Nicholas Krgovich – Who Cares?

Nicholas Krgovich, the man behind projects like Gigi, No Kids and P:ano, is back with a solo album under his own name. With little more than a guitar/ukulele and his voice, the LP is a minimal acoustic folk record. This, however, does not do justice to the multitude of styles he manages to reference/borrow from. Who Cares? is out now on Jaz Records.

M. Lockwood Porter – Chris Bell / Secrets

M. Lockwood Porter is an Oklahoma-born, San Francisco-based folk/country artist. Last year he released an album, Judah’s Gone and opened for acts such as John Moreland and Samantha Crain. Porter recently released a new double A-side 7″; one a country-tinged tribute to Big Star’s Chris Bell, the other a “Malkmus-esque” ballad. You can buy both songs on a pay-what-you-want basis over at Bandcamp.

Family and Friends – Love You Mean It

Family and Friends are a folk rock band from Atlanta, Georgia. They describe their sound as, “Equal parts indie, rock, and sincerity, sliced, diced, smothered, covered, and rooted in folk.” This is a pretty accurate description, and if you like bands such as The Head and The Heart, then I’d highly suggest checking out Family and Friends. The band recorded their debut EP, Love You Mean It, after a successful Kickstarter campaign, and you can get it right now for just $5 over at Bandcamp.

Nicole Dollanganger – Observatory Mansions

Toronto’s Nicole Dollanganger makes a haunting brand of bedroom pop that juxtaposes gently crooned vocals with weird, often extraordinarily violent lyrics. It’s a strange listen that delves into some really interesting areas, challenging the presumptions of the listener. Observatory Mansions is taken from the book of the same name by Edward Carey, a story about love set in a sad, strange setting inhabited by odd people. I can see the link.

Fronts – Kind Rays

Next up is Fronts, a singer-songwriter from the German city of Jena. ‘Kind Rays’ is a beautiful little indie folk song, perfect for the dawn of Spring. Fans of bands like Blind Pilot will love this. There is currently very little information available, but what I do know is that ‘Kind Rays’ is the first track from a forthcoming EP. I’m certainly excited to hear more.

Joe Nolan – Tornado

What is it about Edmonton and folk singers? Joe Nolan is a singer-songwriter from the Albertan capital who makes everything from Americana tinged folk-rock to delicate, melancholic slow burners. His latest album Tornado, was released back in January on Six Shooter Records. Check out ‘Pawnshop’ in the player below and then order the album here.

The post Feet On The Ground: Vol. 6 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Well now that has all changed. The band have created their debut album, The Private World of Paradise, which will be unleashed on the world in March. The album was produced by Richard Swift, who most notably produced the last two Damien Jurado albums. The sonic expansion in Jurado’s output as a result of this collaboration is also evident here with Wake Owl. It sounds like the band are experimenting and growing as musicians and that can only be a good thing.

The first single, ‘Candy’, was premiered over at The Music Ninja earlier this month and can be streamed in the player below:

The Private World of Paradise is out on the 4th of March via Vagrant. More details (presumably including pre-order options) will be announced soon.

The post Advent Calendar [20th]: Wake Owl – Candy appeared first on Various Small Flames.

‘Redwood’, the band’s new single, was released at the end of November and was premiered on Norwegian national radio station NRK P3. It’s a really nice harmonious indie/folk track that will appeal to fans of American acts such as The Head And The Heart and British bands like Bear’s Den and Dancing Years.

Listen to the track in the player above and then download it at the House By The Lake Soundcloud page. Hopefully we’ll be hearing more from the band in the near future.

The post Advent Calendar [10th]: House By The Lake – Redwood appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The title is taken from The Pharmacist’s Mate by Amy Fusselman, where she is describing that almost miraculous nature of music. She sums up by saying:

“And how even though the vibrations are invisible, I can feel them in the air. I can feel them, they are there, they are as there as I am.”

A song is a strange thing. The way in which the writer captures it and builds it up to what we find on our records and CDs is unique to each artist. A whole host of changes are possible from that first spark of inspiration, be it a certain lyric or series of notes. What we hear on studio albums may be an evolved version of the original. It may have been sped up or toned down, altered to sit with the other nine or ten songs with which it shares the album. Conversely, what we hear during live performance may itself be the evolved state, an shift of empahsis or tone to better suit the context.

Whatever changes occur, live songs are different to their recorded counterparts, and this mix contains songs that are different and/or special when performed live. Sometimes there are obvious differences from the recorded track (such as the frenzied ending to ‘Wolves’ by Phosphorescent) and other times it is subtler, increased emphasis on just a word or two. Sometimes there is nothing obviously different apart from some sense of  purity, something organic in the single take delivery.

I’m sure even the most seasoned concert goer will be able to point to two or three moments where a live song somehow transcended normal experience, becoming something so inherently personal it’s hard to believe others were in the room. For me, great art is about the trading of emotions to some empathetic goal, the artist allowing the listener/viewer into themselves to see something pure, something to which everyday labels and descriptions do an injustice. In truly great art, seeing inside another is not fascinating in a some voyeuristic way but instead because it stirs a recognition in the listener. The indescribable feelings within us are given voice, they are painted for us by the artist and shared so that others can see. In this way, the song becomes as much about us as it is about the artist (something which much prove difficult for musicians, which is another debate entirely).

Adam wrote about his choices for the mix in his own blog post, so be sure to go and check that out too.

Hopefully the tracks below contain some sort of spark, that indesribable magic that Fusselman describes.

I Can Feel Them In The Air (Wake The Deaf Side):

1. A Few Kind Words (Live at the Queen’s Hall) – Meursault
2. Tapes (Live at WMSE) – Conrad Plymouth
3. When My Time Comes (Live at the R&R) – Dawes
4. Dead Letter & the Infnite Yes (iTunes Session) – Wintersleep
5. Lately (Live on KEXP) – BOAT
6. Something, Somewhere, Sometime (Daytrotter Session) – Ben Sollee
7. Last to Swim (Weekender Session) – Strand of Oaks
8. Medication – Damien Jurado
9. Mountain Song (Live in Munich) – Evening Hymns
10. Red (Live at Schubas) – Okkervil River
11. Allahu Akbar (Daytrotter Session) – Emperor X
12. The Twist (Quietly Now) – Frightened Rabbit
13. Wolves – Phosphorescent
14. Blood Bank (Live at Glastonbury) – Bon Iver
15. Wasp Nest (Black Session) – The National
16. Jeanne, If You’re Ever in Portland (Daytrotter Session) – Casiotone for the Painfully Alone
17. Down in the Valley (Live on KEXP) – The Head and the Heart
18. Wake (Live at the Bowery Ballroom) – The Antlers
19. First Night (A Positive Rage) – The Hold Steady
20. Robots (Live at Shorefest) – Dan Mangan

I Can Feel Them In The Air (Songsfortheday side):

1. Years/Cleo’s Song (Daytrotter Session) – JBM
2. Grown Ocean – Fleet Foxes
3. Ghost of the Beast – Kelli Schaefer
4. Ocean Open Wide – Hoots & Hellmouth
5. First Sight – These United States
6. Nobody But You – Langhorne Slim
7. Yellow (Piano Version) – Coldplay
8. Blackout (a capella) – Pickwick
9. Everything Trying (Fuel/Friends Chapel Session) – Night Beds
10. I Won’t Be Found – The Tallest Man on Earth
11. To Sing For You/Brand New Colony – Ben Gibbard
12. Kathleen (Live from Dublin Castle) – Josh Ritter
13. Outfit – Jason Isbell & The 400 Unit
14. Acuff-Rose – Jeff Tweedy
15. Catapult – Counting Crows
16. Evening Kitchen – Band of Horses
17. Always on My Mind – Iron & Wine/Calexico
18. Born to Run – Bruce Springsteen
19. Since I Fell For You (ft. Mike Noyce & Justin Vernon) – Eau Claire Memorial Jazz I
20. I Just Wanna Love U (Give It 2 Me) – Jay-Z

You can find both mixes here as a collection.

The post Wake The Deaf & Songsfortheday Present: I Can Feel Them In The Air appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The band’s sound is heavily influenced by folk music. The twist is that as the band are also influenced by indie rock, presumably due to the fact they are based in the metropolis of New York. The press release puts it rather nicely (and a lot better than I can) when it says:

Their sound combines the rustic orchestrations of folk music with the instrumental timbres and lyrical musings of modern day indie-rock.

There is a lot of vocal swapping during the album, which serves to highlight the band’s emphasis on creative collaboration. See for example the difference bwtween Brothers (in the player below) and the female-led closer Zobeide (The Wake). The most easily identifiable touchstone is other contemporary folk-rock bands such as The Head and The Heart, Blind Pilot and Wake Owl. If you are a fan of those bands, or of modern folk music in general, then I highly suggest you do yourself a favour and check Little Sur.

Check our Brothers (which was released as a single back in February of last year) in the player below. You can download the EP/album for however much you want over at bandcamp, which is a very generous offer indeed.

The post Little Sur – You Ran With Me appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Damien Jurado’s new album Maraqopa is available to pre-order now.

The post Jon Russell – Beacon Hill appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Their debut album has been one of my favourites this year. It’s available on iTunes but unfortunately it hasn’t been physically released in the UK yet. I’m pretty certain they have just signed to Sub Pop so I guess a wider release will be coming soon.

And yes, they usually use instruments.

The post The Head and The Heart appeared first on Various Small Flames.