We decided to expand things slightly this year, giving ourselves a chance to write a little something about the albums we wanted to cover but never got the opportunity. Albums which meant something to us at various points through 2021. The list was still incomplete, of course, and we were left with a big list of great songs from great records we didn’t get a chance to mention.

So here are some songs we really enjoyed in 2021. We hope you enjoy them too.

Arooj Aftab – Mohabbat

A take on a piece by Hafeez Hoshiarpuri, Aftab’s multilayered masterpiece is suffused with the patience, sadness and meditative inner wandering of Sufi devotional poetry.

Anjimile – Stranger

As fragile as sandstone, tougher than rock, ‘Stranger’ packages a nuanced assessment of identity as a folk pop hit of which Sufjan would be proud.

Bea Troxel – Getting Where

An empowered anthem for the introverted, slowly circling towards a more truthful self.

Ben Seretan – Cicada Waves 1

Measured and patient piano embedded within an organic field recording, ‘Cicada Waves 1’ plays like a slow day passing in all its quiet details, all its hidden weight.

The Bird Calls – Ritual Crash

With satellites falling from the sky and the burning underworld breaking the surface, ‘Ritual Crash’ presented the most tender, intimate end of the world you were likely to hear in the year of our Lord 2021.

Bria – Buffalo Ballet

Travel to Abilene, TX with this take on John Cale’s “European version of the Old West,” from an EP of covers that both subverts and celebrates country music.

BRNDA – Perfect World

Stable job, accolades, friendly dogs and affirmation. “You’re in the perfect world and doing ok,” sings Leah Gage, voice flat and sardonic as the track eventually tips sideways and falls into an unhinged sax outro.

Canary Room – Lake Effect

Bittersweet folk captured in its best setting, supported by warm lo-fi textures and an ambient embrace of birdsong.

Carson McHone – Hawks Don’t Share

The lid peeled off artistic collaboration, showing the tug of war tension underneath, as well as the lingering regret that results.

Daniel Davies – Spies

On streets as dark and foreboding as this, the question isn’t whether you are paranoid, but whether you are paranoid enough.

Doran – Old Moon

A new song cut from ancient cloth, like a small scrap torn from the drape of the heavens and earth and old moon itself.

Dusted – Not Offering

“I have given up. I’ve given enough,” Brian Borcherdt sings on this tender lesson in regret and letting go. “I was so sure. So it goes, I am not anymore.”

Etran de L’Aïr – Toubouk Ine Chihoussay

A suitably joyous number from Agadez’s premier wedding band, drawing you into its infectious momentum.

Fog Lake – jitterbug

A typically aching and overcast pop song from the master of them.

Frances Chang – eros the love creator dividing chaos

Cosmic spoken word which finds universes within interiors, a daydream transportation away from these sorry lands.

Fust – The Last Days

A song for hard times made warm by the fundamental fondness gained only through shared suffering.

JOHN – A Military Alphabet (five eyes all blind) / Job’s Lament / First of the Last Glaciers / where we break how we shine (ROCKETS FOR MARY)

Some latent thing awoken by our way of living, rising in the name of revenge.

Heka – (a) wall

Anger simmered down to a velvety caramel, coating the tongue on a slow walk through nocturnal alleys.

Hilary Woods – I

One of Hilary Wood’s wordless hymns, to be sung in dark chapels deep underground.

illuminati hotties – Pool Hopping

Working on the logic that slowing down might equal admitting truths or figuring things out, ‘Pool Hopping’ grabs you by the hand and runs.

Indigo De Souza – Pretty Pictures

“I’m always trying to embody a balance between the existential weight and the overflowing sense of love I feel in the world,” Indigo De Souza explains, capturing the bummed-out brightness better than we ever could.

Johanna Samuels – Sonny

With its long shadows and golden light, it’s not clear whether the sun is dawning or setting on ‘Sonny’, but it heralds a new day nonetheless.

JOHN (TIMESTWO) – Return to Capital / Šibensko Powerhouse

The reek of ozone as thunderheads slowly gather / The unleashing of the storm. “I see an opening in the sky, high, wide.”

Keith Secola – Intaglio

Just one of the portals on Keith Secola’s latest record. Looking to the heavens, rooted to the ground, tied to everything in between.

Lael Neale – Blue Vein

“Guardian angel / Gather my losses / Keep them all safe / ‘Til I come to my cross”

Le Ren – Dyan

As warm as a mother’s hand, with all the clarity of an empty room.

Lewsberg – The Corner

Perfectly minimal, just guitar, percussion, and incense-scented violin. All backed up by monologue-like vocals that ring with pure patience.

Loretta’s Museum – The Rodney Ave Garage Sale

Instrumental folk and the ambient sounds of a garage sale combine to evoke one of those perfect glittery springtime days when the sky is blue and the leaves are green and the sun isn’t yet too hot to bear.

Lucie, Too – スーパームーン Super moon

A slice of big, radio-ready indie pop from a Japanese duo that seem destined to blow up.

Mal Devisa – Deja playing guitar

With slow guitar and lilting rhythm, a track which isolates the tenderness and patience within loneliness, yearning for connection with plainspoken charm

Marie/Lepanto – Gramps and Grandma

Justin Peter Kinkel-Schuster on reliably emotive form with the picture of familial love and heartbreak, and Jason Isbell shows up to shred some guitar for good measure.

Maxine Funke – Quiet Shore

A quiet meditation on the mundane aspects of a traumatic moment (a tea tray, a snatched umbrella, a slammed door) that illustrates the potency of memory and how a whisper is often louder than a shout.

Merpire – Heavy Feeling

Has an anxiety attack ever felt so cathartic?

Midwife – God is a Cop

“Am I heartless, or am I soft?” The pressing question at the heart of a track suspended between earnest confession and violent conflagration.

Myriam Gendron – Poor Girl Blues

Gendron combines a traditional Québecois folk song with an old blues one to distil their shared meaning, a lament for the lost, lonely and displaced.

Ovlov – Baby Shea

A 97 second eulogy to Brooklyn’s Shea Stadium played at breakneck pace.

Quivers – Gutters of Love

Ageless Aussie pop that’s a little bit 80s, a little bit 2010s, and a whole lot of joyous reassurance that heartbreak passes and things will be just fine.

Reiko and Tori Kudo – The Deep Valley of Shadow

A soft soliloquy on isolation grows quietly unsettling as warped strings whisper at the edges like anxious thoughts.

Sand Duney – Shadow Outside

Ramshackle country-tinged psych pop built on layered backing tracks thats equal parts meditative and energetic.

Space Mountain – Night Sky

A slacker jam.

Spread Joy – Kanst Du

Just one no wave pop nugget from a record that’s full of them, like pulling a weird sweet and sour German candy from a bag of pick ‘n mix.

Talons’ – Vampire

Talons’ tackle the experience of living through the pandemic in typically raw fashion, centring on an anxiety dream of being maskless in ALDI “between the meat, the fake meat and the gluten-free.”

Tiny Deserts – Wild Mt. Thyme

This beautifully unfussy and intimate take on an old Scots/Irish folk song captures that uniquely summertime feeling where the slow sunny evenings feel at once sorrowful and jubilant.

Trace Mountains – Eyes on the Road

The sound of a late-night self-reckoning while flying down the highway

TV Priest – Lifesize

A slurred and snarling assault on the patriarchal “strongmen” of politics and culture.

Typhoon – We’re In It

A band known for orchestral maximalism hone things to a razor edge in this emotional gut-punch on isolation, drifting friendship and, ultimately, persisting.

Valley Palace – Patch

Sky-blue guitar pop washed in hazy nostalgia that will have you dreaming of summer.

Weakened Friends – Quitter

A very nineties marriage of confession and catharsis, confronting fears over life’s direction by attaching heart to sleeve and blazing on ahead.

World Record Winner – Pockets of Nature

An honest-to-goodness ode to the joy of rooting around in the dirt and leaf litter away from worries and cares.

Wormy – Hungry Ghost (feat. Samia)

A whirlwind tour through the banal and heartbreaking details of life, gathering enough momentum to convince yourself everything might just be alright.

Yellow Ostrich – Timothy

“What’s a man? I’m just as soft as I can be” sings Alex Schaaf on this rumination on connection and the fallacies of masculinity.

If you enjoyed anything on this list, you may also be interested in our list of albums we missed in 2021. And of course, there were lots of amazing songs that we did write about in the last year, so have a look back through our Reviews and Previews sections to find more.

The post Songs We Missed in 2021 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Kovacevich describes Heavun as “some corny ass songs I wrote about dying”. It seems he left out the part that said that these corny ass songs are also really good. The overall mood is a little more poppy this time around, falling somewhere in the region of Cloud Nothings and You Won’t. Tracks such as opener Kids Will Be Kids, and Mary, retain the earnest tenderness of previous releases, but also have a bounce, an injection of indie rock toe-tapping rhythms. All these factors considered, the end result is something rather glorious.

Fans of Praything’s previous releases can rest assured that is is also pretty great. Fans of indie pop acts such as Yellow Ostrich, Tokyo Police Club and Born Ruffians would do well to check this out too.

You can buy the EP right now on a pay-what-you-want basis over at Praything’s Bandcamp page.

The post Praything – Heavun EP appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tired Wires – Hark

(RIYL: ambient, experimental, film scores)

Thorsten Nesch – Stool Pigeon Heart

(RIYL: folk, americana, lo-fi)

2 Ton Bug – It’s A Wonderful Life

(RIYL: garage rock, dumpster punk, muscle music)

Tyra Lennie – Beyond Misty Pines

(RIYL: acoustic, folk, Laura Marling)

Un Blonde – What Surrounding

(RIYL: lo fi, indie rock, experimental, oddball, Women)

Vapour Night – Vapour Night

(RIYL: atmospheric indie rock, shoegaze, post-rock, electronic)

Watermelon – Cassette

(RIYL: garage rock, noise pop, lo-fi vocals. Song: HELL MOUTH)

Wayne Szalinski – Fondly True

(RIYL: math rock, riffs, angst)

Waxlimbs – World Makers

(RIYL: experimental, glitch, dance)

Welcome Center – Different Joys

(RIYL: indie pop, indie rock, Modest Mouse)

Wes Tirey – I Stood Among Trees

(RIYL: acoustic, traditional folk, Cormac McCarthy)

Wildarms – Just For Love

(RIYL: dream pop, experimental, chill, samples)

Wintercoats – Heartful

(RIYL: ambient, electronic folk, Sigur Ros, M83)

Without Features – Three Songs

(RIYL: folk, twee, indie pop)

Yakamoto Kotzuga – Rooms Of Emptiness EP

(RIYL: electronic, ambient, XXYYXX, Koreless)

Yellow Ostrich – Live at the Bowery Ballroom

(RIYL: indie rock, Strand of Oaks, The Antlers)

Yes Bear – Items

(RIYL: indie rock, math rock, punk, Japandroids)

The Yum Dee Days – It’s All Happening

(RIYL: pop punk, surf rock, lo-fi)

Zebra Katz – DRKLNG

(RIYL: hip hop, rap, minimal beats)

The post Favourite Free Music of 2013 (T-Z) appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Tracklisting:

1. Lovecrimes (Frank Ocean Cover) – The Afghan Whigs
2. Little Dreamer (Future Islands Cover) – Doe Paoro
3. Bad Days (Flaming Lips Cover) – Siskiyou
4. Again (Janet Jackson Cover) – How To Dress Well
5. Dog Song (Mountain Man Cover) – Stupid Loser
6. Celebrated (Husker Du Cover) – Mark Kozelek
7. Say Say Say (Michael Jackson & Paul McCartney) – Woodpigeon
8. Zebra (Beach House Cover) – Yellow Ostrich
9. Atmosphere (Joy Division Cover) – Flowers Of Hell
10. Climbing Up The Walls (Radiohead Cover) – The Twilight Sad
11. Islands In The Stream (Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton) – Constantines & Feist
12. Louie Louie (Richard Berry/The Kingsmen Cover) – The Royal Iguana Fur
13. Harvest Moon (Neil Young Cover) – The Sour Notes
14. Into The Fire (Bruce Springsteen Cover) – Paul Baribeau
15. Forgiveness (Patty Griffin Cover) – The Local Strangers
16. Calling And Not Calling My Ex (Okkervil River Cover) – Ola Podrida
17. Please Please Please Let M Get What I Want (The Smiths Cover) – Pickering Pick
18. Jesus, Etc. (Wilco Cover) – Bill Fay
19. Look At Miss Ohio (Gillian Welch Cover) – Blind Pilot
20. The Party’s Over/No Children (Willie Nelson/Mountain Goats Cover) – Manchester Orchestra

Please support the artists by exploring their other releases and becoming huge and dedicated fans.

The Covers Mix: Volume #4 from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

The post The Covers Mix: Volume #4 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Today is the first volume. It features a mix of styles and bands, covering classic songs and new music. We hope you enjoy these re-workings as much as we do.

WTD’s Covers Mix, Volume #1:

1. Crystalized (The XX Cover) – Holly Miranda
2. Her Vore (Coma Cinema Cover) – Fog Lake
3. There Is A Light That Never Goes Out (The Smiths Cover) – Dan Mangan
4. Don’t Haunt This Place (The Rural Alberta Advantage Cover) – Yellow Ostrich
5. Tears Are In Your Eyes (Yo La Tengo Cover) – The Antlers
6. Cars (Gary Numan Cover) – The Leisure Society (Thanks to TWR for the shout!)
7. Old Old Fashioned (Frightened Rabbit Cover) – John Statz
8. Owner Of A Lonely Heart (Yes Cover) – Grizzly Bear
9. I Fought The Law (Bobby Fueller Cover) – Titus Andronicus
10. I Will Truck (Dirty Projectors Cover) – Painted Palms
11. A Case Of You (Joni Mitchell Cover) – James Blake
12. Devil Town (Daniel Johnston Cover) – Bright Eyes
13. Like A Diamond (Glass Ghost Cover) – Sharon Van Etten
14. Ex-Girl Collection (The Wrens Cover) – Will Sheff
15. Angst In My Pants (Sparks Cover) – Signals
16. Sleep All Summer (Crooked Fingers Cover) – St Vincent & The National
17.Beacon Hill (Damien Jurado Cover) – The Head And The Heart
18. Best Ever Death Metal Band Out Of Denton (The Mountain Goats Cover) – Andy Hull
19. Godbye Again (John Denver Cover) – Youth Lagoon
20. Long Desert Train (Jason Molina Cover) – Strand Of Oaks (Thanks to CXCW)

You know the drill – support the bands. Each of the artists’ names above will take you to their website so explore further. Don’t be an Emily White, musicians have to eat too.

The Covers Mix: Volume #1 from Wake The Deaf on 8tracks Radio.

The post The Covers Mix: Volume #1 appeared first on Various Small Flames.

Buy the album now from Barsuk Records or the band themselves, and if you’re unfamiliar with Yellow Ostrich’s previous work, check out their bandcamp page.

The post Yellow Ostrich – Strange Lands appeared first on Various Small Flames.