Tracklist:

Field Medic – henna tattoo
Leggy – Taffy
Myshiuno – Turf War In Chinatown, SF
Press Club – Suburbia
Shady Bug – Make it Up
Calicoco – Anchor Park
LUNCH – Forget Everything
krissanthemum – Honesty Hour
Wy – Pavements
UV Rays – Flowerhead
Fanclub – Stranger
Jeffrey Silverstein – Easy Rider
Ryan Dugré – Tonight
Okay Embrace – Phantom Text
Samia – Lasting Friend
community college – karaoke
runnner – eggshell
Fields of Heaven – Song of Loss
Minor Moon – Hold Me Up (Liar)
Lampland – You Little Liar
Westkust – Swebeach
kate can wait – licantropía
Bleeder – Rusted and Raw
Laveda – Dream Sleep
Pass/Ages – As It Rises
Yuri Tománek – In the end, we all fade away
Tender Glue – Dear Peri
Red Wedding – Bones
Women Tied to Railroad Tracks – Endless Carpet
Eyesore & the Jinx – On An Island
Bellows – What Can I Tell You About the World?
Merival – Sinner
Vassals – Lil Anvil
The This – The Strangest Ritual
Breakup Films – You Said You Hate Not Seeing Me
The Phone Booth – Healthcare
Seamstress – Everything
Zelma Stone – Light Bulb Boy
Charlotte Cornfield – Andrew
Wicketkeeper – Night Night (Whatever)
a. harlana – faces
Lady Dan – What Sanity
Tesha – Funeral

The post February 2019 Roundup Mix appeared first on Various Small Flames.

After releasing their debut record In My Dreams I Am A Sailor back in 2012 and the ironic holiday EP Here We Come a Vassaling in 2015, 2017 saw the release of Halogen Days EP. The latter was the first glimpse of Vassals’ live performance style on record, and felt like the first signs of a band finding their true manifestation.

Taken from a forthcoming full-length, Demarcation Lines, new single ‘Lil Anvil’ sees Vassals lean further into this natural state, as though, having pushed through a period of experimentation and soul searching, they have emerged in their true form. Full of punch and backed by an insistent rhythm, the single’s confident sound supports this idea, though the lyrics question the rigidity of a linear journey. “I am a being of constant motion,” goes Spence’s repeated mantra, and as the tracks clatters into an increasingly hypnotic cadence, the concept of reaching one’s destination seems unimportant. Why park at any one point when motion is so much fun?

i drew a line
i drew it nice and deep
through my mind through my lips through my teeth
never mind now how my tarot reads
all’s a queen of swords
all is in reverse
all’s a fading dream

i am a being of constant motion
i am a being of whatever
forever

The post Vassals – Lil Anvil appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Since releasing their debut album, In My Dreams I Am A Sailor, back in 2012, Brooklyn three-piece Vassals have remained relatively quiet, popping back only to put out the snappy, sarcastic festive EP Here We Come A Vassaling in 2015. 2017 will see that change, with the band set to release a brand new EP, Halogen Days on Post Fun. The release, which came into being as the “dark half” of a “dichotomous project”, is an altogether more serious effort, with the press release promising “four songs of bleak beauty, chaotic minimalism and conflicted rage… frantic but muted, morose but unpredictable… drift[ing] effortlessly from slacker-rock ambivalence to post-punk cynicism to huge walls of fuzzing noise and heartbreaking harmonies.”

Sound good? Well lead single ‘SoHo’ certainly backs up the slacker-rock ambivalence side of the description, a bummed-out, off-kilter slice of garage rock that simmers with frustration and anger without ever quite managing to fully break through the spiritless numb. The result is like a face screwing and scrunching behind a blank mask, perhaps even screaming silently, all in the hope that someone on the outside might recognise the strife and intervene.

“I wanna feel alright.
I’m faded, dematerialized
Swimming in a sea of light,
I’m swimming in a sea of light
I’m floating on an awful high”

Song with a colour in the title

Metallica – Blackened

This was the first thing that came to mind. There are certainly many way better songs involving colors, but I fucking love Metallica* and I don’t care who knows it. Plus it’s sorta funny choosing the absence of color.

*forgetting everything that happened after 1990

Song that reminds you of someone special

The Allman Brothers – Blue Sky

Anytime I hear this song it makes me think of my dad, who’s probably the sole reason I started playing music in the first place. The Allmans are pure joy and Southern Rock at it’s finest.

Song that reminds you of your favourite video game

Primus – Jerry Was A Racecar Driver

This song will forever and ever remind me of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. Primus kinda rules. They were the first truly weird band I got into. Plus, bass playing bandleaders are much too scarce.

Song to soundtrack your Hollywood biopic

Foe Destroyer – Strut

Appropriately named, to me this song feels perfect for walking around the city and just taking it all in. I think it’s really just the bouncy-ness of the guitar part and general playful vibes. For some reason any song that I can blast while cruising in the car or walking around in the city feels soundtrack-worthy and this one is my current go-to.

Song from at least ten years ago

The Beatles – Yer Blues

I figured The Beatles had to make it onto this list at some point. This is one of the very few songs we’ve ever attempted to cover and it’s super fun to play. The recording has always been a treat, you can hear John’s original vocal bleeding into the drum mics but it’s masked just enough by the overdubbed version to make it an easter egg of sorts. Plus the overall darkness of this song pairs well with our new EP.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AoKXCtkBufQ

Quietest song you know

Leapling – Crooked

Maybe not the quietest but I’ve always liked the feeling of intimacy of this track and album in general. Leapling’s recordings do a great job of feeling really close and immediate while still maintaining a “band” sound. Runner up: The Can’t Tells – Lonely Guy.

Song that makes you want to smash things up

Converge – Dark Horse

Man, this was a toss up. Since I already used Metallica on another question, I had to go with my other heavy music favorite, Converge. What can I say? I’m originally from Boston, where there’s a long standing tradition of aggression.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9wZDd_GgPs

Halogen Days is due for release on the 7th April via Post Fun and you can pre-order it now from the Vassals Bandcamp page.

The post Mystery Mini Mix: Vassals appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Ohyeahsumi – Daisy

Ohyeahsumi are Rena and Lena Vernon from California, a pair who describe their journey as going “from wombmates to bandmates to your mates.”  Their album, Your Friends Are Looking For You, is due out at the end of the month on the ever reliable Sports Day Records, and you can hear the first single, ‘Daisy’ right now. Dark and languid, the track plays like the midnight meandering of some city river, dreamy and dappled with light yet mildly dangerous, as though beneath the fascinating surface lies something altogether more strange and ominous.

“Scared of being pretty
Room is dirty, mind is filthy
My dress curves clearly
At the waist”

Your Friends Are Looking For You is to be released on the 31st March and you can pre-order it now via Bandcamp, including a special edition cassette complete with cards designed by Bronwyn Walls.

Lizzie No – Crying Wolf

Lizzie No is a songwriter and harpist based in Brooklyn who is set to release her debut album, Hard Won, this spring. Written during a “lonely night shift at the box office of a midtown venue in NYC”, lead single ‘Crying Wolf’ is energetic-yet-dark folk song. No’s vocals, led by the music or else leading, possess a repetitive cadence which suggests an almost trance-like quality, a gradually dawning delirium from which wisdom is channelled.

Hard Won is out this spring, so keep on eye on Lizzie No’s Bandcamp page.

Amanda Glasser – Bed

Amanda Glasser is a multi-instrumentalist and songwriter from Baltimore. Not content with her output with her band Purrer, Glasser is set to release her solo debut album, Caelesti Radio, an album which she says “is a light that shines on the difficult emotions surrounding trauma, love, fighting to be heard and moving on.” ‘Bed’ is our first taste of the album and has certainly whet our appetite, a superior slice of bummed out, downbeat indie rock. It’s reminiscent of Low in its use of plaintive melancholy and A Weather in the way it melds the sad and insular rainy-day vibe with swelling instrumentation, primarily throaty guitar and galloping drum beat.

It’s a great introduction and has me anticipating the album impatiently. Keep an eye on the Amanda Glasser Bandcamp page for details.

Batwings Catwings – Sky Blue Haze

LA’s Batwings Catwings make what they describe as “Inspired radio-friendly noise pop with no pretences”. On a recent tour of Japan, the band made a video for the three minute blast of infectious noise that is ‘Sky Blue Haze’, the standout track from last year’s Coast to Coast. The video captures visually what the song does aurally, just a rollicking, no-frills good time that highlights the raw energy of a band with a growing reputation for their live shows.

You can get Coast to Coast now via Broken World Media or the Batwings Catwings Bandcamp page.

Caroline Lazar – Nevermine

Taken from a forthcoming EP of the same name, Caroline Lazar’s ‘Nevermine’ introduces her pop/folk fusion, all built up around striking vocals which gather in slow intensity, the energy and intent inching forwards with fluid force like an approaching tide. By the finale Lazar seems barely held together, her voice positively exploding with a depth and energy beyond her years.

Nevermine is set for release on the 24th March and you can pre-order it now from Bandcamp.

Why a fox – Cleland

Why a fox is the recording project of Australian-native, Japan-based songwriter Hayden Marks. With his debut LP Old forest. Young trees. set for release this April, opening track ‘Cleland’ sets the tempo with a pacey, lyric-filled two-and-a-half-minutes, like a cross of Camp Cope and the Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2 soundtrack.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsCi5wtlAt8

You can pre-order Old forest. Young trees. now from the Why a fox Bandcamp page.

Brice Randall Bickford – Paro

Brice Randall Bickford made his name with the folk-country band The Strugglers back in the 2000s, before moving back to North Carolina in 2011 and starting to record under his own name. His latest album, Paro, released recently on Keeled Scales explores “themes such as humanity’s tendency toward greed, control over others, systems of government, and the consequences of the adoption of agriculture”. Standout ‘The First Grain’  makes good on this promise, what at first appears a pleasant country-rock song slowly revealing its world-weary literary edge.

“When you cut your teeth on
Whatever you were handed
The first time thinking, I don’t belong
You didn’t know the half of it”

You can get Paro now from Keeled Scales webstore and the Brice Randall Bickford Bandcamp page.

Lizzie Kent – EP

Lizzie Kent is a singer-songwriter from Vancouver, BC, who released her debut self-titled EP last summer. Luckily for those of us who missed it the first time around, the songs are probably more suited to these grey windy days than August’s sun, so now is a great time to right the wrong and get to know Kent’s sound. ‘Secrets’ is a good place to start, a melancholy, nostalgia-filled song where the vocals take centre stage while guitar plucks at the surrounding silence.

“Take me back to just last spring,
when the flowers bloomed and the birds would sing
Take me back to the time in our lives
when all things lost were bound to survive”

You can buy the Lizzie Kent EP now from Bandcamp.

Mt. Doubt – Tourists

Edinburgh-based Leo Bargery, AKA Mt. Doubt, has teamed up with Dunfermline band Foreignfox to put out an AA-side single Tourists / Lights Off, Carry Me Home, out the end of the month on Scottish Fiction. Mt. Doubt’s ‘Tourists’ is best described as a happy collision between The National and The Twilight Sad, Bargery’s baritone vocals and joined by insistent drums and sizeable guitars which sweeps you up within its heft, even possessing a manic Berningerian on-the-verge-of-losing-it shouty finale.

The single is out on the 31st March and you can pre-order it now, though it’s also the first single from a forthcoming EP The Loneliness of the TV Watchers, which judging by the title is a record that’s going to be right up our alley.

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