Cinder Well Bandcamp page.

hemlock – to carry (feat. Laith)

Described as an “interstate phone-fi bedroom folk saga of sorts,” talk soon is the full-band Chicago-based project hemlock. Latest single invites long-time friend and collaborator Laith Scherer and explores the nuances of a relationship as it changes over time and distance. A song of hushed yet heartfelt vignettes which rises toward an impassioned finale, providing snapshots of love in its various guises.

it’s okay
we carry our pain
in separate ways
on different days
but I’ll be there for you

Jeremy Squires – Drift

We’ve written about North Carolina native Jeremy Squires numerous times, an artist working in the American songwriting tradition of sharing heart and soul with generous helpings of grit and honesty. Ahead of a new album, slated for release later this year on Blackbird Record Label, Squires has unveiled a new single, ‘Drift’. It’s a song that finds him at his devastating best, built on just acoustic guitar, harmonica and vocals that quaver with both exhausted despondency and a steely inner strength. “I was sad,” he sings, “Now I’m lost / I forgot where I belong.”

Knuckle Pups – Soft Attraction

Ahead of their upcoming album, TV Ready, Denver “soda punk” outfit Knuckle Pups have unveiled single ‘Soft Attraction’. The track is an encapsulation of what such a genre entails, taking the fizzy energy of indie and adding an anarchic punk edge, though the songs are far from one-dimensional sugar rushes. Principle songwriter Oliver Holloway writes songs spread across the gamut of moods and tones, making room for earnest emotion and ironic playfulness within the same track, and as the new single shows, this often builds into triumphantly cathartic crescendos.

TV Ready is set for release sometime later this year.

Mouse – Pinned To An Avalanche

Based between Sunshine Coast and Brisbane, Mouse formed over a mutual appreciation of noisy DIY music, and thus set about making it themselves. The first single from forthcoming debut Here Was Then on Kitty Records, ‘Pinned to an Avalanche’ is all about escaping worry and doubt through some larger, consuming present, and Mouse oblige by recreating the descending wall of snow with their dense and hefty sound. Check out the video directed by the band and shot by Harley Jones:

Here Was Then will be released by Kitty Records later this year.

nudista – inasmuch

Next month sees the release of nudista’s Halfway Here EP on Sad Club Records, but in the meantime they have unveiled a new standalone single, ‘inasmuch’. The song is a great introduction to Pilar Matji Cabello and Robbie Carman’s work, a clarified dream pop which seeks to communicate directly and honestly. “It is a message to say that we are capable of evolving and moving forward even when it is scary,” as Cabello puts it, the gentle rhythmic pull drawing the listener close and compelling them onward.

Oceanator – Bad Brain Daze

April sees the return of Oceanator with Nothing’s Ever Fine, a brand new album on Polyvinyl Records and Big Scary Monsters which looks to build upon the apocalyptic themes of 2020’s Things I Never Said. Lead single ‘Bad Brain Daze’ typifies the duality of tenuous optimism and crushing pessimism which marks the record. The sound of existing within an unfolding disaster where the conclusion is still unclear, and nevertheless delivered with Elise Okusami’s characteristically triumphant energy. Check out the video directed by Chris Farren below:

Nothing’s Ever Fine is out on the 8th April via Polyvinyl Records and Big Scary Monsters and you can pre-order it now from the Oceanator Bandcamp page.

Sonic Løland – Up to You

Norwegian musician Anders Løland spent much of 2020 experimenting with styles and sounds, building up a library of ideas and demos which would form the basis of And Then The Sun Came Up, the debut album of his Sonic Løland project. Due for release this autumn via Koke Plate, the album shows off the full spectrum of Løland’s inspiration, creating a new brand of indie folk with ambient styles, electronic drums and rich 60s sensibilities, as shown by lead single, ‘Up to You’.

And Then The Sun Came Up will be released by Koke Plate this coming autumn.

Stephen Durkan – Prayer

Combining spoken word with electronic and ambient styles, Glasgow’s Stephen Durkan seems the latest in a long line of cynical Scottish preachers, bitter and sardonic yet bursting with a verbal energy. Written in collaboration with multi-instrumentalist/producer Niko O’Brien and released via Upcycled Sounds Records, his debut EP The Stories We Tell Ourselves About Ourselves both confirms and subverts this label. The anger and frustration are palpable, but beneath this lies something else. A flimsy belief in the continued value of critiquing the society in which we find ourselves, in imagining something new. Check out the first single ‘Prayer’ below:

Teen Idle – Burning

The music of Teen Idle might be an almost entirely solo endeavour recorded in a New Jersey basement, but you’d never guess it from the sound. For Sara Abdelbarry rejects the lo-fi aesthetics of many garage and bedroom acts for something more full-bodied. Take latest single, ‘Burning’, its rich sound featuring electric guitar, bass guitar, keys, synth, shaker, maracas, claps, lighter and sound effects all played by Abdelbarry, with only the drums delegated to Danny Murray. What emerges is an examination of unrequited love in all of its vivid detail, hope, bitterness and unabashed emotion rising into a huge climax.

I climbed up to the top alone
And watch the city burn below
If you won’t help me put her to rest
I’ll dig the hole by myself

The post Weekly Listening: Feb 2022 #3 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Since the release of that album, the band have welcomed another member into the fold, with Chrisy Hurn (guitar, vocals), Nimal Agalawatte (bass) and Brandon Munro (drums) joined by second guitarist Jonathan Malström, and have set to work recording a brand new EP. Recorded with Ian Gomes (Greys, Frigs, Odonis Odonis) and again released with Sonic Unyon Records, Wax and Digital sees Basement Revolver utilise their added firepower while sacrificing none of their intimate spirit.

The development of style is clear from the opening title track, a rich and romantic song that benefits from the newfound depth of sound. The references here are niche, nods to the likes of Mount Eerie, Valley Maker, Andy Shauf and MewithoutYou acting like personal secrets, code words to represent the singular shape of a specific relationship, the threads of that form the tapestry of a shared experience.

The wistful ‘Master’s Degree’ lets go of long-held ideals, challenging the perception that one must prove their intelligence in order to be respected or valued, while the frantic shoegaze of ‘Concussion Pt. 2’ traps the listener in a whirlpool to recreate the panic and powerlessness of ill health. ‘Have I Been Deceived’ is altogether slower, building with warm courage to face questions of faith.

“I think about ‘Have I Been Deceived’ as an open letter to God,” Hurn describes. “This past year, I have been feeling like I was brainwashed.” The sensation, familiar to many who were brought up under a strict religious regime, can be as painful and disorientating as the dogma itself. Hurn describes how her whole view of the world, from love and sex to something as small as musical taste was dictated by her upbringing, and dents in this logic can cause the whole thing to unravel. “That was my entire identity,” Hurn explains. “Throughout my twenties, this identity fell apart.”

Now overt Christian culture makes her feel nauseated, a pain doubled by the nagging knowledge that something as important as spirituality might be forever tarnished by a toxic experience. This anger and confusion is explored in the song as well as a video directed and edited by Andy Friesen, with stop motion animation by See You On The Moon.

However, as the closing tracks highlight, Wax and Digital is a record about moving beyond the past to a more welcoming present. “It’s hard to write a song,” Hurn sings on ‘Romantic at Heart’, “when things are going good in this life,” capturing the self-confidence that shines through every track. When love is found it tends to overpower everything else, and for those on the outside of this glow it can be easy to be skeptical about art that declares life good. However, far from basking in the comfort, Basement Revolver instead use it as a space to examine what has been, as though only in putting distance between ourselves and past suffering can we come to understand who we are.

Wax and Digital is out now via Sonic Unyon Records and you can get it from the Basement Revolver Bandcamp page.

The post Basement Revolver – Wax and Digital appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Thanks for being with us.

Advance Base – Animal Companionship

Run For Cover Records

““The songs are intended to be a comfort for folks going through their own tough times,” Ashworth explained in an essay for Talkhouse. “Commiseration has always been a guiding principle of my songwriting.” Love need not be hugs and hearts and kisses, and loyalty does not necessarily mean hanging in a relationship beyond all reason. But love is loyalty, and Owen Ashworth has been, and seemingly always will be, loyal to those who need it most.”

REVIEW / BUY

Basement Revolver – Heavy Eyes

Sonic Unyon / Fear of Missing Out Records

“An expansive and spacious sound that’s lit up with a slow-burning emotional resonance, centring around Hurn’s impassioned vocal delivery. Their music combines the magnitude and granular glitter of shoegaze, the personal songwriting of bedroom pop and the cathartic noise of 90s indie rock. [Basement Revolver] play a double game of big and small, switching from quiet personal sentiment to big bombastic broadcast, often within the same song.”

REVIEW / BUY

Benjamin Shaw – Megadead

Audio Antihero

“For all the frustration and (self-)loathing in show, there’s also something else. Perhaps the defining characteristics of Shaw’s music is its ability to transcend its own themes. He may be singing about hating his job, about going nowhere fast, but in doing so colours these things with meaning. To create art is to communicate, and as such the songs represent the antithesis to their own concerns, the simulated happiness and artificial connection punctured through their ironic presence.”

REVIEW / BUY

Campdogzz – In Rounds

15 Passenger

“[Closer ‘Sorceress’] at first might seem a slightly strange segue for a final track soon straightens out into an intuitive sense of logic and belonging, as though the album-long teeter on the edge of some epiphanic transformation has finally fallen headlong at the last moment.”

REVIEW / BUY

Damien Jurado – The Horizon Just Laughed

Secretly Canadian

“While it might be tempting to view [Jurado’s] songwriting career as a fruitless quest for his true identity, perhaps the complete opposite is true. His career is his identity, splinters of truth arriving through dreams or divined from another realm entirely, fractals that can be arranged into a whole that far surpasses the meaning of any one component. A manifesto of sorts, one full of prophecy and history, though rather than country-western stars of [Joseph Billie] Gwin’s vision, the Ten Prophets of Damien Jurado are merely alternate versions of himself—past, present, future, dream—each record its own style or consciousness, born of him, yes, but equal to him too.”

REVIEW / BUY

Dear Nora – Skulls Example

Orindal Records

“You can be anyone, we are told, do anything, though only superficially, a multitude of simulations all working toward to same goal, the means to the end of shifting units and making money. Dear Nora’s music attempts to undermine this by playing the same game, crafting an unreal reality of their own to overlay the other. And, by neutering the money-making end, they in effect invert capitalism’s technique, reestablishing the means (ie. living) as the purpose. Yes, Skulls Example might be a simulation, but it is one of the most meaningful and rewarding you could hope to find.”

REVIEW / BUY

Field Report – Summertime Songs

Verve Forecast

“The summertime theme might conjure ideas of cloudless, uptempo good times, but to limit Field Report’s use of the season to a more poppy sound is to miss the deeper point […] We cannot rely on grand promises or paradigm shifts. Rather, we must commit to the slow, considered process of letting go and working through, of deciding who we were and who we want to be. In these times, we’d be foolish to trust that will be enough, but belief in small moments of agency and human connection is more productive than misplaced prayers for epiphany.”

REVIEW / BUY

Free Cake For Every Creature – The Bluest Star

Double Double Whammy

“free cake for every creature don’t make sad songs exactly, usually tending toward a kind and hopeful feel. Yet there is something intangible about them, a strange sensation that weaves its way into quiet moments, like a kind of everyday poetry or nostalgia that we all recognise but don’t have a name for. The case in point is the penultimate song, ‘be home soon’, which somehow portrays a subway ride home as something beautiful and magical.”

REVIEW / BUY

Frog – Whatever We Probably Already Had It

Audio Antihero

“Contains lines of total sincerity that feel disarming in the face of what has come before, as though the truth of things slips out in quiet whispers to oneself, the party over and room emptied out. The truth being the soul-shearing reality of the American Dream, the tragicomedy of understanding your dreams and desires to be complete fictions while leaning on them with all of your weight.”

REVIEW / BUY

Gia Margaret – There’s Always Glimmer

Orindal Records

“The palette of Gia Margaret is built from shades of sadness—loss, regret, wistful longing, the arresting trap of nostalgia and plain old hurt—though again and again Margaret provides a counter-shade, as though the darkness’ true purpose is merely to highlight the warm, weak glow within. Because, while people up and leave, and time is certainly no kinder, Gia Margaret is here to prove that value is inherent in life itself, meaning and fulfilment not in spite of troubles, but within them. No matter how dark, there is always glimmer.”

REVIEW / BUY

Haley Heynderickx – I Need to Start a Garden

Mama Bird Recording Co.

“I Need To Start a Garden is the perfect album for the onset of spring. It’s all about growth and the hope of new beginnings, but also doesn’t shy away from the necessary hard work that makes such growth possible. It’s a reminder that plants are not the only things that need to be tended and cared for, but also that they’re not the only things that can flourish and bloom either.”

REVIEW / BUY

Lisa/Liza – Momentary Glance

Orindal Records

“The context [of bereavement] is important not because we wish to suggest some ‘romantic’ mythology behind the record (indeed, the songs were written before the tragedy occurred), or that there is magical healing power in the making/consumption of art. Rather, Momentary Glance is a symbol of the power of community, generosity in the face of grief, and the album’s use of placidity over bombastic melodrama is indicative of such an authentic spirit.”

REVIEW / BUY

Long Neck – Will This Do?

Tiny Engines

“Despite the difficult circumstances, there is also a sense that things will be okay, that our narrator has gained the sense of strength and self-reliance necessary to move on. Or rather, is working toward being strong enough and self-reliant enough, with this album being the furthest possible reach forward toward that place. Of course, it’s likely full strength and self-reliance will never be achieved, but it’s the strive toward those ideas that is the most important. Of course this will do.”

REVIEW / BUY

Lung Cycles – S/T

Lily Tapes & Discs

“The placid natural flow continues whether we voice our concerns or not, and nothing in this external sphere is working to exacerbate our feelings. In this way, Lung Cycles reveals anxiety and melancholy to be no more than parasites of the human psyche, forces all too willing to consume us should we centre our existence within our own heads, but soon found dead in the vacuum of natural quiet.”

REVIEW / BUY

Monarch Mtn – days of sleepwater

Self-released

“Darkness breeds darkness, and allowed to fester can become a self-perpetuating thing that metastazises unto ubiquity. Here, Monarch Mtn do not pretend that suffering is abating, or can be dispelled by a mere shift in perspective, but rather choose to fight the phenomenon. days of sleepwater exists to fight the creeping dark, and not embrace it.”

REVIEW / BUY

Naps Eyes – I’m Bad Now

Paradise of Bachelors

“Behind the heavy-lidded blasé exterior lies a rich and tangled inner life, an invitation to fall into the folds of Chapman’s brain and watch his thoughts pass by […] Those with enough curiosity or desire can try to arrange the Nap Eyes lines into a magical formation, wrestling with the existential questions in the hope that they will be the first to figure it all out. The rest can take a back seat and let the Big Stuff drift around them, finding comfort in the fact that there are things bigger than us, and beauty in the understanding that they are beyond our grasp.”

REVIEW / BUY

Remember Sports – Slow Buzz

Father/Daughter Records

“Sincerity could be said to represent Slow Buzz as a whole, though sincerity not as some sentimental force rather a commitment to what feels true, no matter how messy and conflicting. There’s something in the Remember Sports story at the heart of this earnestness, the possibility of progressing without sacrificing an entire ideal, of reincarnation where one returns not as some different creature entirely, but a new version of oneself. A truer version, at least for now.”

REVIEW / BUY

Sun June – Years

Keeled Scales

“Years is a record shaped and propelled by the gentle forces of the world, currents in the substrates of the earth and life itself, invisible yet profound, capable of changes both minor and major […] a number of the tracks returning to a repeated phrase, cyclical patterns that rise in intensity like incantations, or else echo out into the fabric of the sound.”

REVIEW / BUY

Swearin’ – Fall Into the Sun

Merge Records

“We live in a time obsessed with the past. Our dreams now look backwards instead of forward, our deepest wish not for some utopian future but rather a return to an unreal past, one sanded of all trials and troubles by nostalgia and the constant passing of time. With Fall Into the Sun, Swearin’ rebel against such a mindset, redirecting our hopes toward the future once more, and compelling us to pay attention to the present while we still can.”

BUY

Talons’ – After Talons

Self-released

“Talons’ capture the futility and hopelessness of a content life in a creaking hyper-capitalist society, an existence often devoid of meaning and full of shame at the hypocrisy in caring about the world but doing little to change it. But it’s also kind-hearted too, its glowing core of humanity somehow comforting despite the heavy subject matter. In other words, there’s no optimism here, but there is hope.”

REVIEW / BUY

Valley Maker – Rhododendron

Frenchkiss Records

“Built upon a thematic bedrock of faith and religion, but anyone who baulks at the R-word need not worry, [Valley Maker] is uninterested in creeds and doctrine, instead exploring metaphysical mysteries that we can all wonder about […] Crane is not foolish enough to offer answers, though his words and voice work as a reassuring balm, even while acknowledging the ambiguity and turmoil that surely awaits. ”

REVIEW / BUY

The Washboard Abs – Lowlight Visions

Antiquated Future

“Clarke Sondermann’s music has always been intimate, but this album treads deeper into this ideal than any of his previous work. In the circumstances, it would be relatively easy to make an album of sad songs, but it’s a brave artist who takes the very personal worry and suffering and uses it to build something that’s this complex and multifaceted, vulnerable but not hopeless, forgoing nihilistic dejection in favour of a strange kind of love, an appreciation of what stands to be lost.”

REVIEW / BUY

The World Without Parking Lots – Seventh Song Counts the Engines

Self-released

“Seemingly simple but rendered dense and cryptic with the addition of Parcell’s poetry […] Seventh Song Counts the Engines is a beautiful collection of songs, one which somehow makes a bold statement in a circuitous whisper, deceptively complex instrumentation and ambiguous lyrics capturing decidedly unambiguous emotion.”

REVIEW / BUY

Young Jesus – The Whole Thing is Just There

Saddle Creek

“How do you adopt a more sincere, hopeful position without becoming a flat Sincere, Hopeful Person, and everything that image entails? Young Jesus have put their hope in a spontaneous, endlessly recursive form of questioning, where every hard fought answer only exists to be questioned further. The endeavour might well take a life time, but the prospect of circling closer to the truth is something of a solution in its own right. So, while it’s tempting to think that the true message or meaning of the songs on The Whole Thing Is Just There is always just out of frame, the reality is in fact the other way around. The message of the songs is that meaning is always just out of frame, and that there is no more valuable an enterprise than the constant search outside and beyond.”

REVIEW / BUY

Yowler – Black Dog in My Path

Double Double Whammy

“The writing is vague and affecting, words imbued with an esoteric power that fuses intimate internal thoughts from the corporeal world with something altogether more supernatural. “I bear the mark, I am sigil,” Jones sings, “to the spirits and the sprites, but I promised not to listen and stay in my life.” The natural and supernatural converge on Black Dog In My Path, and Jones has re-purposed Yowler as the conduit between these two dimensions.”

REVIEW / BUY

We’re be sharing our favourite songs, books and Bandcamp name-your-price releases in good time, so keep an eye on the ‘Lists‘ category for those.

The post Favourite Albums of 2018 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

This summer the band released their debut full-length album, Heavy Eyes, which brings together some of the material from their previous shorter releases and adds some great new songs too. Opener ‘Baby’ is one of these new ones, an expansive and emotive indie rocker, all echoing vocals and clattering drums. Hurn also gets to let her vocals soar, as the track descends (or maybe that should be ascends?) into pure purging sound. Not that the song’s themes are necessarily as grandiose as that sounds. “Baby is about feeling sad and down even though you are generally happy about everything and everyone in your life,” Hurn explains. “It is about crying a lot and my tendency to retreat when things get too overwhelming, to spend all day and night in bed and watching Netflix and eating Doritos.”

And this gets to the heart of something wonderful about Basement Revolver. They play a double game of big and small, switching from quiet personal sentiment to big bombastic broadcast, often within the same song.

One of our favourites from the last few years, follow-up ‘Johnny’ was the track that proved the breakout hit for Basement Revolver. We described the track previously as “a rather desperate plea for another to stay away from the titular character, a person who seems to have broken the heart of our narrator.” Again it displays all of Basement Revolver’s qualities, and comes complete with a catchy chorus too. ‘Dancing’ on the other hand feels direct and driven, a song about overcoming 21st century malaise by doing something fun or adventurous. “Break out of your shell,” Hurn urges, “and dance, or get some fresh air,” as drums slap and guitars gallop.

‘Knocking’ is perhaps the most poignant track on Heavy Eyes, one which sees Hurn ball up all of her hurts and worries and set them alight with a beam of bright white openness. Inspired by a letter she wrote to her family, the song confronts past mistakes with a sense of both vulnerability and determination, and becomes something restorative in the process. “I basically kept telling myself that I was garbage, broken, unlovable,” Hurn explains. “I think that ‘Knocking’ was my way out of that dark place.”

‘Johnny Pt. 2’ is the sequel to the earlier song, the drums this time a little more insistent, the choruses wider and brighter. The narrative switches from the previous desperation to a melancholic acceptance, a display of love despite everything, and the offer of a second chance should the possibility ever emerge. Next up, ‘Words’ opens with melodramatic guitar and cymbal crashes, Hurn’s vocals levitating above like oil on water. The song faces the existential dilemma of communication, how “words are just words are words are words,” lacking any tangible meaning unless backed up with something more real.

“Really starting to feel like I need someone to talk to,” Hurn sings at the start of ‘Tree Trunks’, a song that is rich with a sense of weariness and yearning. Deep percussion rolls around as blasts of guitar ring out like thunder on distant hills, the atmosphere accentuating Hurn’s message rather than smothering it. This transitions into the more upbeat ‘You’re Okay’ (“I have friends who say they love me, Hurn sings, “remind me daily they’re thinking of me”), and the relentlessly heavy title track, which sounds like a long-lost 90s underground hit.

The album closes with ‘Diamonds’, perhaps its slowest and most reflective moment. The song unfurls from a stripped back ballad, sinuous atmospherics shifting behind Hurn’s vocals, to a final wall of sound crescendo, the perfect final reminder that Basement Revolver can do both the micro and the macro at once.

Heavy Eyes is out now on Sonic Unyon and Fear of Missing Out Records.

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Of The Valley – Italy

Of The Valley is the recording project of Canadian-born, Copenhagen-based songwriter Brian DellaValle. Ahead of a debut full-length that is set for release soon, DellaValle is currently releasing stand-alone singles, beginning with ‘Quiet and Curious’ back in March. The track was a good introduction to the Of The Valley style, a slow, sad and atmospheric brand of folk which supports DellaValle’s affecting baritone vocals.

His latest single, ‘Italy’ follows a similar pattern, wrapped in warm melancholy that brings to mind a later-era Mark Kozelek. Thematically, the track charts a relationship and its slow evolution across time, change as a shaping force, capable of builing and destroying in equal measure. As the press release describes:

“Italy is a voyeuristic slice into a moment between two people. Beauty in such situations can certainly be found between those two, but also between the lines. When something important comes apart, it takes courage and time to find if you can build it back again.”

Slowcoaches – Found Down

London’s pop punk trio Slowcoaches have been putting out tunes as ferocious as they are catchy for a good while now, with 2016’s album Nothing Gives followed by a series of singles. The latest of which, ‘Found Down’, is the lead track from a new two-song release on Sonic Unyon Records. A boisterous, squally listen, the track races around the throaty vocals of Heather Perkins, demanding you join in with the hollered chorus. “on the dirty ground, I gotta grow up, grow up,” she shouts, “you say you want to be around, you never show up, show up.” However, the words are secondary to the sheer energy and attitude bursting from their delivery in cathartic release, a furious shedding of all of life’s soul-destroyingly banal frustrations in a two-and-a-half-minute storm.

The Found Down 7″ is out on the 30th June via Sonic Unyon Records and you can pre-order it from the Slowcoaches Bandcamp page, including on vinyl.

Minor Moon – It’s Okay

We first wrote about Sam Cantor’s Minor Moon back in 2016 when we covered A Whisper, A Shout, an album we described as “fuelled by the insistent dread of self-doubt and bad feeling to [become] something keenly honest and cathartic, yet always coloured with wry self-referential lines about that very process.” This was followed by an EP What Our Enemies Know, and now Cantor and co. are back with ‘It’s Okay’, a brand new single ahead of a future full-length album.

Don’t let first impressions deceive you. The instrumentation of ‘It’s Okay’ is something of a Trojan horse, housing a keen existential anxiety that flourishes in the lyrics. Therefore, while the sound evokes a timeless rock vibe, the themes of the track are actually far more contemporary, detailing the sense of alienation and dread that comes with the creeping ubiquity of technology and mass media. The song sees something of a fight back against this, preaching the idea that any form of resistance and human connection is valuable, and any attempt to be okay is at least some way closer to realising the wish. As Cantor explains: “I can be very cynical and take a dark view of things, but that cynicism is rooted so much in a desire for hope and for a better world.”

You can grab ‘It’s Okay’ from the Minor Moon Bandcamp page, along with the previous releases.

Caroline Lazar – Georgia

Caroline Lazar is a songwriter from outside Atlanta, so new single ‘Georgia’ is aptly named. The track is the first taste of a new EP to be released on My Little Empire Records, and shows off Lazar’s melancholic mix of bedroom pop and folk. The basis of the track is a languorous flow, a slow summer heat that ripples the vocals into a sedated, less immediate form of heartbreak. But heartbreak this track is, detailing a lost love and conflicted hopes of its return. “Why am I hoping that you might be holding someone else?” Lazar laments, “need a better reason to replace your picture on my shelf.”

Caroline Lazar’s EP is to be released soon via My Little Empire Records, so keep an eye on Bandcamp for further news.

Heatwarmer – Here Comes The Band

Heatwarmer are three piece from Seattle, Washington, who put out their latest album, Here Comes The Band last autumn. The record layers rich retro-pop with tongue-in-cheek humour, something like Mike Pace and the Child Actors taken to the next level of irony. ‘American Dog’ is the prime example, a smooth backwards-looking love ballad, though the focus of this emotion is not a beautiful woman or dark and handsome man, but a small, canine US national. Yes, really. The chorus makes it pretty clear:

“Oh oh oh oh my god
I didn’t know I’d feel this way about a little dog

American dog, American dog
I fell in love with an American dog
Good God, I fell in love with an American dog”

Here Comes The Band is out now and you can get it from the Heatwarmer Bandcamp page.

The Nova Darlings – I Like Crashing My Car (Into Yours)

Hailing from Los Angeles, The Nova Darlings are a garage rock four-piece described by their bio as “equal parts violent and tender.” Their sound draws upon influences from either side of the millennium, mixing the 90s guitar of Built to Spill and 00s vibes akin to The Shins with a more contemporary bedroom pop aesthetic that brings to mind The Washboard Abs. As a result, they manage to live up the the bio’s promise, capable of earnest emotion and ramshackle rocking within the very same track.

Since their EP Songs for Felix back in March, the band have been putting out a series of singles. The latest of which, ‘I Like Crashing My Car (Into Yours)’ is the perfect example of the sound we describe above, the tenderness of the vocals juxtaposing with the violence of the title and lyrics, and the carefree rhythm of the instrumentation managing to serve both.

You can grab ‘I Like Crashing My Car (Into Yours)’, as well as the other singles, from The Nova Darlings Bandcamp page.

Jacob Furr – Life Comes At You Fast

We’ve written about Texan songwriter Jacob Furr a few times in the past, first in 2014 upon the release of his debut album Trails & Traces, and then again in 2017 in a belated review of his sophomore record Sierra Madre. The conclusion of the latter post functions as a neat summation of what Furr’s music is all about: “Hope doesn’t have to be a sentimental act or retreat from reality, rather a considered and consistent refusal to give in. [Furr] finds strength in weathering storms, and, what’s more, wants to share that notion with you too.”

Last month saw the release of a brand new single, ‘Life Comes At You Fast’, and again a similar sense runs through the track. The nostalgic Americana sound is the ideal medium to capture the wistful attitude, and the whole thing is dressed in fondness too, as though any sense of melancholy is not so much regret but rather a reminder to feel.

“Running like a river through your dreams
down into the ocean, where nothing is as it seems.
And you watch the seasons change, you listen to the rain,
see the wind that’s tied up in the trees.

And you know just how that feels
Wishing you were free”

‘Life Comes At You Fast’ is available now from the Jacob Furr Bandcamp page, along with his previous releases.

Deux Trois – Dave

Working out of Kingston, Ontario, Deux Trois is something of a Canadian super group, featuring Nadia Pacey (Konig) Benjamin Nelson (PS I Love You) and Ben Webb (Carvings). Ahead of a new eight-song release, Health, the three-piece have been unveiling some singles to get the anticipation up. Following on from the hypnotic and salacious ‘Late Night Girls’, latest song ‘Dave’ moves on to unrequited love and the invisibility it casts over its suffers. The song has something of a dual perspective, the present pining for the titular Dave, but also one positioned ahead of the moment, looking back, free from the clutches of the once consuming conviction of love.

“Dave, I feel like an infant
Dave, just tell me I’m human
you look so sad but didn’t age that bad
drop the glass and struggle hard but
it’s all gone to waste.

At the time I was just a kid
you said you loved me but you never did”

Health will be released on the 8th June in a variety of formats, so keep an eye on the Deux Trois Bandcamp page.

Grace Turner – Dead or Alive

Utilising elements of folk, rock and country, Australian musician Grace Turner crafts songs at once energetic and emotional, the charged sound allowing her to delve into intimate and honest personal difficulties without ever coming off as trite or overwrought.

Latest single ‘Dead or Alive’ is a case in point, the persistent momentum of the drums leading Turner into a haunting exploration of internal suffering and the comfort that human connection can bring in the face of such turmoil. “The lyrics in the chorus are literally transcribed from [a] conversation,” Turner explains. “[A friend] called and said, ‘I didn’t know if you’d be dead or alive’. The whole song was written in about an hour after the phone call.”

“That was so sweet just the other night
You called me just to see if I was alright
You said you didn’t know if i’d be dead or alive
You said you worry so much about me sometimes”

‘Dead or Alive’ is out now and you can snag it at the Grace Turner Bandcamp page.

Britton Patrick Morgan – Southern Drawl

Britton Patrick Morgan is a multi-instrumentalist based in Kentucky who has recently put out his debut album, High Lonesome Throne. The record is rooted in the folk traditions, with Morgan using a 1947 Gibson LG2 parlour guitar to evoke a timeless quality to his sound, despite loving his Huss & Dalton guitar enough to give it the name Jane. “Instruments,” he explains, “much like people, have their own distinct personalities.”

‘Southern Drawl’ is a great welcome into this warm and wistful world, a song drawn forth from an age old existence in the American south, where the landscape colours the essence of life and a kind of patient longing seeps into the fabric of things. Fittingly, the song is pitched somewhere between plaintive and hopeful, a kind and compassionate word into the air in the hope that others might hear.

“I’d try to catch you if you had a fall
nobody’s perfect, we’re all flawed
If you ever need me you can call
And I’ll always love you
with a southern drawl.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYc45eO2pFw

High Lonesome Throne is out now and you can get it from iTunes.

You can find all of the previous instalments of Bright Sparks here, and be sure to check back in a few weeks to see what makes the next edition.

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