Excitingly, this summer is Antiquated Future Records’ seventh birthday, and to celebrate the label are releasing The First Seven Years, a compilation that spans their releases to date. Mastered by Fred Thomas, the nineteen-song release is a celebration of the entire Antiquated Future Records roster. Today, we have the pleasure of hosting the whole thing ahead of the physical release next month.

The album opens with the pleasingly retro-sounding (and previously unreleased) ‘A Fast Ska’ by Evan Hashi’s Little Angry & The Sweets, and from there dives into the last seven years of Antiquated Future releases. From the sultry slow burn of Flying Circles to the unmistakable, oddly graceful folk of David Thomas Broughton, the compilation illustrates both the range of the Antiquated Future discography and the common thread that unites every artist, a spirit more than a sound—an unwavering dedication to make art in their own unique way. There are moments of power too, like Tucker Theodore‘s ‘Movement 9 (High Descent)’ with it’s distorted post-rock vibes, and the slow tidal rhythms of Midwife‘s ‘Angel’, Madeline Johnston’s voice grainy as though beamed from the bottom of a murky pool of static.

This variety continues across the entire compilation. The subtly euphoric crystalline dreamscape of Reighnbeau‘s ‘Gold Face’ segues into the sparkling but emotionally poignant pop gem ‘Never Finds You’ by VSF fav The Washboard Abs, a track we previously described as “quietly devastating […] forgo[ing] any sense of metaphor or allusion in favour of a brave and direct account of dealing with the serious illness of a loved one.” There’s a devotional quality to Jordan O’ Jordan‘s ‘Patience is Gruesome’, a wheezing hymn that escalates into a shrieking choir, while Sara Renberg brings wry humour that wouldn’t be out of place in a whip-smart graphic novel, and Eleanor Murray delivers a smooth and intimate folk song to close things out.

But don’t take our word for it, stream the whole thing below and find your favourite:

Design and layout by Andrew Barton at Two Plum Press

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The stylistic shift is clear from opener ‘Eden Vision’, an electronic pop song collaged from a short looped vocal clip, groovin’ guitar, subtle beats and a sort of angelic background ambience. But when Sondermann’s vocals arrive it’s clear this is still Pleasure Systems, their wistfulness providing a beguiling counterpoint to the dancey instrumentation.

I don’t believe in what I can’t see
your memory starts to recede
I don’t believe that spirits linger
there is no form
I can’t see you anymore

‘Heirloom’ sounds like Dan Deacon on downers, twinkling keys and weird vocal effects swirling around earnestly poetic lines like “my mom and dad remain conjoined by nothing more than not to be alone.” Indeed, the song reveals itself to be white hot with hurt, grief and pain both highly personal (“my fingertips are running through your alopecian hair,” Sondermann sings of experiencing his partner’s illness, “and this is home”), and more universal, namely the plight of the LGBTQ community at large, what Sondermann describes as “a legacy of fear and paranoia.” But at it’s heart this is still a love song, albeit one with the sugary veneer stripped away, a fact illustrated in the final line.

I cling to you
for in each other’s pain and grief
is where we feel at home

And this is how Terraform continues, the fun and experimental digitally-modulated pop a vehicle for exploring very human emotions. It’s a testament to Sondermann’s songwriting that even when buried beneath sampler loops and smothered in vocal effects, the messages feel achingly human. Much electronic dance music would fail to pass the Voigt Kampff test, keeping the listener at arm’s length due to its lack of personal centre, but the infectious rhythms and melodies Sondermann stitches together coalesce around an intimate and emotional core.

‘Idle’ seems to be disintegrating as it advances, pixels breaking away and whirling into the digital ether, while ‘Envelop’ sounds calm and chill, built on a smoothly spherical synth line, the verses punctuated with sample loops and subtle beats. The kaleidoscopic ‘Milk & Honey’ feels like playing an arcade platformer at double speed, and ‘Folded’ is all woozy flutter, its panoply of percussion adding an almost tropical lilt.

Perhaps the closest thing the album has to a typical Washboard Abs song, ‘Cautiously’ sees acoustic guitar bubbling up from the vocal samples. The song sounds soft and wistful, but it’s actually a clear-eyed look at the legacy of abuse, the perfect example of the Pleasure Systems combination of the pretty and the painful.

Which is going to be the legacy of Terraform, an album built on a solid emotional core that takes electronic dance music and lo-fi bedroom pop and sends them spinning in new directions. Penultimate track ‘See It Thru’ is wonderfully slick and streamlined, a great example of the poppier end of the Pleasure Systems spectrum, while finale ‘From the Ground’ frowns with an earnest direction, a love song that, just like the whole album, feels as vulnerable as it does powerful.

Terraform is out now and you can get it on cassette or download from the Pleasure Systems Bandcamp page.

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Tracklisting:

Mike Pace and the Child Actors – Everyone Out of the Car
Miranda Winters – The Futuristic District
Exam Season – Strawberry Milk
Saccharine – Pumpkin Guts
Tuvaband – Wolfpack
Devon Welsh – Dreams Have Pushed You Around
Mending – Alan after the Fire
Reddening West – Even If
Valley Maker – Light on the Ground
The Washboard Abs – Return to You
Manatree – Brushfire
Miserable Chillers – Horse Opera
Saint Charles – She Don’t Wanna Know
new casino – going for a walk*
Frankie Valet – Why Blue
Goodbye Max – Old Photos
Adeline Hotel – Habits
Joe Kaplow – I Said I Was Going and I Went
Pecas – Tuesdays
Sun Kin – Neglect
Baby Cages – flowers
Crooked Spine – Skinned Knees
Lauren O’Connell – Out of Focus
Mount Goldie – Summer
Harvey Trisdale – Baby
american poetry club – the sum of your parts
Babehoven – Out of the Country
Adam Arcuragi – Low Parade Rain
Jason Bemis Lawrence – Southern Midwest
Campdogzz – Sorceress
Barfoot – A Thin Place Between Worlds

* not on Playmoss

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Sondermann is perhaps better known as the lead of The Washboard Abs (if you’re not familiar with Recurring Chasms or Have U Scanned Ur Club Card? then go check them out), and has now gathered the band to create a brand new album, Lowlight Visions. Perhaps as a result of the more electronic explorations with Pleasure Systems, the album heralds something of a reinvention of The Washboard Abs sound. Sondermann’s signature vocal delivery is still front and centre, but the songs themselves have morphed from simple folk-inspired bedroom pop songs to something more cerebral, elements of art pop and jazz combining to create some of the most complex and rewarding pop songs you’ll hear all year.

Which is not to say that the writing, hat has always been the emotional core of The Washboard Abs sound, is at all diminished. The record is a continuation of themes on Antumbra Pull, which Sondermann put bluntly in our interview: “songs created in the midst of being thrust into the role of primary caregiver for my partner following his stage IV cancer diagnosis.”

But, because of the forays into experimental pop, the album doesn’t sound as dark and foreboding as you might think, at least on the surface. ‘The Empty Ground’ begins with serene ocean waves and calm and steady vocals, enveloped in an atmosphere that doesn’t necessarily suggest heartbreak and suffering. But on closer inspection, such emotions are grappled with headlong, the track a reminder that sad songs need not be storm-grey dirges. The track deals with all-pervading bad news, and contains lines that are viscerally affecting despite their simplicity. “I’m reminded every time I blink,” Sondermann sings in one such example, “I can’t help but let my spirits sink down into the empty ground.” But it’s not all naked despair either, as Sondermann declares his support no matter how hard the path might be, a brave and very important reminder that love is capable of surviving even life’s most desperate moments.

“I will stay and fight, I will be here every night”

‘Never Finds You’ is quietly devastating, a song that forgoes any sense of metaphor or allusion in favour of a brave and direct account of dealing with the serious illness of a loved one. “I hear the sounds of laughter floating away from the other room,” Sondermann sings, “I don’t know how to join them, I’m so consumed by what I might lose.” But again the song has an interesting duality, and manages to somehow sound hopeful despite itself. Bright it might not be, but there is definitely something glittering in its shadows. This interplay between light and dark, and indeed the intrinsic relationship the states share, is a key theme for the entire album. As Sonderman describes:

The process became one of my only outlets to process the slew of traumatic experiences inherent to watching your person succumb to serious illness. But, I tried to make it as hopeful as I could manage. In the end, these songs are a reflection on shared love, an acknowledgement of shared fear and trauma, an expression of support, and a plea for the person you love most to stay alive.

‘Elation’ is a shuffling and sliding jazz-tinged number, while the title track is a slow-burning pulse of feeling, the ebbing glow of embers raked and left to settle. ‘Pareidolia’ is a palette-cleansing ambient track, the title strangely apt as we try to pick out recognizably human sounds amongst the swirling atmospherics, before the off-centre pop of ‘Return to You’, distorted guitar and shambling drums lending a disorientated edge.

Such a sensation is common on Lowlight Visions, an ambiguity or confusion that presses into the spaces between Sondermann’s clearest pronouncements. Just as dark and light mingle and merge, so too do precision and imprecision. Tracks like ‘Play Dumb’ and ‘Eyes Roll Back’ seem caught between epiphany and bewilderment, great waves of certainty expressed but never quite lasting, or else not able to wash away the sense of disarray and dislocation. In this sense, the album’s title begins to take on a higher meaning, the circumstances allowing flashes of profound realization but only with the dark tangle of its being.

‘Shake the Dust’ is track about trying appreciate these flashes as long as possible, about holding onto the light amidst encroaching darkness. Indeed, the same can be said of the entire record, its consistent commitment to warmth in even the worst circumstance—a hospital bed in ‘Shelter’, spring renewal in ‘Brittle Bones’. For this reason, and despite it being a tough competition, Lowlight Visions might just be the most impressive album The Washboard Abs have made. Clarke Sondermann’s music has always been intimate, but this album treads deeper into this ideal than any of his previous work. In the circumstances, it would be relatively easy to make an album of sad songs, but it’s a brave artist who takes the very personal worry and suffering and uses it to build something that’s this complex and multifaceted, vulnerable but not hopeless, forgoing nihilistic dejection in favour of a strange kind of love, an appreciation of what stands to be lost.

Lowlight Visions is out now and you can get it from the Antiquated Future Bandcamp page.

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Various Small Flames’

Songs of 2017

Anamon – Kneel Old
Android Automatic – Dark Roads*
Angie McMahon – Slow Mover
Basement Revolver – Johnny Pt. 2
Baxter Roy Long – Paribanou
Bea Troxel – Let Them Know
Big Thief – Mary
Black Belt Eagle Scout – Soft Stud
Bully – Running
Cayetana – Mesa
Charly Bliss – Percolator
Chastity Belt – Different Now
CHUCK – Happy Birthday
The County Liners – Maria
The Courtneys – Tour
Craig Finn – God in Chicago
Crumb – Locket
Crushing – Emery Board
Cut Worms – Like Going Down Sideways
David Bazan – Care
Distant Reader – First Try
Emperor X – God Save Coastal Dorset
Fits – Ice Cream on a Nice Day
German Error Message – 2017*
Gleemer – Soothe Me
Great Grandpa – Favorite Show
Haley Heynderickx – Oom Sha Lala
Hiccup – Teasin’
Horse Culture – Texaco
Illuminati Hotties – ‘(You’re Better) Than Ever’
Japandroids – No Known Drink or Drug
Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit – If We Were Vampires
Jay Som – The Bus Song
Jeremy Squires – Night Cars
Katie Ellen – Drawing Room
Lizzie No – Monuments
Lomelda – Bam Sha Klam
Mike Pace and the Child Actors – Audits & Surveys
Meursault – The Mill
Mount Eerie – Crow
Nice Legs – Mighty Three
Oceanator – Nowhere Nothing
Ohyeahsumi – Daisy
Old Earth – Pit Dynamics
PASTEL – Stammer
Peter Silberman – New York
Phoebe Bridgers – Motion Sickness
Pope – Talk Me Out of It
Protomartyr – Windsor Hum
Rainwater – Place
Ratboys – Elvis is in the Freezer
Rick Rude – Bald & Fat in Houston, TX
Roadkill Ghost Choir – Classics (Die Young)
Rose Dorn – Dirt
See Through Dresses – Lucy’s Arm
Shannen Moser – A Funeral, A Friend, My Sanity
Sinai Vessel – Died On My Birthday
Slaughter Beach, Dog – Phoenix
SOAR – Fort Funston
Soft Fangs – Jordan // Jackson Elementary
Spartan Jet-Plex – We Believe
Strange Ranger – House Show
Strawberry Runners – Garden Hose
Timid, The Brave – Alice
Us and Only Us – Bored of Black
Vagabon – Cold Apartment
Viewfinder – Instant Moonlight
The Washboard Abs – Veil
Waxahatchee – Never Been Wrong
Wild Pink – Albert Ross
William Ryan Fritch – In Our Blood
The Wooden Sky – Swimming in Strange Waters
Ylayali – Cherry Tomatoes

*Strictly released in 2016, but barely, and we covered it in Jan. 2017.

If you missed it, you can see our Favourite Albums of 2017 list here. Also, the curious can find such lists from previous years here.

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

Hi Clarke, thanks for speaking to us! How does it feel to have you new album Antumbra Pull out in the world?

Hi! Thank you for reaching out. It feels good having the songs out there, and it mostly felt good to give the album a little bit of a spontaneous/quick release. I don’t particularly enjoy the promotion process or sitting on material for too long, so it feels like a weight off my chest to call these songs done and move on in a sense. Joshua from Antiquated Future is wonderful to work with, he handled nearly everything while still keeping my creative vision central. We wound up releasing the album less than two weeks after we decided to work together on it, which is a dream for me.

You’ve described the songs on the album as “thank you notes and love letters” to your partner, who is currently going through some pretty terrifying health issues. First of all, are you both holding up okay? And what influence did the news have on you releasing these songs now?

Thanks for asking, we’re trying to keep our heads up (which he’s better at than me most of the time). I gave him the final version of the album as an anniversary present, which happened to only fall four days before the initial hospital visit and diagnosis (stage IV renal cancer with metastasis in the lungs, spine and ribs). It was timed perfectly in a sense, I was able to give him this (in my opinion) grandiose statement of love and gratitude right before everything got distorted and scary. The songs on the album mean a lot to him, they’re a reflection of our time spent together and he tells me constantly how much strength he’s found in them.

I had talked briefly with Antiquated Future about releasing it before I got the news that he was sick (which rapidly transformed my world – the vast majority of my time was immediately focused on supporting him) so I’m grateful that we were able to get the album out so quickly. Like I said, I have a hard time sitting on material prior to release and I really wanted these songs out in the public as sort of a declaration of love.

We’ve been following your work (as The Washboard Abs and Pleasure Systems) for a while now. To me this seems like your most accomplished work to date, but I’d be interested to know how you feel your music has changed and matured over the last few years.

Thank you! This record is some of my proudest work to date. In the last couple years (really since I started collaborating with my current bandmates in the Washboard Abs, who are all far more skilled musicians than I am) I’ve started to take my musicianship much more seriously and really expand my vocabulary of harmony. But more than that, I write as an immediate reflection of whatever is happening in my life at the time, and I think that’s a much better way of charting the growth of the material. I wrote have u scanned ur club card? from the depths of a depression that followed the death of a couple close friends, I wrote Recurring Chasms as a statement on my recovery process from a sexual assault, and I wrote Antumbra Pull mostly about being head over heels in love and finding a lot of healing within a relationship. Goes without saying that I view Antumbra Pull as my happiest album, but it also feels like my most mature album. I think it’s reflective of the clarity I gained after writing so much material during the darkest points of my life.

How does the music you make as Pleasure Systems differ from the Washboard Abs stuff? Are they two very separate entities in your mind? Or do you use songs for either project depending on what you’re working on at the time?

The idea behind Pleasure Systems came about after the Washboard Abs evolved into a fully collaborative band. Working with my bandmates has been a transformative experience and I’m really humbled to be playing with them, but I had self recorded under the name for about three years at that point and really missed the process of creating music entirely on my own. The key distinction between the two projects for me is the recording and arrangement style, I listen to a lot of electronic music and wanted an outlet to explore digital sounds further – the band is a fairly standard two guitars, bass and drums lineup. There’s a little bit of give and take between the two projects though, I scrapped my Pleasure Systems version of “Through the Air” when my bandmates wanted to play it with me, “Haunt Me” became a pleasure systems song when the rest of the band wasn’t enthused about arranging it, and we’ve been playing “Bathroom Stall Prayer” as a full band in the last couple months.

Besides the aforementioned highly personal stuff, what are the current big influences on your songwriting?

Like I said above, I tend to write from a perspective informed by whatever’s consuming my exterior life. So these days, I’m writing a lot of pretty sad songs about watching someone you love battle serious illness. I’m sitting with a lot of fear and it shows up in the songs more than I want it to, so I’m consciously trying to shift into writing from a more hopeful perspective.

Past that, I have a deep admiration for the arrangements of Stephen Steinbrink’s songs, his music has this every-element-in-its-place type of perfection to me, there’s so much nuance and texture that all fits together seamlessly and somehow still feels restrained. In a similar vein, I find myself very drawn to the deceptively restrained songwriting of the bands Florist and Big Thief, both melodically and lyrically. My friend Mat Cothran (Coma Cinema/Elvis Depressedly) will always be one of my biggest lyrical influences, I’m constantly moved by his unflinching honesty through songwriting (this newest/final Coma Cinema album especially). Chris Weisman is my absolute favorite songwriter and has been a huge inspiration for me, but his music is so complex and intelligent I’m not sure his influence will ever be audible in my work.

What are your plans for the foreseeable future? Do you plan to tour Antumbra Pull? And can we expect more Pleasure Systems releases?

We have a couple exciting Washboard Abs shows lined up this spring in Washington state, and this February I’m going on a short east coast US tour as Pleasure Systems with Body Meat and Ada Babar. I’ve already started working on recording the next batch of Pleasure Systems songs, and the Washboard Abs are gonna start recording our next album early next year. No idea when those songs will see the light of day though. I’m still working on new material, but for the last few months (and into the foreseeable future) my energy has been pulled away from creative outlets and refocused on helping my partner. He’s recovering from two major surgeries pretty rapidly and regaining a lot of his strength, so hopefully we’ll be able to return to more normalcy soon. For me, normalcy is constant creative work.

Lastly, could you recommend 4/5 artists that you’ve been liking lately? They can be new releases or golden oldies, it’s up to you.

Well, my all time favorite album has slowly become Rendezvous With Rama by Ruth Garbus. I can’t recommend this record highly enough – it’s the perfect blend of soothing and energizing, it’s really mystical and healing music to me. My best friend Chris (who mastered Antumbra Pull) has a project called Body Meat that I think is the best band in the world at this point. The Washboard Abs put out a split tape with him on the label Citrus City this summer. His whole discography is mind blowing to me, and he’s been a tremendous help with critique and motivation. He constantly makes me want to work harder. Angela, the other guitarist (besides me) in the Washboard Abs, makes mesmerizing loop-based ambient music on her own under the name noneforme. She’s taught me an immeasurable amount about harmony and has really helped shape me into the songwriter I am today. The two of us also used to play in our friend Ben Varian’s backup band ‘The Ben Varian Approach’. Ben’s music is triumphant, melancholic and uplifting. He’s an absolute master of weirdo pop. Lastly, I guess what I’ve found myself putting on most often in the past year are the many projects of Lily Konigsberg. She plays in the group Palberta, is half of the magnificent electronic pop duo Lily & Horn Horse and released a wonderful split under her own name with Andréa Schiavelli this summer. Past that I’ve been listening to a kind of silly amount of Steely Dan.

Be sure to check out all we’ve written about Pleasure Systems and The Washboard Abs, purchase Antumbra Pull from Antiquated Future and support the rest of Clarke’s music via Bandcamp.

Photo by Heidi Kleder

The post Interview: Clarke Sondermann appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The album opens with ‘Witching Hour’, crystalline chimes heralding a typically soft and gentle indie pop song. If you’re new to The Washboard Abs then this track illustrates why you’re going to love them, Sondermann’s talent for making pitch-perfect introverted pop knows no bounds. “Watching your chest rise, and blinking with both eyes”, he sings in the first of the album’s many cleanly composed and gauzily translucent verses. “How do I allow this tiny act of love? You are waterfall, I am river mud.” ‘Fall Three’ (the follow up to two tracks from the beaming) is more dynamic, driven forward by steady pulsing percussion before a relatively tumultuous breakdown, while ‘Erosion’ ripples strangely, like the spiky art rock of Young Jesus in slo-mo.

The most remarkable thing about the music of The Washboard Abs is hard to pin down. It lies in the intangible, the sense it conjures, a stillness at the edges that’s as smooth and round as marbles, as soft and luminous as moonlight. Even relatively dynamic tracks such as ‘For Icy Moon’ and ‘One’ maintain the carefully considered air, the increased tempo and angular guitar not spoiling the languid atmosphere or crowding out Sondermann’s quiet wisdom. ‘Souvenir’ strips things right back to repetitive murmuring guitar and vocals and barely-there rolling background atmospherics. The lyrics are characteristically opaque, although hint at the general processes of self-care and recuperation.

“Bathed in light
burning bright
I am strong
but I am already gone”

‘Comfortable’ feels humid and claustrophobic without compromising the laid back air, a song about staying inside as sweat rolls down thighs. “I am empty, I am alive,” Sondermann sings. “Clinging to my sheets, close the window, turn up the heat / leave me be.” ‘Learning More’ continues on a similar theme, the lyrics balancing dreamlike imagery of fields of flowers with anxious thoughts like “beginnings always beg the question, how will I survive? / I can’t remember to eat my breakfast, I forget to try”.

‘Winter’ is a sparse and icy as the titular season, a thumped drum beat and groping fingers of guitar, the lyrics “beat like a drum, carved out and done, I watch the last breath from my chest float towards the sun.” The final track ripples with guitar, backed by twinkling keys and perfectly metered lyrics, an aural poem that’s quiet and gentle but confidently so, as illustrated by the final lines:

“In the end I know I cant be wrong
I control the narrative I’m bleeding through the song,
so I will carve the space where i belong
in the end I know that I am strong”

Recurring Chasms feels like the antidote to something, a pocket of stillness and reflection at the centre of our weariful world. In a time where what gets noticed is seemingly that which can shout the loudest, it’s welcome relief, and a timely reminder of the joys of a quiet room, the importance of being kind and power in looking after ourselves and those we care for.

Out now on cassette via Antiquated Future Records, Recurring Chasms comes complete with a zine of poetry and photography made by Sondermann himself. Do yourself a favour and order it now.

The post The Washboard Abs – Recurring Chasms appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The first Pleasure Systems release is this collection of six songs, what Sondermann describes as “october demos / crush songs”. Fans of his other band will be glad to know that things don’t sound too drastically different, just with a minimal dream pop vibe. The first track, ‘hurt’, opens cautiously, the song putting out its feelers before slowly emerging, Sondermann’s vocals sounding like a late-night answerphone message playing to an empty room. ‘orchard’ has the same poetic lyrics and soft and muffled intimacy of my favourite Washboard Abs songs, while ‘mt dew’ has a wurlitzer-style background synth, which teamed with the vocals bring to mind a gentler version of Owen Ashworth’s various guises.

“all i want is a quiet life
a bed and a blanket and you by my side”

The mere 20 words that make up the lyrics on ‘colorblind’ somehow manage to conjure an entire scene, more emotion than most bands get from ten verses (“rain is falling, i don’t mind /
hear me calling, no reply / see the clouds glow, colorblind / winter circles, stay inside”), while the title track has a subdued and gauzy clarity that reminds me a little of the later Trouble Books stuff. Closer ‘the knife’ brings a fearless meditation on death, Sondermann’s vocals sombre over plaintive guitar and slowly gathering atmospherics, creating the same melancholy vibe we heard on The Washboard Abs’s The Beaming.

“when it finally comes i’ll stay in place
when the light comes down i’ll show my face
i don’t think i’ve ever been afraid
i don’t think it matters anyway “

Lowland Sigh is out on cassette on the 3rd February on cassette via Reflective Tapes and you can pre-order it now, or you can get the digital release from the Pleasure Systems Bandcamp page. While you’re in the neighbourhood, why not check out the Reflective Tapes back catalogue to quench your punk/radical-linked indie rock thirst?

P.S. There’s a new Washboard Abs album on the way, and some demos to check out in the meantime! Do it!

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And, of course, being comprehensive is impossible these days, so let us know if we missed your favourite and maybe we’ll add it to the collection.

Tall Friend – Tawl Friend
(RIYL: bedroom pop, lo-fi, bugs)

Talons’ – Growing Up / Work Stories / Shitty Aja
(RIYL: lo-fi, sad, post 9/11 angst)

Terry Vs. Tori – s/t
(RIYL: indie pop, summer)

The Grey Estates – Summer at The Grey Estates Volume 2
(RIYL: garage, dream pop, summer)

The World is a Beautiful Place & I’m No Longer Afraid to Die – Formlessness
(RIYL: indie rock, emo, re-takes on older songs)

These Bashful Claws – Everything, All At Once
(RIYL: emotive pop, alternative, Gleemer)

Thiago Nassif – Tres
(RIYL: alternative, electronic, experimental)

Tiger in My Tank – Skinned Genie and the Same Chords
(RIYL: indie pop, dream pop, “mid-fi”)

Trace Mountains – Buttery Sprouts & Other Songs
(RIYL: bedroom pop, LVL UP, lo-fi)

Triathalon – Cold Shower
(RIYL: pop, r&b, smooth moves)

Varsity – Smash / Still Apart
(RIYL: indie pop, sports)

The Wandering Lake – From James’ Garden / Ashame
(RIYL: psych folk, indie rock, desert rituals)

The Washboard Abs – Have U Scanned Ur Club Card?
(RIYL: indie pop, lo-fi, nostalgia)

Will B & the Teen Creeps (now Lanky Boy Club) – Slackers
(RIYL: bedroom pop, slacker)

Woods End – I
(RIYL: folk, alternative, winter)

Young Jesus – Void as Lob
(RIYL: indie rock, lo-fi, spoken word poetry)

Your Heart Breaks – From Mount Eerie / Ryan Woods / Toby Foster / Theo Hilton / Clyde Petersen
(RIYL: folk punk, Nana Grizol, Defiance Ohio)

Yours Are the Only Ears – Low
(RIYL: bedroom pop, sad, melodrama)

Be sure to check out the previous sections of our favourite free music of 2016 list here.

The post Favourite Free Music of 2016: T – Z appeared first on Various Small Flames.

And the usual disclaimer applies, there were too many great tunes to include them all, so treat this more as a selection rather than a comprehensive round-up of the year. Enjoy.

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson – Constellation

“You’re used to quiet words
and so am I
so I’ll just whisper“

Tiny Ruins – Dream Wave

“always a dream wave drawing you off track
dream wave, a coast calls you back“

Magana – Get it Right

“You were red but my gold turned you green
So you stood there lying through your teeth“

deer scout – holy ghost

“I could find a new kind of devotion
I could know you by another name“

Hovvdy – Meg

“Speak because i know you feel a certain way
but ill pass it along anyway“

Bedbug – Leaving Town, Moving to a National Park <3

“I’m too young for that anyways
everyone’s just tryna skip town these days“

Soccer Mommy – Skinned Knees

“i left
burning streets in tennessee
for a north east feel“

Mitski – Your Best American Girl

“Your mother wouldn’t approve of how my mother raised me
But I do, I finally do“

LVL UP – Hidden Driver

“God is peeking
softly speaking
fucking everything
until I slowly do see“

Lisa Prank – Starting Again

“You say you’re not still drinking
you just started again
I swear I don’t still miss you
I just started again“

Dicktations – Dicktations Forever

“It’s hard to say when I first figured out something was wrong“

Joyride! – Running on Empty

“Young and running on empty
you said that you thought I looked pretty with my makeup on
so I went home and I took it off“

Sioux Falls (now Stranger Ranger) – Dom

“Spending too much time on the internet
are you ok? you don’t seem very into it“

Camp Cope – Jet Fuel Can’t Melt Steel Beams

“It’s the trophy wives raising trophy wives raising children on TV
Scared of people like you and me
Just don’t ask questions you’ll sleep peacefully
We will not go out in silence and we will not go quietly“

Fake Boyfriend – BUMTOWN

“Why do I cling to the threads that mean the least?“

Outer Spaces – I Saw You

“I saw you, a shedding snake“

American Enthusiasm – Holy Wow

“Make a note of all the words I cough out on my death bed“

The Hotelier – Soft Animal

“Fawn, doe, light snow
Spots on brown of white 
make me believe that there’s a God sometimes“

Beach Slang – Future Mixtape for the Art Kids

“We’re not lost, we are dying in style
We’re not fucked, we are fucking alive“

CHUCK – Death

“You hold on to whatever kin
that keeps on breathin’ in
that keeps you from driftin’
like paper in the wind“

You Won’t – Ya Ya Ya

“So your daddy was a poltergeist
sent your little sister screaming down the hallway
well I don’t know about the afterlife,
but I can help you to forget about the old days“

Mountain Almanac – Kids Playing Outside

“Saturday morning, cartoon time, let’s go“

Basement Revolver – Johnny

“Please just stay away from Johnny
cos I love him understand“

Boy Scouts – Did You See My Cry

“walking walmart shopping center
i’d never been better
on my own two feet
i guess“

Free Cake For Every Creature – First Summer in a City

“i’ll be singing when i’m 90
climb a tree to see
what tastes to smokey sweet
first summer in a city“

Haley Heynderickx – First I’m Sorry

“Mother knows I drown in my lies
Father knows I learned my lesson the second time.
Ask me where I’ll go I’ll say do not know
No, I do not know“

ARMS – Missing

“I don’t want to force your hand
but wishes disguised as plans will never do
Like the king of deathbed regrets
and the queen of last requests could ever choose“

Naps – Bad Vibrations

“Can’t stand up to the world’s expectations
I’m living on a bad bad vibration“

The Washboard Abs – Day Draws Nearer

“Your backyard
you talked to God
about the heartbreak you forgot“

Trace Mountains – Forgiveness

“old dirt you thrown underneath the stair
is right there
right where you said i’d tremble and stare
at the vast unforgiving spirit lurking there
but it takes time, to realise forgiveness“

Nassau – Desert Blues

“I took a marker and wrote your number on the bathroom stall
That’s just my way of reaching out cos I’m too proud to call“

Adeline Hotel – Near You

“Sleep better tonight
In the heat of red moon light
Whatever we are, whatever we’ll be
I used to live near you, you used to love near me“

Simon Balto – Foothills

“I’ve never been a faithful man
I’ve always been too proud to pray
But won’t you come out to the foothills
And hold me together for one more day“

Cloud Cult – No Hell

“There’s no use in running unless you run like heck
The best things we’ve learned we learned from the wreck
Jesus coming back as a woman this time
Handing out hugs in the clinic line
Someone tell the devil we don’t need no hell
We’re all pretty good at beating up ourselves“

Slingshot Dakota – Break

“And in the end there’s two of us
it was always two of us“

Good Good Blood – No Sadness/Furrowed Brow

“We’ll have no sadness/furrowed brow
There is no shame in dying now
I said from my death bed“

Ben Seretan – Bowl of Plums

“My friends call me when they’re feeling low
We talk quietly for hours and walk the room
Flowers growing in a coffee can
Our lives are wonderful and sad sometimes“

Chris Bathgate – Big Ghost

“I got a Big Ghost
of static in my throat
from coming up too short“

Wintersleep – Metropolis

“The man that you are, the man you were, the man you left
Turn into stars, flowing in through the wilderness“

Mothers – Lockjaw

“I don’t want your kind words
I want your ghost inside a thimble“

Car Seat Headrest – Drunk Driver / Killer Whales

“You build yourself up against others’ feelings
And it left you feeling empty as a car coasting downhill
I have become such a negative person
It was all just an act
It was all so easily stripped away“

Space Mountain – Never Lonely

“Met a friend today
And im feeling okay
She’s in my head
I’m never lonely“

Hallelujah the Hills – What Do the People Want?

“What do the people want?
The people don’t know what they want“

Mount Moriah – Calvander

“Carry on and on and on on
With your cosmic reach
Newport river whispered fate
Spells cast with every crashing wave
Neon lines and a new name“

Frederick Squire – Bike Thief

“The lights are on
And we are sinking way down in our chairs
We don’t say much of anything
Even though there’s still a lot to say“

Kevin Morby – We’ve Been Here Before

“Running my mouth off at the storm
Yelling, “man, what the hell did you do that for?“

Sam Moss – Vertebrae

“Did you watch my vertebrae
Slendering out
Or did you watch your own?
Stretching skin over the bone
I’ve grown
Learning to be proud“

Arlo Aldo – House & Home

“O’er the mountains out past the trees
where the grasslands, meet the sky
you’ll find me singin’ my songs
with my lover in my mind“

Will Johnson – Nervousness Fangs

“Jesus what a mess
what they’re all selling
and what’s being sold“

Jeremy Squires – After All

“There’s an old painting of Jesus on a wall
and a tapestry that hangs by a cross
that weighs heavy on my shoulders now and then
I get caught up with why the things we love ain’t never last“

The Dead Tongues – Stained Glass Eyes

“Fifth wind brought a howl got me in a storm
I saw a lighthouse spinning at the edge of the world
like looking through a window to the day
I was born“

Kyle Morton – Automatic

“It’s my head, it’s my head
breaking itself to make a thought but instead
Just some pornographic images to stave off my death
It’s all automatic“

Keaton Henson – Alright

“Obviously
My wounds are open to see
But don’t take them seriously
I’ll be fine“

Talons’ – Work Stories

“Is this what the end of the world looks like?
Or is this just life?“

Jordan O’Jordan – A Lonely Road

“There are truths we may or may never know friend
and that is the point“

Mal Devisa – Sea of Limbs

“Honey-lover
keeper of the bees
Soft-spoken
seldom-seen“

Young Jesus – Hinges

“I’m pretty sure I’m a kind of collection of things
scattered throughout the backyard
under the moon
pulling weirdo slow dance moves
maybe always losing it a little
i am ashamed to believe in myself!“

Lung Cycles – For a While

“I feel like sharing
so I’ll press record
and I’ll tell you that I had a vision“

Sister Grotto – UNCANNY

“When we go, we go alone“

John K. Samson – Virtute At Rest

“You should know I am with you, know I forgive you
Know I am proud of the steps that you’ve made
Know it will never be easy or simple
Know I will dig in my claws when you stray“

If you missed it, you can see the list of our favourite albums of 2016 here, and stay tuned for our collection of the best name-your-price releases on Bandcamp next week.

The post Wake the Deaf’s Favourite Songs of 2016 appeared first on Various Small Flames.