Your dancing shoes might come in useful during ‘Dream Wild’, its surfy guitars sounding pastel pink and aquamarine as they jangle along merrily, while ‘Cool It!’ is equally pepped-up, even the slight sadness in Pender’s vocals not dampening spirits. ‘Like Always’ is a wonderfully melodic and catchy, Lender singing “I don’t think I wanna hear that / please don’t tell me how I look”, before ‘Hit and Miss’ closes the EP with a final slice of lean and energetic jangle pop, the vocals giving things a dreamy romantic vibe.

“Blue eyes keep tearin me apart
I do, I just keep fallin’
I’m sinkin’ please save me again”

You can buy Terry Vs. Tori now from Bandcamp on a pay-what-you-can basis.

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“Their EP, ▲ S N O W B E A S T ▲, is swirling concoction of musical styles that is hard to pin down. There are relaxed surf rock baselines (‘Backyards and Alleyways’), Vampire Weekend-esque African influences (‘No One Wants to Live in the Ghetto’), electronic beats and fuzzy repetitive choruses (‘A Howl Like a Wolf’) and in-your-face shouty bits (‘Snowbeast’ and ‘Somewhere, Ontario’)”

Well the band aren’t back but we might well have the next best thing. The new project of SNOWBEAST frontman Riun Garner, Hoshifo have extracted the tropical vibes from the SNOWBEAST carcass and expanded upon them to make shimmering pop single ‘I’m Not There’. The song toes the line between blissed-out haze of summer days and the sentimental melancholy of summer nights, sounding like Dexter Tortoriello’s vacation jams. Have a listen below:

There’s not much in terms of information about Hoshifo, but be sure to ‘like’ their Facebook page to ensure you don’t miss a thing.

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Opener ‘Don’t Go’ is a veritable jam, a summer rock song which resists the temptation to hide beneath reverb, like a Best Coast track that has been trawled from beneath the ocean haze and held aloft like a trophy. ‘Baby, Please’ is more laid back, a humid dose of teenage love and longing, while ‘My Only One’ picks up the tempo again, the jangly guitars and percussion charting a drop in the carefree attitude, the downer when you’ve been on the beach too long and your head is fried:

“Can’t stand this time of day,
sunshine won’t go away,
keeps burning at my eyes and skin.
I want to disappear
your sentiment is clear,
I waited up all night for you.

Think about the days in the sand and the sun
think about the days when you were my only one.”

Closer ‘Somethin’ About You’ sees the mood refreshed and narrator rehydrated, a sultry night-time rendezvous where the beers are sweating as much as the lovers. “I knew it was something when you came to say hi” she sings, “I didn’t know why but there was something about you.” Here every glance is loaded, every sipped drink choreographed with romantic intention. Exactly how much these girls and boys mean to one another is unclear but in these hot days and nights it doesn’t seem to matter. As she sings on ‘Baby, Please’: “I just want to have some fun.”

You can buy CRUSHED now on a pay-what-you-can basis on the PONY Bandcamp page.

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‘Bling’ is the latest single from Hyperlust, a jagged pop hit which manages to not only bathe the listener in a glowing summer chill but also challenge the concept of capital-T Truth in reality and the mind, answering its own mystical questions with the only fair motto of our times. I don’t know.

“What do you mean?

I don’t know

Just a sign of science

Just a sign of science

What did you see?

Eyes to the floor

And if I do not understand it, was it real?

What do you mean?

I don’t know”

Hyperlust will be released on the 31st May and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp. If, like me, you are new to the band, be sure to go back and explore their previous releases.

The post Bells Atlas – Bling appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklist

1. Boat – The Tallest Tree
2. Lonely – Rivergazer
3. I Think I’m Old Enough – Adult Mom
4. Thought u were better than that – Cyberbully Mom Club
5. Way Gross – Aunts
6. Fierce Resource Allocation – Emperor X
7. Dark Arts – Baby Cages
8. Stranded (On My Own) – Titus Andronicus
9. Singapore – Reid
10. Attak (ft. Danny Brown) – Rustie
11. Gold (Chet Faker re-work) – Flume
12. Duals – Bonobo
13. Ongoing Thing (ft. Oddisee) – 20syl
14. Animal – The Acid
15. Heirloom Luna – Chemists // 化学者
16. Triumvirate – Lewis & Clarke
17. Holly Would – Benjamin J Woods
18. Terrified – The Rural Alberta Advantage
19. Friday Night – The Parade Schedule
20. Falling Stars – Jacob Furr
21. Red Thread – Spark Alaska
22. Blood – Ahava
23. Stars Pt. 2 – Psalmships
24. Goodbye Letter – Adieu Caribou

You can also listen over at Minilogs.

July Mix from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

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

Billy Moon makes music for summer.

Summer is coming.

Grab the EP, Young Adult, here.

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The EP comprises of four tracks as well as remixes from King DUODUO, Somepoe and Stoneway. It has a whole load of influences, from indie pop to electronic and dance music. Basically its a lot of fun.

Buy Make It Happen now via De La Montagne’s Bandcamp page.

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Listen to ‘Metal’ below and then buy the album from Elestial Sound.

P.S. The album closes with a really nice cover of Built to Spill’s ‘Car’, which I would highly recommend.

The post Advent Calendar [22nd]: Emily Reo appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Back in July they released their debut album, Bonfire Etiquette, on Eternal Bummer Records. The album is a lot of fun, ten slices of reckless indie pop, perfect for summer road trips or get-togethers or whatever (yes I realise am late to the party, you’ll have to wait until next year). Frontman Geoff Baillie says that the album deals with the “carelessness, fear, confusion and spontaneity” of being young.

Preconceptions about this style of music may lead you to expect short sharp songs with simple catchy words, however the lyrics are surprisingly wordy, not verbose but detailed, poetic, something more than a series of shout-a-long choruses. For example, in opener ‘Sunday Nights To Infinity’ Baillie sings:

’With naive melody lamps that decorate the bedroom
We stripped all of the linens tracing a loose thread
If you love me till I’m dead I’ll haunt the bedroom with you
Make ourselves out to be ghosts with sheets around our heads’

The poetic theme continues throughout. The latest single from the album is called ‘Crown Victoria’ (which you can listen to exclusively in the player below), a track which was inspired by Bushfire, a poem by Philip Salom about the Victorian Alpine Fires, a series of bush fires that swept through the state of Victoria, southeast Australia, back in 2003. You can read the poem courtesy of the Australian Poetry Library here.

It is a really interesting direction to take, one that again shows the band are commited to highlighting youth as more than a superficial blend of fun and hormones. There is a depth here, an addressing of the thoughts of the young, the paradoxical concurrence of invincibility and fragility, the ticking of a clock on what appears to be a timeless scene.

’We feel like we are glorious
We drive a Crown Victoria
I’ll be your hands if you’re my eyes
And keep watching the mirrors while I drive
Unless we are stricken in a thickened haze
That’s challenging us to remain
And pressures on to break us down
Now I might be a liar but I’ll say
That we just can’t be defeated’

When looking back at our younger years the simplicity of it all is an abiding memory, a lack of commitments or responsibilities that allow for a degree of brashness. Reality, of course, is very different from our rose -tinted memories, and while we were allowed a carelessness or a selfish sense of exploration, the whole gamut of emotions were still present, with fear and confusion prevailing factors, just as Baillie describes in the album. Amity Beach show that representations of youth do not have to be simple.

If you like what you hear then you can get Bonfire Etiquette via the Amity Beach Bandcamp on a pay-what-you-can basis, as well as picking up a physical copy via the merch page.

The band also performed a studio session over at Southern Souls earlier in the year, check it out here.

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Aquarena blends the folk rock of bands like My Morning Jacket and Band of Horses, the nostalgic dreaminess of Beach House and the psychedelic tendencies of The War on Drugs. It’s a winning combination and one that could bring a great degree of success, especially as the band are readying their debut full-length record in time for the summer (release is scheduled for the 13th of May).

Until then, you can get Aquarena on limited edition 10″ vinyl via Bandcamp.

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