Opener ‘Dark Light’ feels enclosed and claustrophobic, Sprague singing about the aftermath of an accident she suffered a few years ago, a theme which reoccurs throughout the record. ‘I Was’ follows, a sad-sounding song that is actually suffused with hope, a song about finding your place in the world and overcoming the past. When Sprague sings “i’ve found a body, soul and mind that i can keep and now i’m not afraid i’ve learned to love it and to keep it all the same,” you get the feeling she really means it. ‘Rings Grow’ starts sparse but comes crunching into some kind of life, before ‘A Hospital + Crucifix Made Of Plastic’, which is little more than vocals and background percussion and Sprague’s vocals delivering neatly poetic lines which hold a deceptive ominous edge:

“i’m in a sunny park
lying face down on my back on a crucifix
that’s made of plastic
and it’s painful
but i don’t feel pain at all”

‘Thank You’ is a spoken word ode to the rise and set of the sun, set over high-pitched keys like static from space, and later an account of the moments before the traffic accident that caused Sprague so much woe. Perhaps for this reason, ‘The Birds Outside Sang’ feels like a dawning day and ends with a mantra-like section that feels somehow monumental, like the start of something more than just another day. “Does the night sky terrify you?” She asks. “And does the day sky mesmerize you and make you dream things better than the day? do you and your friends wanna come into the field and watch the fireworks shoot up into the air?” ‘White Light Doorway’ is the first of two songs that you may recognise from a prior Florist may5to12 release, although it’s been given a new coat of paint since then, and ‘Cold Lakes/Quiet Dreams’ is about as straight “indie pop” as The Birds Outside Sang gets. ‘1914’ is the second of the may5to12 songs, but has a complete makeover as Sprague is joined on vocal duties by the rest of the band, morphing it into a slow and sweet singalong, the perfect illustration of the strength-in-numbers message that pins the album together. It’s also just really nicely written:

“grab me by my shoulder blades
and hang me out to dry
i’m a mess
and i need someone to help me out with that
eyes just like a skyline even when they’re wet
and the window is foggy
and the window has a tint”

‘Dust Inside the Light’ is hushed and insular, a throwback to Sprague’s solo material, and then we come to the final track, which is also my favourite. ‘Only a Prayer, Nothing More’ feels like a distillation of all those things that Sprague says she intended the album to represent. It’s little more than acoustic guitar and Sprague’s vocals and some very minimal percussion and is a great example of how sometimes simplicity is best, how simple songs can hold a power that far exceeds the sum of their musical parts.

“thunderstorms, a friendly thing that remind me i could be dead
it’s 2 am i’m lying in my cotton bed
i wish that i could rip the roof to see the stars
but the off-white light on the ceiling will be fine tonight”

The song, and the album as a whole, is quintessentially a product of The Epoch, wrapped up in the same part-wistful, part-hopeful vibe as Small Wonder’s Wendy and Bellows’ Blue Breath and Told Slant’s Still Water. It’s a conscious reaction against sneering irony and the apparent cynical disaffection of youth, an album which lays bare its author’s thoughts and worries and feelings in the hope of making some small difference. In the hope of helping us too.

You can get The Birds Outside Sang now on vinyl or CD via Double Double Whammy or as a download via the Florist Bandcamp page.

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Holdly is to be released on the 30th of October. You can pre-order it on cassette tape or digital download via Double Double Whammy.

Photo by Stephanie Griffin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Embroidery artwork by Susannah Lee Cutler

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Fevered Press, Fevered Certainty is an independent press run by two non-binary radicals in Michigan. Their aim is to highlight voices on the margins, and they do so by publishing really cool zines and books. They have recently published the first volume of The Epoch Fanzine, which “includes photos, interviews with collective members, essays, dance, and song covers by the qt n friendly community surrounding the collective”. The blurb gives you good reason to grab a copy right away:

“read to feel posi, read to feel closer to yr fav bands n artists”

Perhaps the best bit about the zine are the covers of songs by Epoch faves Told Slant, Small Wonder and Eskimeaux by some really cool and talented people. They serve as 1) cool new takes on tracks I really like and 2) introductions to artists I’m not at all familiar with. What’s not to like?

First up is Leor Miller (of Cipinko), who transforms Told Slant’s ‘Lack’ with fuzzy lo-fi guitars and deadpan vocals, cultivating a sort of Bret Easton Ellis-style so-cool-he’s-numb kinda vibe. Then Detroit’s Chill Corea brings a lo-fi synth pop rendition of Eskimeaux’s ‘Alone At the Party’, think Casiotone for the Painfully Alone meets Free Cake For Every Creature.

The second Told Slant cover comes courtesy of Pitsburgh’s Unraveler, who chooses ‘Ohio Snow Falls’ and provides a version which manages to capture the awkward twitchy passion that makes Told Slant so good. Michigan-based Anywaves also cover Told Slant, with a guitar-less take on ‘Parking Lots’, complete with that slightly desperate warbling crack to the vocals, before alone@home wrap things up with ‘Pocket Full of Posies’, a track which the band describe as “characteristic Eskimeaux, with prettiness and sadness in every line”.

You can get the fanzine via the Fevered Press website, and download the songs on a name-your-price basis over at their Bandcamp page. Now excuse me while I go listen to all these artists’ back catalogues.

The post Fevered Press, Fevered Certainty – The Epoch Fanzine appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Old Earth

“Has this trance-like quality that is almost impossible to describe…It’s music that isn’t satisfied with making pretty sounds in the background, that gets right to the root of things” – New EP …until they’re called sees Old Earth in typically scintillating form.

The Washboard Abs

“Sad but in a cosy, reassuring way…like being alone in an empty room on a rainy afternoon, when the not-quite-twilight has that blue-grey quality and the only sounds are raindrops on the glass and the shooooshing of passing cars” – WHATEVERLAND by The Washboard Abs is the second great Z Tapes release in a week.

The Tarantula Waltz

“Reminds us that no matter how hard, life holds pockets of goodness and wonder, providing moments of fierce, bright joy which light up the dark” – Lynx EP by Swedish folkster The Tarantula Waltz

Molly Drag

“Sad and remorseful in a child-like sort of way, the existential anxiety of adults not yet formed so that his grief can occupy a pure, selfless sort of level” – ‘Open Casket Hidden Meaning’, the brand new track by Molly Drag.

Furnsss

“A return of the gloriously sloppy rock that Furnsss purvey” – Burlington lo-fi rock act announce new EP via our good pals at 80N7.

Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats

“Continues with the jaunty, boisterous vibes that set apart Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats from his solo work, sounding like mid-barroom, drunk-but-honest proclamations” – Nathaniel Rateliff gathers his band in anticipation of their debut EP.

Aidan Knight

“Starts off as a smooth and kinda groovy soft rock track which threatens several crescendos before the horned-filled celebratory climax around the halfway mark” – Aidan Knight has put out a new song in preparation for his third album, coming this autumn on Outside Music.

Small Houses

“So here’s the deal. You pledge on small amount of money in return for a digital download pre-order, and Quentin gets to make a new record and eat something other than craisens” – Small Houses needs your help on GoFundMe to make his new album.

Eskimeaux

“It’s about finally feeling okay with not feeling okay” – Impose has a substantial piece on Eskimeaux’s new album, O.K.

The Epoch

“A sweet, introspective sort of songwriting is the tendency, though hardly the rule. As an inspiring support system and model for artistic collaboration, their cult following is quickly growing” – The Epoch Collective find themselves in good company in Brooklyn Magazine’s round-up of the twenty people defining Brooklyn music in 2015.

Matheny / Molina

“Molina always seemed to know exactly which cards not to show, and with his deep body of work created music that is somehow both haunting and comforting in equal measure” – William Matheny of Southeast Engine shares his memories of Jason Molina and serves up a great cover of ‘Just Be Simple’, all over at Common Folk Music.

Best of 2015

A week late on this but the ever-reliable Gimme Tinnitus has put together a list of the best music of 2015 thus far. Well worth digging through to uncover a few unheard gems.

Nick Cave / DrFasutusAU

A few weeks late on this but it’s worth sharing: Artist DrFaustusAU has drawn a Dr Seuss-style cartoon version of Nick Cave’s ‘Red Right Hand’. You can read more about it on Faster Louder or click the image below to see the whole storybook.

Protest Music

“A reminder that soulful dissent can be both entertaining and politically efficacious. Soulful protest is the work of skillful musicians using their gifts and raising their voices to recreate the world so that everyone has an opportunity to fully participate and no one else’s voice ever again has to remain suppressed or unheard” – Jason King over on at NPR Music has put together 100 hours of protest music, using R&B and the genres which came before that helped form the genre.

Frog

“An attempt to engage modern musical ideas from a 1950s style of arrangement… [it] was a complete failure in that respect but a success in most others” – The Line of Best Fit are streaming Kind Of Blah, the new album from Frog that could well be the soundtrack of your summer.

Summer Camp

“Inspired by 90s Point Horror and Fear Street books and teen horror films, and the idea that a bad relationship can be just as terrifying as a serial killer” – Noisey are streaming Summer Camp’s Bad Love before it’s release next week on Moshi Moshi.

Shamir

And finally, Shamir walked around Brooklyn and played some songs for La Blogotheque:

The post Week in Review: #2 (18th-22nd May) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

March has gone and Spring has sprung. If you were too busy trying to top up your vitamin D levels with every weak little sunbeam then fear not, we have collected everything featured on Wake The Deaf in one handy little playlist. Follow the links in the tracklisting to be whisked away to the relevant pages.

We are taking a short break over Easter to gather our thoughts and hopefully return with something shiny and new. No promises just yet but keep an eye here, Twitter or Facebook for developments. Until then!

Tracklisting:

1. i. – Danielle Fricke
2. Dk/Pi – Aero Flynn
3. Summering – Summering
4. Chapter 1 – Human Behavior
5. Dogs 1 – Vio/Miré
6. A Home Just Over Yonder – Frankie Duff
7. M.M.G.A.T.M – Field Medic
8. Broken Necks – Eskimeaux
9. Maybe I’m Wasting My Time – Jake Rollins
10. God is Laughing at Me – Butterfly House
11. Hold Me Like a Child – GOOD, GOOD BLOOD
12. Invisible Cities – Beat Radio
13. Somebody Kill Me Please – LVL UP
14. The Plane – Andrew Hung
15. Roles Reversed – Kid In The Attic
16. Floral Mattress – Naps
17. Tennis – Derek Piotr
18. The Day is Past and Gone – Jean Ritchie
19. The Day is Past and Gone (Variations) – Sarah Louise
20. Buffalo Bones – Wes Tirey
21. Don’t Go – Radical Dads
22. Lucky Man – Joplin Rice
23. Billy Madison Victory Song – Krill
24. Demise – Psalmships

March 2015 Roundup from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

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Eskimeaux is the recording project of Brooklyn-based musician and producer Gabrielle Smith. Adopting the moniker in 2007, Smith has put out a series of albums which vary from weird experimental noise to sad bedroom folk. Her forthcoming album O.K. on Double Double Whammy is said to be ‘beat-driven and poetic bedroom pop’, which sounds pretty good to us.

The usual Eskimeaux band consists of Felix Walworth (of Told Slant), Lago Lucia, Oliver Kalb (of Bellows) and Jack Greenleaf (of Sharpless), who also helped Smith arrange, mix and produce O.K. It seems clear that Smith has enlisted the talents of her friends to ensure that her album is as good as it could possibly be. As well as the DDW links, she is also a founding member of the Brooklyn songwriting/art collective The Epoch, and this release utilises all of her connections in the independent scene. Aside from the aforementioned band members, Smith also thanks Henry Crawford (of Small Wonder) and Mitski Miyawaki (AKA just plain Mitski) among others. The artwork is no less a team effort, with the main embroidery design by Susannah Lee Cutler (of Yours Are The Only Ears) adapted from a photo by Andrew Piccone, the cover photos by Richard Gin, the insert by Colin Alexander (of Flashlight O) and the spine by Emily Sprague (who you may know as Florist). While the proof will be in the pudding (i.e. how the full release sounds), it seems O.K. is a testament to the power of gathering good friends and kind strangers who are all pulling in the same direction, a reminder that good, carefully put together art has infinitely more value than whatever the PR men and women try to push at you.

Only one song is available right now but it definitely whets the appetites. ‘Broken Necks’ fulfils the poetic pop promise, with Smith’s sincere lyrics of love and altruism supported by unsteady percussion which give the whole thing that weird feeling where life has you sad and scared but you wouldn’t change it for the world.

“When I had a million arms I would wrap them around all your body parts
try to keep away all that could do you harm
try to keep out sickness and keep you warm

but every time the going got tough one by one they were falling off
While you were breaking your neck trying to keep your head up
I was breaking my neck just to stick it out for you
and I know we’d hang out everyday if I wasn’t 100 miles away

from our tadpoles gathering in the creek
and our baby birds learning how to shriek
All the eagles I still haven’t seen and the trees proudly alive and green
I could swear they are there just for you and me
whether friends or in love there’s an indisputable beauty”

You can pre-order O.K. now from Double Double Whammy on variety of vinyl designs. If cassette tapes are more your thing then luckily the good folks over at Mt. Home Arts have you covered (in what promises to be quite spectacular style – see below for an early prototype). We’ll write a full review once we get to hear it but trust our instincts and put your order in now.

P.S. The main photo is by the supremely talented Andrew Piccone.

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The album opens with the sprawling ‘Ticonderoga’, which sounds like the lovechild of Fang Island and Parts & Labor. Clocking in at just under eight minutes, the track is a suitable flag-bearer for the rest of the album. The only lyric present is the song’s title, a name he repeats over and over with mounting feeling as the guitar and percussion become increasingly agitated. This is followed by ‘Light Leaks’, another seven minute epic that mixes the finger-picked complexity of traditional folk music with a mathy electronic sound. Here we get the first real glimpse at the truth at the heart of the record, a naked sincerity which forgoes being hip or clever or cool in an attempt to communicate openly and truthfully and connect with the listener. The song holds an improbable weight, opening with two simple verses and the refrain of “Hey, it’s all right. Light leaks from under the door”, it seems like the sonic version of the sort of simple but impossibly meaningful gesture from someone which begins to pull you from your darkest hour. Next Seretan delves into repetition once again, and the clear cycle of uncomplicated words means that by the halfway mark the listener is singing along, each phrase swelling in size and feeling, filling that soul-shaped part inside your ribcage that isn’t taken by your heart or your lungs, becoming a chant, a hymn.

“You will be stronger tomorrow
You will be wiser tonight
You will find new love without warning
You will find new joy with every breath”

If ‘Light Leaks’ is the epiphany then ‘Meadowlark’ is the sustained attempt at being well, a slow-burning new dawn that demands with a country rock swagger, “Put your might in something good. Sing out with the Meadowlark”. Lyrically, ‘Blues for Ian M. Colletti’ follows a similarly encouraging theme (“You are a blessing on the world”), but the sound is far more restrained and ethereal, the late night heart-to-heart to ‘Meadowlark’s morning optimism. ‘The Confused Sound…’ and ‘Two Black Wings’ are nostalgic/oneiric returns to ramshackle rock, again using swirling repetition to build atmosphere and emotion, before the final two tracks close off the album with a clear return to the hope and joy that runs through the record. ‘My Lucky Stars’ is short and stripped back, based around the lines “I’m in love with you, I thank my lucky stars for you” and the album ends with ‘Swing Low’, a seven-minute loop of the joyful “swing low, sweet chariot. Coming for to carry me home”.

There are clearly Bad Things which inspired the record too, but these are not the focus. Rather, these Things bring into relief everything we stand to lose, everything worth fighting for, the good and the bright and the beautiful. This is an album that tries to remind us why Bad Things are bad in the first place by holding aloft what is good. Seretan has ECSTATIC JOY tattooed on his chest for goodness sake! To quote him again:

There are lots of [Bad] Things for everyone. You might be going through a Thing right now. I am, for sure. But making music isn’t about those things, exactly. Not for me, at least. It’s about me and my loved ones planting a flag – brilliant, billowing, as wide as a city block and covered in pink and yellow sequins – and letting it unfurl on the stone face of the outcrop.

This is why Ben Seretan is such an admirable record. To write sincerely involves opening up, which is not only icky and messy and embarrassing but also leaves you open to ridicule, the dreaded patronising smirk. Yet the only way to enable real connection is to stand out in the open, trusting that those you meet feel the same way. The only way is not to hide. And let it be known: there is nowhere to hide on the stone face of an outcrop, especially when you are holding aloft a gigantic flag full of sequins.

You can buy Ben Seretan on CD and vinyl via Bandcamp, or grab a cassette from Hope For The Tape Deck. If you want to read more about what the album means then head on over to Seretan’s Tumblr for some rather lovely writing.

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‘Fire In My Eyes’ was released on New Year’s Eve, and luckily didn’t manage to slip under my radar. The song is a lovely slice of folky lo-fi bedroom pop that starts with an intimate lovelorn feel, “i’m sitting inside / the room that is now mine / it comes in waves / i want to take care of you somedays”, before spiraling into something a little darker with lines such as, “i recall my hands around your throat / in the darkness of our hole / the colors are all muddy now / my angry footprint on your mouth”.

Luckily, the last verse comes full circle and revisits the cosy romance of the songs beginnings, “do you want to sit on a hill / and fall down with me? / we could make more coffee / or just fall back asleep.”

You can get ‘Fire In My Eyes’ right now via the Yours Are the Only Ears Bandcamp Page.

P.S. Here’s a fun fact for you – Culter also designed the cover art for Small Wonder’s Wendy. You can check out more of her art via Cargo Collective.

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

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

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

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