Sabbatical Wilderness – Night Life in the Lemon Town of Büshka (REVIEW)
(RIYL: experimental, narrative-driven music, J-RPGs)

Sad Girls Club – Sad Girls Clubbing
(RIYL: bedroom artists, 90s/00s pop, crying in discos)

Sailor Jupiter – S/T
(RIYL: punk, noise, Riot Grrrls)

Schapero – Girls EP
(RIYL: catchy pop, Toro y Moi, LCD Soundsystem)

Sea Ghost – SG
(RIYL: punk, powerpop, The Unicorns)

Single Colour Fields – Jaundiced Views
(RIYL: dream pop, freak folk, splits)

Sister Something – Duds EP / The Tongue Davids EP
(RIYL: indie rock, post-pop, Mac DeMarco)

Sleeping In – EP
(RIYL: shoegaze, Speedy Ortiz, Sonic Youth)

Slows Down – S/T (REVIEW)
(RIYL: dream pop, drone, post rock)

SNCKPCK – LAVA PAL
(RIYL: Electronic, chill, positivity)

Spirit of the Beehive – You Are Arrived (But You’ve Been Cheated) (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie rock, lo-fi, dream rock for disaffected youth)

Sports Day Records – RELAY (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie pop, bedroom pop, compilations)

Stolen Jars – Kept
(RIYL: math pop, folk, Dirty Projectors, Freelance Whales)

Strange Friends – Summer Recordings (REVIEW)
(RIYL: fuzz pop, lo-fi, Gorgeous Bully)

Stray Amour – S/T
(RIYL: indie pop, shoegaze)

Sun Hotel – Coast / Fight Off You Demos
(RIYL: folk, “swamp pop”, Lord Huron)

Sunshine Faces – Peaked / Letting You Know
(RIYL: dream pop, lo-fi, bedroom pop)

Ursidae – Tape 4
(RIYL: drone, field recordings, sonic collage)

The Wailin’ Smithers – S/T (REVIEW)
(RIYL: indie rock, laidback summer fun)

The Wandering Lake – From James’ Garden
(RIYL: psych folk, experimental, meditative vibes)

The Washboard Abs – WHATEVERLAND (REVIEW) / The Beaming Pts. 1 & 2 (REVIEW)
(RIYL: bedroom pop, folk, Mount Eerie)

Wished Bone – Pseudio Recordings
(RIYL: dreamy lo-fi, Elliott Smith, Sharon van Etten)

Yesses – S/T
(RIYL: lo-fi, pop, The Beatles)

We’ve shared a new section of the list every day this week, so be sure to check back for the complete collection. If you find something you like, or think we missed something life-changing, then why not let us know on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr or good old email.

The post Favourite Free Music of 2015: S-Z appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Oh, Rose

“The vocals have the quality of an exorcism, like the unnatural utterings of a twelve year old as some jaded man of faith flicks holy water at her forehead” – “we reviewed SEVEN, the excellent and vaguely supernatural new album by Oh, Rose”

Amelia Gray

“Reading these stories is like watching a fungus bloom across a wall, like watching a slow-motion video of yourself going up in flames” – we started up a new ‘Books’ section with a review of Amelia Gray’s short story collection, Gutshot.

The Wooden Sky

“[The] distinctive vocals… [are] not pristine or manufactured but rather a product of a feeling, making the protagonists alive and nuanced enough for us to care” – we bumped our review of The Wooden Sky’s Lets Be Ready as it was released worldwide on Nevado Records.

Sean Henry

“When confronting big, complicated things like love, imperfection and death in art, surely the most fruitful method is not to sugar-coat the message in high production values and carefully constructed narratives but instead try to replicate the messy, fractured nature of our lives and consciousness?” – we got deep when previewing Sean Henry’s new album with his first single, ‘The Crow’

O-FACE

“Whirring like a well-oiled machine of cogs and gears which achieves so much more than its composite parts suggest” – a belated review of O-FACE’s EP Mint, out on Father/Daughter and Miscreant Records.

Glen Hansard

“A perfect example of a folk song made pop, a smooth and sentimental tale of goodhearted promises that are impossible to keep” – Our thoughts on ‘Winning Streak’, the first single from Glen Hansard’s new album

June Roundup

Miss anything in June? We have you covered with a playlist featuring every artist we covered during the month.

The Wailin’ Smithers

“The album is packed with smash hits from an alternate dimension, an easygoing universe in which everybody gets along just fine” – The self-titled album from Bloomington rockers The Wailin’ Smithers.

Quick Before It Melts

The music blog celebrated Canada Day by releasing a compilation of Canadian Bands covering Canadian songs.

Alanna McArdle

“Why do women have to work so much harder: why does it always feel like I’m trying to pass a test to prove that I deserve to call myself a musician?” – Alanna McArdle’s essay for The Talkhouse on the perceived role of the frontwoman and why she hates being referred to as just “the singer”.

Ezra Furman

“I’ve embraced the liminal zone that so many of my heroes occupy. I’ve declared independence from categories that don’t work for me…We exist in a multivalent world filled with ambiguities, and I aim to move through it like Lou Reed: independent, continually transforming, free.” – Ezra Furman writes for The Guardian on how he found freedom by embracing ambiguity in both his music and persona.

Noisey / Owen Pallet & Warren Hildebrand

“I found out about the Les Mouches album some time in 2006 and got it from a private torrent site or something similar. It really blew me away when I heard it…It means a lot, being able to help put together a new release for an album that’s been so important to me for so long is so crazy and cool to me.” – Noisey spoke to Owen Pallet and Orchid Tapes’ Warren Hildebrand about the latter’s label reissuing an album from the former’s project Les Mouches.

Fog Lake / START-TRACK

“I would say to keep it as true-to-heart as possible. Stop thinking about what other’s want to hear and start thinking about what you wanna hear. Don’t worry about being technical. Don’t worry what your parents think. Give it your best shot.” – Aaron Powell, aka Fog Lake, has some good advice for creative types in this interview with the cool dudes over at START-TRACK.

Advance Base / Ben Weaver

Daytrotter, the undisputed kings of the live session, served up two gems this week with sets from Advance Base (who has an album on the way dontcha know?) and Ben Weaver (whose album we liked a lot).

Titus Andronicus

Titus Andronicus released a music video / short film which features not one but six songs from their forthcoming album, The Most Lamentable Tragedy, which we will not stop plugging.

Gurr

The Le Sigh premièred a video from Berlin-based “sassy brat punk” band Gurr, featuring live recordings and vintage found footage.

And finally… the 8tracks playlist of the week:

This week’s playlist, from Music Means Family, is collection of songs from artists playing Eaux Claires music festival in Wisconsin. Features some of our favourites like Aero Flynn, S. Carey and Field Report.

The post Week in Review #8 (29th June – 3rd July) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The album is packed with smash hits from an alternate dimension, an easygoing universe in which everybody gets along just fine and the highest form of being is hanging out with your best buds. ‘Over and Over’ is all surfy lo-fi rock, while ‘Drive Me Crazy’ is a catchy pop song, complete with some killer electric guitar work. ‘Feels Good To Never Sleep’ captures the band’s ethos very nicely, a leisurely ode to enjoying yourself, complete with a roll-down-the-windows vibe perfect for the approaching summer.

Pretty much every song on the album falls into this feel-good rock-out category. Take for instance ‘Malevolo’, which teams rumbling lo-fi with wailing electric guitars and carefree “oohs”, or ‘Morals and Values’ which alternates between half-paced, lounging verses with a thumping chorus. ‘Hale-Pop’ is one of my favourites, sounding like a stroll along the beachfront at the height of summer with a warm foamy six-pack and your best amigos. ‘Vietnam Donkey Kong’ is all punchy pop rock, before ‘The Skin I Live In’ offers some freaky darkness to proceedings, “You hurt yourself again, you cut your pretty skin, and now I’ll have to start it over”. Penultimate track ‘My Thrill’ is slower and slinkier than most, snaking around in a summertime saunter, before the final track, ‘Ocean Song’, really puts the surf into surf rock, with background ambient noise of crashing waves and a too-cool-for-school fusion of lo-fi rock instrumentation and pop melodies.

What I like most about this album isn’t one tangible thing, but the overall feeling that it exudes. This isn’t a group of guys trying to get noticed by some slimy record exec, or get plastered all over commercial radio and make a million dollars (although I guess that would be kind of cool). It’s just some friends having a lot of fun making the kind of music they want to hear. And the best thing of all is that you can tell that they’re having a blast. Who cares about making $$$s when you can have a pretty great time regardless?

You can get The Wailin’ Smithers on CD or as a download from The Wailin’ Smithers’ bandcamp page.

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