Tracklisting:

1) Evening Loving – Jenny Gillespie
2) Luxury – Patio
3) Low – Yours Are The Only Ears
4) Either Way – Sorority Noise
5) Home at Last – The Sports
6) Braver – Sally Fowler
7) Chow Chow – FAYE
8) Meant – Spartan Jet-Plex
9) Stained Glass Eye – The Dead Tongues
10) October – These Bashful Claws
11) Bad Vibrations – Naps
12) Baked Goods – Young Jesus
13) Heroine – BB Cream
14) Winona Death Ryder – Boy Problems (No Dice Tapes comp)
15) The Only Other Girl From Back Home – Advance Base
16) When it Feels – Soft Spell (STAY RAD SAV comp)
17) The Unnatural – Claire Cronin
18) Same Old Ocean – Crabapple
19) Diet Coke – Lake Michigan
20) Ferris Beuller – Flatsound
21) See Good – Jobless
22) Anything but Yourself – Tom Greenwood
23) Under the Mountain II – Mermaidens
24) Liars – Gregory Alan Isakov
25) Warning Sign – Mikko Joensuu
26) Candy – Fish Food
27) White Gold – Good Good Blood
28) We Bury Our Dead Alive – Coping Skills
29) Joke/Rope – Haybaby
30) Slacker – Will B & the Teen Creeps
31) Double Bacon Cheeseburger – Yikes
32) All I Have – Derek Ted
33) Try Hard – Hovvdy
34) Dark & Gloomy – Horse Teeth
35) Migratory Birds – Western Skies Motel
36) Endless Wave – Hanging Valleys

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It’s apparent from the first few seconds of ‘Either Way’ that Sorority Noise have stripped things back to the bone on It Kindly Stopped For Me, the folky acoustic guitars joining tinkling piano and Boucher’s regret-filled vocals, delivering dark lyrics about the loss of his friend.

“You saw your life and you took it
Saw a chance to leave a life you couldn’t lead
You took your last breath
I was there when you took it
You know that we would love you either way”

‘A Will’ is piano-led, with background guitar and a decidedly morose atmosphere (“I open up my jaw, I pull apart my skin / I don’t know where to begin, but I know where it ends”. ‘Fource’ sounds like the rambling of someone in the throes of a really hard time, quite literally pacing (you can hear the footsteps) as he smokes a cigarette and walks through the woods. Despite all the angst and worry, the narrator remains ultimately hopeful, at least if you’re convinced by his repeated insistence of “I think I’ll be okay, I think you’ll be okay”. The final track ‘XC’ proves a fitting finale. Beginning as another song steeped in whispered melancholy, it eventually rises into something more hopeful, with swirling instrumentation and background vocals akin to acts such as Bellows.

The EP is not a fun or easy listen, but you get the real sense that it wasn’t fun or easy to write either. It’s a record that wasn’t created with the listener as its primary focus, rather an expression of one man’s losses and struggles. And that, after all, is what art is about, it gives us a way to say things that would otherwise be impossible, a way to attempt to figure things out for ourselves which has the double edge of helping others too.

It Kindly Stopped For Me is out now on Topshelf Records. You can order it now on 7″ vinyl, cassette or digital download via Topshelf Records or the Sorority Noise Bandcamp page.

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The post Wake The Deaf’s Favourite Songs of 2015 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Mitski/Eskimeaux/Elvis Depressedly/Dude York

“Try as we might to describe why a night of live music can comfort us, relieve us, inspire us, confront us or sometimes even change us entirely, the actual phenomenon is something you have to be present to fully understand” – Erika wrote about the Mitski/Eskimeaux/Elvis Depressedly/Dude York show in Seattle, and drew some pictures too.

Daytime TV

“Lo-fi, psych-tinged, rock music, fusing the DIY indie rock ethos with mid 2000’s British garage rock” – Our thoughts on the self-titled EP from Daytime TV

Ought

Canadian rockers Ought have a new album coming very soon on Constellation Records.

Don DeLillo

“Don DeLillo is a hero of mine. The finest writer of our times… ” – We made a playlist of songs to soundtrack DeLillo’s White Noise, together with some gushing words.

K. Adem

“If further evidence was needed, Beautiful Dreamer confirms Adem’s eclectic songwriting abilities” – Our thoughts on the latest release from K. Adem.

Oh Pep!

“What should perhaps be labelled multi-instrumental indie pop, something akin to Sylan Esso meets Vampire Weekend” – We previewed the upcoming EP from Oh Pep! with some words about first song ‘The Race’

Sorority Noise

“Teenage, I’m-so-misunderstood melancholy is doubly effective, providing a sense of connection to anyone unlucky enough to find themselves in the throes of an adolescent heartbreak, while proving immensely gratifying to everyone else in the way that manufactured grief is always gratifying – a distracting and digestible simulacrum of suffering, a romantic and wistful removed-from-Real-Life pain, like watching an episode of The OC with your name in the main credits. But the thing is, anyone listening closely will soon discover that Sorority Noise are different…” – we explained why Sorority Noise are more than just another emo band

Typhoon

“Let it be known, the stripped back, piano led performance of ‘Prosthetic Love’ is gorgeous” – Typhoon put out a seven-inch featuring some lovely alternate versions of songs from White Lighter

National Museum Cardiff

Finally… We told you about the exciting things coming up in July at the National Museum Cardiff

The post Week in Review: #9 (6th-10th July) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

On first inspection, you might think Sorority Noise are pushing the same things as the majority of other emo bands. That is, isolation and loneliness in the aftermath of a doomed relationship, pulling no punches in bringing forth every worry and aching pain to present to the listener. You know the deal, heartbroken, hard-done-by Hero sings/shouts/screams about the injustice of his life after Pretty Love takes up with Slimy Evil Guy. This type of teenage, I’m-so-misunderstood melancholy is doubly effective, providing a sense of connection to anyone unlucky enough to find themselves in the throes of an adolescent heartbreak, while proving immensely gratifying to everyone else in the way that manufactured grief is always gratifying – a distracting and digestible simulacrum of suffering, a romantic and wistful removed-from-Real-Life pain, like watching an episode of The OC with your name in the main credits.

But the thing is, anyone listening closely will soon discover that Sorority Noise are different. What sounds on the surface like the age-old angst record is in fact far deeper, the band managing to subvert the genre tropes to make something far more interesting and nuanced. And what’s even more interesting is how Boucher & co. manage to do this. The answer to rising above self-absorbed, why-have-you-forsaken-me pity turns out to be an increased focus on the self. Increasing the duration and intensity of this self examination actually eradicates, perhaps paradoxically, any sense of self-indulgence. However, as much as it makes for more rewarding art, eschewing Hollywood melancholy in favour of exploring Real Life comes at a cost. The pain here is far from superficial, the stories not tied into neat bows of happy endings, the anxiety and depression not some shallow puddle but a floorless ocean full of dark shapes.

The narrator’s pain manifests as addiction, a theme made clear on opener ‘Blissth’ (“Let me be the drug that you use to fall in love/The heroin that keeps you warm enough”) which persists across the album. ‘Corrigan’, with verses almost akin to Spook Houses, details the defeated-but-still-in-love vibe of traditional emo, and ‘Nolsey’ follows a similar vein (“I know you’ll never love me/I’ll pretend that you love me/You’ll always be the reason I stay clean). It is over these next few tracks that you feel Boucher comes to a gradual epiphany, where the focus shifts onto himself and it becomes apparent that failed relationships and addiction are effect rather than cause, symptoms of something deeper and more personal. ‘Art School Wannabee’ sees this idea reached:

“Maybe I’m my own greatest fear,
maybe I’m just scared to admit that
I might not be as dark as I think
Maybe I’m not the person that I never wanted to be”

By ‘Using’, which sees a relapse into guilt and vicodin, the message of the record becomes clear. The positivity here is not based on circumstance but instead in the will of the narrator, understanding that depression is not a binary healthy/sick (functional/broken) deal and emotional wellbeing can be pursued even from what might feel like rock bottom. The album is about learning to accept bad things without ever surrendering to them:

“I’ve started loving again
I’ve stopped wishing I was dead
learned to love myself before anyone else
become more than just a burden
I know I’m more than worthy of your time”

“I’ve gotten better, at getting better.
I’ve gotten better, at being me.”

Flipping the focus from the outward, uncontrollable suffering of circumstance to the inward, controllable and conquerable suffering of your own feelings and behaviour, Sorority Noise aim higher than your average emo band. They, along with bands like The Hotelier (whose album we never managed to cover but recommend highly) are making music instilled with a higher sense of purpose and value, the kind all artists should aim for. Why settle for comfortable suffering when there is a chance of painful healing?

Joy, Departed is out now on Topshelf Records and you can grab it via the Sorority Noise Bandcamp page (including some nice vinyl).

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