That said, with its relaxed and sun-dappled tone, Nightgown is more daydream pop than dream pop, as typified by the bright and breezy opener ‘Gold Rush’. Here we get the first taste of Blair Howerton’s soft and sweetly measured vocals, inflected with something wistful. The track also gets the remix treatment later on, which transforms it into a charmingly DIY electro-pop song, something reminiscent of recent Moon Racer album on Orindal Records.

Upping the tempo, ‘Hollow Moon’ races like a hammering heart, the vocals honeyed yet mournful, before standout ‘Stereo’, where Why Bonnie get wide-screen and emotional. The exhales of an organ prep the canvas for reverb-wrapped guitar and sincere vocals, before the drums build from barely there to a steady crashing beat. The vocals follow a similar pattern, Howerton’s opening verses having a sedate, sleepy logic, before rising into a forceful and poignant crescendo.

“You could up to leave
and take the warmth in my bones
Leaving me with people in the street
and songs on the stereo

Does your family know
that you in fact did not die?
That you’re up in your apart
and you’re very much alive?”

After the glassy and digitized ‘club mix’ of Gold Rush, closer ‘In Parking Lots’ rounds off the EP on an altogether more intimate note, stark guitar and vocal harmonies creating an insular and introspective bedroom pop song. If the previous tracks emerge from a dream, then this rises from beneath the covers by torchlight, a sleepless vigil where personal hopes and doubts are aired, the oneiric soundscapes replaced by moving simplicity.

Nightgown is out now via Sports Day Records, and you can get it from the Why Bonnie Bandcamp page.

Artwork and design by Gabrielle Guidry

The post Why Bonnie – Nightgown appeared first on Various Small Flames.

A new volume will be posted every few weeks and will offer a collection of really great songs that we’re determined not to let slip past our radar.

Courtney Marie Andrews – May Your Kindness Remain

Last year we spoke with Courtney Marie Andrews about Honest Life, the record that seems to have been her breakout success, despite being in the business for over ten years. Hot on the heels of this newfound recognition, Andrews is back with a brand new album, May Your Kindness Remain, to be released this spring. So far we only have the title track to go on, but the signs suggest Andrews expanding her sound beyond acoustic folk, with strong elements of soul, rock and gospel, giving the song a spirit that seems lifted from some bygone time, and likely cementing Andrews amongst the very best songwriters working today.

May Your Kindness Remain will be released on the 23rd March via Loose (UK) and Fat Possum Records/Mama Bird Recording Co. (North America), and you can pre-order it now.

inning – Feels Like It Did

“Last night, I taught viola to aliens in dreams.” Not many songs aim for territory as weird as this, and even less manage to weave it into such a sad and serious mood, but Virginia-based inning does so with aplomb. The track was inspired by one of those soul destroying college entrance questionnaires, albeit a relatively cool one, which asked “If you could send one thing to aliens that represented human life, what would it be?” inning decided that an instrument might be a good choice, in the hope that, should the contact ever develop into something more face-to-face, we might have something in common, and a way to communicate. Which maybe explains the kind of desperate loneliness that seems to smoulder behind this track, a metaphorical viola solo aimed skyward, not knowing if they could figure out how to play the thing, or even got the package in the first place.

Après​-​Ski EP is available now from the inning Bandcamp page.

Rosie Tucker – Spinster Cycle

Taken from an upcoming EP, Rosie Tucker’s ‘Spinster Cycle’ is a break-up song based, of all places, in a late-night laundromat. Picture the scene: your most treasured relationship failing amidst artificial lighting and a constant mechanical whirr, while muted TV screens try to sell you stuff as an awkward audience of semi-attentive strangers look at their feet. Here is a classic tale of miscommunication and banal distraction, the impossibility of truly knowing another person working its way into the cracks of even the most promising pairings, meaning that instead of trying to talk it through, they just lie back and let the drift carry them apart, even while their clothes share the same hot water, the dyes leeching and mixing into one dull shade.

“My parents met in a laundromat parking lot
I almost tell you but then I think not to
We focus on pulling our lights from our darknesses
We separate even though we’ve got sparks
While the colors bleed”

‘Spinster Cycle’ is available now from the the Rosie Tucker Bandcamp page, and be sure to keep your eyes peeled for the EP.

Why Bonnie – Made of Paper

Ahead of their debut EP on Sports Day Records, Austin band Why Bonnie have unveiled lead single ‘Made of Paper’ to get us suitably excited. Fuelled by a loose sound which belies the surprisingly insistent tempo, lead Blair Howerton explores vulnerability and perseverance through the lens of history and image, challenging preconceptions and expectations in search of some deeper truth. As such, ‘Made of Paper’ feels like a motivating call from Why Bonnie, helping us all shake free of a clinging inertia, or at least urging we test its grasp in preparation for a future escape.

“I never knew my great grandmother,
but I’m always told i have her skin.
although I think I’ve talked to her,
I know I can’t escape the skin I’m born in.

Reading my fortune
in the mess I’ve made in the kitchen
dirty spoons
to show that I’m still going”

In Water is set for release on the 16th February via Sports Day Records and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Sonny Baker – Comfortable

At the very end of 2017, Buffalo’s Sonny Baker put out a new record, steady hands, dead tired via Admirable Traits, following up an EP, easier, which came out in April. Don’t let the late release date slide under your radar amidst all the end of year lists, because this is an energetic, at times furious, slice of indie rock. Single ‘Comfortable’ serves as a good taster, railing against the chains of routine and comfort zones, the frenetic tempo aiming to shock you from your tracks, scrub the grey film from your eyes.

“I’m at the point
to set it all
on fire

dump the rest
into a garbage can”

steady hands, dead tired is out now via Admirable Traits Records and you can snag it from Bandcamp.

Andrew Goldring – Lost in the Motion

Following up last year’s EP Morning Light, Salt Lake City’s Andrew Goldring is back with a brand new single, ‘Lost in the Motion’. Pitched somewhere between the gruff melancholia of Water Liars and psych-tinged rock of The War on Drugs and The Wooden Sky, Goldring ticks both boxes—managing to represent a clear-eyed stride forward while remaining haunted by lingering images of the past. As such, the single serves as both a confident driving song and introspective examination, and should be a regular in your headphones on just about any occasion.

‘Lost in the Motion’ is out now and you can get it from the Andrew Goldring Bandcamp page.

Field Report – Summertime Songs

Finally, Milwaukee band Field Report have unveiled a new single, ‘Never Look Back’ ahead of their forthcoming record, Summertime Songs. Those unfamiliar with Chris Porterfield’s writing are well advised to check out their previous releases, with both their self-titled debut and 2014’s Marigolden up there with our favourite albums of the decade (no exaggeration). As we wrote in our review of the latter, “Porterfield’s writing is humble, real, able to be all shades of sad and beautiful. He leaves it to the listener to decide what they take from it, be it comfort or disturbance.”

Summertime Songs was written pre-election, and also in the run up to the birth of Porterfield’s first child, and the anxiety and fear of the unknown allows the songs to form “a dialogue about the fragility of America” and it’s various ideals. With that said, the press release leaves us with the promise that “Field Report will grab you by the short hairs and make you see yourself,” which sounds just like the Field Report we know. The record is out via Verve Forecast on the 23rd March, and you can get more information from the Field Report site.

‘Never Look Back’ is streaming now over at Stereogum.

That’s all folks. If you’re still not sated, why not check out previous editions of Bright Sparks?

The post Bright Sparks: Vol. 8 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Big Thief – Capacity

Saddle Creek

“[Lenker’s vocals] unfurl like a magician’s silk scarves, a perpetual unravelling shaped by a poetic, negentropic logic. [It] is as though the meaning is summoned from the words themselves, something in the syllabic arrangement dragging stories and emotions into our world from somewhere else entirely. Lenker’s gift is her ability to recognise the strange, innate forces within language, surrender to them, and present them back to us with a crystal-clear clarity.”

REVIEW / BUY

Wild Pink – S/T

Tiny Engines

“Ross feels like a narrator dropped into an ongoing narrative, not fully aware of the beginning or end, or even any coherent context, yet haunted by profound sensations of sadness, fear and guilt—an unshakeable, existential dread that suggests we’re going to pay for how this story is panning out. Wild Pink haven’t come to us amidst this chaos with magic cures or quick-fix solutions, but they’ve come to us nonetheless. Right now, that’s probably the most valuable and noble thing any of us can do.”

REVIEW / BUY

The Wooden Sky – Swimming in Strange Waters

Chelsea Records / Nevado Music

“The Wooden Sky are making music with emotion, intelligence and integrity, songs in which you can both lose and find yourself, and perhaps even connect with the plight of others. We’re all trying to survive strange waters to some degree, and the record’s intent on illuminating this fact—both appreciating your constant kicking beneath the surface, and imploring you to help those that may be tiring, or entering even rougher seas.”

REVIEW / BUY

Vagabon – Infinite Worlds

Father/Daughter Records

“This is the sort of music that makes you feel part of a something, it does reflect a big sad and confused gang spread out all over the world, and we should be connected by shared experience and a sneaky feeling that life is worth living. However, to mark Infinite Worlds as simply sad or lonely falls into to the very trap of binarism that the album spends so much time fighting. Yes, it’s mournful but joyous too. It’s bedroom pop and indie rock and experimental ambient. It’s immensely personal and broadly relatable. It’s Vagabon, though only as it sounds right now.”

REVIEW / BUY

Protomartyr – Relatives of Descent

Domino

“Casey returns to his own struggles with the irony of being an artist in such a world, where to not speak against the absurdity of the system is to become complicit, yet knowing those very absurdities render his words meaningless. Rather than give up, or persevere nobly, Casey twists his art into the shape of this double-bind, using self-deprecation to cover any hint of naivety. “I have a backlog of so-called prophets,” a character tells a Messiah-like oracle near the beginning of the [final song]. “You are of a multitude.” The preacher insists he witnesses truth, to which the first character reacts with genuine confusion and interest. “The truth?” he asks. “What is it?””

REVIEW / BUY

Julia Lucille – Chthonic

Keeled Scales

“Part folk, part dream pop, part something else entirely, her music combines equal parts delicacy and foreboding with an impressive patience and emotional intensity […] concerned with the underworld, more specifically descending into as a mode of growth and rebirth (a la Persephone), and [showing] off the interplay between shadow and light that constitutes the record’s aesthetic.”

REVIEW / BUY

Friendship – Shock Out Of Season

Orindal Records

“In many ways, Friendship are in a Bardo of their own, caught between how life has been and could be, unsure how and when, if ever, they might pass into the next part. Shock Out of Season is concerned with finding this exit, figuring out some act or combination of words that allow passage into the next life. Or maybe it’s about making peace with the current space, acknowledging that perhaps true communication is impossible, and that trying to live with this understanding might be the most sympathetic and empathetic path available to us.”

REVIEW / BUY

Real Life Buildings – Significant Weather

Lauren Records

“Real Life Buildings capture both the quiet minutiae of day to day living—the soft feeling you get in an empty room with just a ticking clock and raindrops on the window pane for company—and the exhilarating rush of joy that is still sometimes possible. It’s music that, despite its anxiety and concern, still sees that silvery sheen of magic in the mundane, a fun indie rock record and a lesson in paying attention to what’s going on both inside and outside your head.”

REVIEW / BUY

Distant Reader – Home Power

Lily Tapes & Discs

“Distant Reader weav[es] a dense web of not just personal reflections, but reflections on the lives of those he cares about. Home Power is a deep record, one that withstands, even requires, a lot of thought and rumination, but after repeated listens the key points of empathy and kindness begin to resonate deeply. It’s a reminder that we’re all able to help ourselves and each other, and that we will be better people for both.”

REVIEW / BUY

Alex Napping – Mise En Place

Father/Daughter Records / Sports Day Records

“Less like a chronicle of a disintegrating relationship than the beginning of a process of self-examination, of moving forward, of weighing things up day-by-day and acting accordingly […] On Mise En Place, Alex Napping somehow manage to marry the immediacy of good pop songs with a slow-burning complexity, proving that meaningful songs can still be fun, and that great pop songs need not be a simple shallow sugar rush.”

REVIEW / BUY

Craig Finn – We All Want The Same Things

Partisan Records

“There’s a danger that pushing everything through the Trumpian prism collapses some of the intricacies and nuances of art. After all, The Donald is a product of the disaffection Finn is exploring here, not the cause. The problem is deeper and more complex than any government-related trouble, and Finn is too wise to offer much in the way of an answer. Instead, he suggests we shift the focus of our questions. Because We All Want the Same Things is an album about relationships, but not in the usual sense. Not the transcendental, star-aligned love of Billboard hits and Hollywood flicks but coupling based on common needs. Not life-changing answers but life-preserving strategies. Luckily, in the hands of Craig Finn, this version of ‘romance’ feels somehow more fulfilling, the opposite of cynical, for better or for worse, genuinely human. Perhaps the revolution in the conclusion isn’t some violent revolt or epiphanic break, rather a gradual yet constant commitment to challenging our own expectations. To stop wanting too much for ourselves and to start being sympathetic to others. A comeback story, of sorts.”

REVIEW / BUY

The Courtneys – II

Flying Nun Records

“There’s something joyfully nostalgic [about II]…the aural equivalent of the era it borrows from musically. It’s wrapped up in the warm fuzzy tape hiss of the late 80s / early 90s, that period of endless possibility, where everything was colourful and exciting and came with a free toy.”

REVIEW / BUY

Pleasure Systems – Antumbra Pull

Antiquated Future Records

“Essentially a collection of love songs. Each track is pure and sincere and deceptively rich, each created within its own little world, or perhaps conjuring a snapshot of a particular time/place in our own. The positive outlook never seems like some near-forgotten memory. It’s as if Sondermann is using Pleasure Systems to focus all of the hope and love into a beam which is aimed at the shadow, a beam which might not make the problem go away, but can at least be used as a formidable weapon in the forthcoming struggle.”

REVIEW / BUY

Midwife – Like Author, Like Daughter

Whited Sepulchre

“On Like Author, Like Daughter, Midwife have made an album of dualities…both powerfully elemental and somehow intangible, the unrestrained power of nature versus the invisible waves that surround us, emotionally pure messages coded in digital distortion. This duality goes for the atmosphere too. It’s impossible to pack the album away into an explicit genre or emotion, somehow conveying the whole spectrum, swelling triumph and crushing defeat, bright white hope and oil-black despair. But, ultimately, almost unbelievably, the message is positive. Even during the moments where the music sounds like the apocalypse, a tangible, sonic manifestation of loneliness and despair, Johnston provides a thread to hold on to, a reminder that the human spirit is the one thing that can, and will, endure.”

REVIEW / BUY

Black Belt Eagle Scout – Mother Of My Children

Self-released

“For all the difficulty and heartache that clearly went into it’s creation, Mother of My Children ultimately feels like Black Belt Eagle Scout making a clarion call, a proud statement that is intended to encourage other queer people of colour to use art as a source of strength, self-knowledge and empowerment. But it’s more than just an artistic statement. The album has both focus and depth, exploring themes directly with its lyrics and more indirectly with the atmosphere it conjures.”

REVIEW / BUY

CHUCK – Franenstein Songs For the Grocery Store

Audio Antihero

“Frankenstein Songs for the Grocery Store finds CHUCK doing what he does best, making songs that are catchy and funny and unashamedly “pop” and all undoubtedly good fun. But there’s always that something else to his songs too, something that’s harder to put a finger on, a nod to the vacuum at the centre of our 21st century consumerist culture.”

REVIEW / BUY

Half Gringa – Gruñona

Self-released

“Unpick[ing] the knots and tangles that have developed through[out] life, both retracing steps and forging ahead to discover something closer to [an] authentic self […] Gruñona is a journey without a clear destination, a question without an answer. An attempt to map identity not to achieve some clear-cut conclusion but rather in the hope of better understanding how history and culture and personal beliefs shape the people we are and were, the people we will be.”

REVIEW / BUY

Meursault – I Will Kill Again

Song, By Toad Records

“This is an album full of ghosts, both literal and metaphoric, from the disembodied voices that sometimes interrupt the broadcast, to Pennycook’s characters themselves, all coalescing to create a grand sense of melancholy […] but [the final song] see a sense of advancement, a suggestion that the ghosts might finally be confined to the past, where they belong.”

REVIEW / BUY

Adult Mom – Soft Spots

Tiny Engines

“Soft Spots finds Adult Mom with a new sense of self-assurance. These songs contain genuine hurt but also genuine hope, the narrator finally in possession of the bravery necessary to open up to people. It’s hard to think of a more fitting illustration of the album than the pickled pink peaches on the cover art. Yes, the fruits may get bruised if the jar is opened, but how else would anyone know how soft and sweet they are?”

REVIEW / BUY

Bea Troxel – The Way That It Feels

Self-released

“The album is an introspective one, based around big questions of where the narrator wants to be and what kind of life they want to live. In that way, it feels like a re-evaluation, the bright and hopeful result of much thought and worry […] The Way That It Feels hits a nice balance between the weighty and the not. It’s an album as poetic and pretty as it is serious and sincere, and marks Bea Troxel as a name to watch among contemporary folk musicians.”

REVIEW / BUY

The post Favourite Albums of 2017 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Written is several locales across Canada, Alexander says the song is based on the “profound episodes in life that swell from one moment to the other.” A change in direction from Harland, the song feels less like an adventurous travelogue and more a sincere attempt at self-expression. The mumbled vocals and lazy beats give things a somnambulant air, like one of those days where you sit around in your pyjamas and don’t leave the house. But that doesn’t stop Alexander conjuring some pretty striking images, soft and gauzy and dreamlike, but infused with real emotion all the same.

“clouds are my friends when I’ve been on drugs
moss is the place that i know and love
a bridge that meets the garden wall
ancient oak trees a hundred feet tall”

It appears that this will be a continuing them on the new album, which he made “to soothe and reconnect with parts himself, to attack head on the patriarchal conditioning that so much our culture functions on.”

Spill Kid is due for release at the end of the week, but until then you can get ‘Tiny Bricks’ from the Harley Alexander Bandcamp page.

The post Harley Alexander returns with new single, Tiny Bricks appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Opener ‘Tender’, with its steadily grooving bass, is a taut and restrained pop song, slowly unspooling across its five minute runtime as Cohen’s vocals are joined by edgily whirring guitars. ‘You’ve Got Me’ is all angular melodies and sweet layered vocal harmonies, the simmering sense of tension tearing at the centre two-thirds in, the track wigging out in a squall of guitar and Dessner-style pounded percussion.

“Daily, daily or nightly
Darling, darling so slightly
Honey, honey you’ve got me
Honey, honey you’ve got me”

‘Fault’ begins stripped back and noodly, a poolside summer afternoon of a track, but evolves and expands across its five minutes, like a poppier take on the Paper Bee album we liked so much last year. ‘Living Room’ finds Alex Napping at the height of their powers. Part wistful indie rock, part wide-screen dream pop a la Beach House, the song acts as the album’s thematic centrepoint, Cohen ruminating on shared spaces both real and perceived. Yet, while understandably morose and a little brooding, there’s a lightness to the track too, something within individual notes or Cohen’s lyrics which floats above the most frustrated moments. As such, the track feels less like a chronicle of a disintegrating relationship than the beginning of a process of self-examination, of moving forward, of weighing things up day-by-day and acting accordingly. This sense of purpose is highlighted in the closing refrain, which sounds like a long-lost pop hit fronted by Patti Smith.

“There’s a living room
Filled with all of our stuff
I can’t get it to move
Without unsettling dust”

The final song, ‘Heart Swells 2.0’, reigns things in a little, a sober but not downbeat ending that feels like a lull of clear-headed acceptance of what has come before.

On Mise En Place, Alex Napping somehow manage to marry the immediacy of good pop songs with a slow-burning complexity, proving that meaningful songs can still be fun, and that great pop songs need not be a simple shallow sugar rush. You can get Mise En Place now on vinyl from Father Daughter Records, cassette tape from Sports Day Records or digitally from the Alex Napping Bandcamp page.

The post Alex Napping – Mise En Place appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The duality in atmosphere between the welcoming embrace of the music and an unsettling vibe poking through the lyrics defines the Ohyeahsumi sound. ‘Drag’ is a love song that flits between romantic ideals and physical realities, while ‘Daisy’ plays self-deprecation as an act of defiance, expectations cast aside and trodden into the dirt. Then, while ‘Hey’ could be an anthem for a seventeen your old, ‘Snowflake’ is altogether darker and self-destructive, “love” as a provocation or act of self-harm. Closer ‘Trophy’ feels like a challenge along these lines, accusations made after the delirious days have past, leaving nothing but bad blood and slow-healing wounds.

“You smile like you’re waiting for apologies
Do you want a trophy?

Do you want a trophy for
Breaking my heart?
Do you want a trophy for
Having no heart?”

The release came out earlier this year on Sports Day Records, though its ethereal atmosphere will make a perfect soundtrack to your hot, lazy summer. Buy it from the Ohyeahsumi Bandcamp page.

Cover art by Dina

The post Ohyeahsumi – Your Friends Are Looking For You appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The first single, ‘Living Room’, highlights the growing maturity and cohesion of the band and serves as a mission statement for the album as a whole. Using the idea of spaces both literally and as figuratively, the song charts the tension that comes with forming, sharing and losing bonds with people and places, and how without compromise and conscious attempts at balance, unequal commitments will lead to guilt and pain.

Yet, while understandably wistful and a little brooding, there’s a lightness to the track too, something within individual notes or Cohen’s lyrics which floats above the most frustrated moments. As such, the track feels less like a chronicle of a disintegrating relationship than the beginning of a process of self-examination, of moving forward, of weighing things up day-by-day and acting accordingly. This sense of purpose is highlighted in the closing refrain, which sounds like a long-lost pop hit fronted by Patti Smith.

“There’s a living room
Filled with all of our stuff
I can’t get it to move
Without unsettling dust”

Mise En Place is set for release on the 5th May and you can pre-order it on vinyl/CD from Father/Daughter Records, on cassette from Sports Day Records, or digitally via the Alex Napping Bandcamp.

Photo by Helmut Studio

The post Alex Napping unveil sophomore album, Mise En Place, with single ‘Living Room’ appeared first on Various Small Flames.

‘Anju’ begins with some softly pealing guitar and gentle sleigh bell percussion, before slipping into the smooth and slinky indie pop that Slumbers have made their own. ‘TFIM’ stands for “thanks for inviting me”, and is a song about going to parties but not exactly being the life and soul of them.

“Saw you walking home the other day
and looked the other way
of course I wanted to say hi
but I’m too damn shy”

‘Stay Hidden’ stirs some dreaminess through indie pop, telling the tale of crippling worry and self-doubt. The song has a surprisingly catchy chorus, considering its subject matter, with the repeated harmonized line “Anxiety takes over me I wanna leave”.

‘Doboom Soon’ opens with, “Laying in bed, feel like I’m dead, don’t want to get up and go out”, the perfect start to what proves to be a bummed-out bedroom pop song in the vein of Cyberbully Mom Club, while ‘Battle is a sweetly sad song about that all-too-familiar anxiety that affects much of privileged western society.

“It feels like I’m
in a constant battle with my mind
just to stay sane and to stay happy
whatever happy is”

‘Fuzzy’ is a slight change of pace, dominated by quivering keys until the onset of percussion around the minute mark. It almost sounds like a twenty-first century update of Mountain Man’s sparse group harmony folk. Closing track ‘Milkshakes’ returns to guitar-led indie pop, a song imbued with a sense of lazy but heartfelt apathy (as captured in the nicely-phrased chorus: “Didn’t look like I was shaking but I could barely light a match / it doesn’t matter anyway the fire won’t last”). The final song also contains a line that sums up the whole Slumbers ethos in just a handful of words.

“I’d rather not be awake
and have to make mistakes
I need a break”

You can get Come Over on cassette via Sports Day Records and as a digital download from the Slumbers Bandcamp page.

The post Slumbers – Come Over appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Morning Sounds hints at its themes more stylistically than lyrically, what Sports Day Records describe as “the result of anxious thoughts from the middle of the night and in the early hours of the dawn”. However, to my ears, anxiety is not the primary emotion on the release, rather the hazy and vague atmosphere recalls the quiet moments where the world slows down around you and allows some self-reflection. This is enhanced by Static Animal’s use of atmospheric recordings, utilising what the label describe as “found sounds and field recordings from the Melbourne coast” to add depth to their music and “show off how emotion can be captured in small bursts of sound”.

Opening song ‘Runner’ is a fuzzed out kraut-tinged instrumental which soars in its own dark style, while ‘Country Room’ introduces Gibbon’s vocals in what proves to be an understated pop gem, all grooving guitar and dreamy, gauzy vocals which flutter just outside of hearing, allowing your brain to pull the pareidolia effect and conjure words of your own.

The pop theme continues on ‘Hours’, a soft and mumbled number that will regardless get you tapping your feet. ‘Spring Cassette’ sounds like a drive through a winter night, the heater warming your skin as you rush past shadowy snow banks and flurries of icy flakes, all lit by the sodium glow of the sleeping city, while ‘Evergreen’ is a nod to the changing seasons – a slow and sultry track that sounds like a cool pastel sunrise before the heat of the day.

Morning Sounds is being released on super limited cassette by Sports Day Records. You can also get it digitally via the Static Animal Bandcamp page.

The post Static Animal – Morning Sounds appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Alexander is back with Harland, a new eight-track album to be released this week on Sports Day Records. The record, at least partly inspired by trans-Canadian travels which included stops at an isolated Quebecois cabin and tree planting near Vancouver, is a mellow, earthy brand of pop music which expands upon his first release. Packing together the excitement and anxiety and loneliness of new beginnings, he manages to create smooth music without compromising on depth, the sharp edges removed but not forgotten. Serving as a great introduction to the album, single ‘Staring at Photographs’ is a track that’s “both weary of and attracted to nostalgia”, balancing the comfortable respite memories can bring but all the while aware that time is linear and we’ve got to keep on moving forwards. While this may suggest an anxious itch, the song is in fact a laid-back jam. Rather than hanging around to become troublesome, you get the sense that the emotions here are flowing evenly and constantly away from their source, a gentle eddy that might never stop but looks serene and pretty under the right light.

Harland is set for release on the 22nd of July via the good folks at Sports Day Records. You can pre-order via the Harley Alexander Bandcamp page. Harley Alexander is heading out on his first US dates this summer too, so have a gander below to see if he’s stopping near you:

Art by Selina Latour

The post ‘Staring at Photographs’, a new single from Harley Alexander appeared first on Various Small Flames.