After two more releases in the interim, next month sees the release of brand new Ylayali album, separation, via Dear Life Records. A collection of songs which continues both Lyon’s excavation of his self and the ‘fresh start’ triggered on caterpillar graveyard. The pop melodies, the quiet yet unguarded delivery, the sense something dreamlike or spiritual is taking place. Not that it’s an entirely solo endeavour. Lyon is known for his collaboration, playing in Free Cake For Every Creature, 2nd Grade, 22° Halo and others, and enlists the likes of Katie Bennett (vocals), Jason Calhoun (synth, violin), Will Kennedy (guitar), Jack Washburn (bass, guitar) and Heeyoon Won (harp, ipad garageband, french horn, vocals) to elevate separation too.

Dreams are central to the record, the entire thing emerging from a conversation Lyon had with his “therapist-cum-Sliding Scale Spiritual Adviser and Dream Analyst.” A particularly vivid recollection drew admiration from this trusted listener, flattering Lyon enough to turn Ylayali toward dreams as a source of inspiration. After all, if our night time visions are manifestations of our unconscious, then what better place to dig? “Separation is almost entirely a ‘dialogue’ between me and a character from a dream,” he explains. “He’s a man of idioms and advice and insecurity. He’s an empty wig and lifeless outfit on my studio floor.”

Latest single ‘He Needs Me’ serves as the theme song to Lyon’s relationship with this dream companion. A bright track balanced between fondness and melancholy, its harp and violin conjure a tone ethereal but also rooted in something earthier. “Just narrowly escaped myself / when the dust clears I’m alone,” Lyon sings. “I pray to worms, birds, bats, fireflies / save my brain from the wandering mind.” But its not the wildlife who comes to Lyon’s aid but the dream man, locked and loaded with insecurities of his own. “He needs me.”

separation is out on 2nd September via Dear Life Records and you can pre-order it now. Ylayali is heading out on tour in support of the release and you can see the dates below:

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Released to coincide with his birthday, and organised by Dan Wriggins (of Friendship) in collaboration with Dear Life Records, You Were Alone: An Owen Ashworth Almanac is a covers compilation featuring versions of Owen’s songs from family, friends, labelmates and fans. A celebration which recognises a birthday but also so much more than that. A body of work and the burgeoning legacy it has and continues to establish, not to mention the blossoming community fostered through Owen’s label Orindal Records.

And community feels like the right word for the compilation. Both in terms of the gathered artists and the characters they bring to life. Because hearing the songs in different voices really brings home the diversity of personalities present across Owen’s work. Pedro the Lion adds a weariness to ‘My Sister’s Birthday’ with his distinctively gruff fondness. Claire Cronin is the perfect person to fully excavate the spookiness of ‘Pamela’. MJ Lenderman and Karly Hartzman raise a glass to poor old Christmas Steve. Sinai Vessel captures ‘Kitty Winn’ in all its sad affection.

Some, like Lisa/Liza‘s ‘Rabbits’ or Karima Walker‘s ‘Same Dream’, take the original versions back to the traditional folk roots, while the likes of Ylayali, Moon Racer and Bedbug lean into the electronic, harking back to earlier CFTPA days. What’s impressive is how the distinctive “Ashworthian” voice remains across the spectrum. Even the tracks with no literal voice, be it Robert Stillman‘s take on ‘Christmas in Nightmare City’ or Gordon Ashworth‘s extended guitar version of ‘Nephew in the Wild’, lose none of their ability to evoke the tales we’ve grown to hold so dear. Because while Dan might have intended to organise a birthday party, it turned out more like a reunion. A gathering of Owen’s characters, our friends. Still here, still living, still with so many stories to tell.

Cover painting by Martha Miller

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Claire Cronin – What the Night is Thinking
Michael Cromier – Foghorn
Ylayali – little caterpillar graveyard
Forrest Moody & Jake Bellissimo – Selige Sehnsucht
Grotto Terrazza – Was Leben Will Muss Sterben
Trying – If I Don’t Get a Job
Giant in The Lighthouse – Sprinting
Soften – Iridescent
Champ Major – Abbeville
Grebes – Plum
Jack M. Senff – Old Days
Sam Lynch – Not My Body
Tyler Key – Change My Mind
Ē – Afraid of the Ocean
Dehd – Wild
Pancho and the Wizards – Rot
TV People – Healthier Days
Plastic Cactus – Mystery Boy
Bibi Club – Jean Rene
It’s Sunday – Comme Un Fool
Little Slugger – Impossible
runnner – fan on
Hostxess – Time
omes – wyd
Oliver Ray – Ol’ Coyote
Will Johnson – Cornelius
Merival – No Brakes
My Father’s Son – Dust to Rust
Jordan Klassen – Virtuous Circle
Ditty – Deathcab

Check out our previous Monthly Roundup playlists, and be sure to read or Reviews and Previews throughout the month.

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Now Ylayali is back with a new album, this time on Sleeper Records. caterpillar graveyard continues with the lo-fi ruminations, although sounds more suited to it’s late spring release date. Maybe it has something to do with that album art, but opener ‘little caterpillar graveyard’ immediately doesn’t sound quite so grey. The monochrome textures and tones of yy are replaced with a patchwork of the greens of new life, all the larvae and grubs emerging to wriggle around and chomp on leaves. Which is not to say it’s a sunny pop song exactly—the guitars still quiet and intimate, Lyons’s vocals still a sombre mumble.

‘coin pocket’ is up-tempo if not upbeat, the instrumentation forming a tunnel around Lyons’s voice, while ‘smilin down’ has hints of Told Slant in the almost spoken word vocals and sense of pensive regret. But that’s before the song’s second half, where it blows a gasket and explodes in a wall of noise, a runaway fuzz that hurtles toward an abrupt stop.

Two songs sandwiched into one track, ‘brighter inside + hum’ sparkles into life with the easy melody of a Free Cake song, Lyons repeating the line “a little brighter inside.” The track transitions into its second half with the thump of percussion, heralding a brittle lo-fi song that’s garbled with snatches of voices, like radio interference or the clamour of ghosts.

After an initial blare of noise, ‘first look back’ begins patient and sedate, but crunches into rock territory as it advances, garbled samples floating past in eddies of static and feedback. It’s a great example of what Ylayali does best, the fusion of the pretty and the harsh, of the intimate and the outward. The vocals don’t arrive until the final minute, and even then they’re barely there, gossamer thin against the messy background.

There’s a reverential air to the guitar on ‘smoked’, glowing like a luminous thread amidst the purple-black shadows of negative space. Lyon’s whispered vocals are eventually joined by drums and ominous burps of heavy guitar. The result is a slow burning track as humid and barely-restrained as gathering thunderheads.

Finale ‘perfect fit’ returns to something lighter, both in terms of its mass and illumination. Stretching beyond the nine-minute mark, the track has two distinct sections, the track itself and a hidden outro. At first it sounds delicate and unsure, a slow-stepping drum beat joined by the soft sparkle of guitar and Lyons’s barely there vocals. But after around four minutes, the hush grows and the song is reduced to picked acoustic guitar and a textured background hum. The voice, when it eventually arrives, is little more than a quiet murmur, like secrets or truths uttered to the dark way beyond midnight.

caterpillar graveyard is out now on cassette via Sleeper Records and as a name-your-price download from the Ylayali Bandcamp page. The tapes come packaged in beautiful 3 color riso printed jcards, so grab one of those if you can.

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However, while the album is united by a certain mellowness, to label it one-paced would be to do it a disservice. Opener ‘Beautiful, OH’ is a sparse, elegiac number underpinned by the gentlest swells, the cyclical pattern interspersed with irregular rises in tempo which never quite culminate in anything like a climax, playing like time passing across a landscape. This is followed by ‘The Carter Starter’, a track positively chirpy in comparison, though violin still sweeps across at various interludes to add a wistful dimension. ‘Still New To This’ creeps out of its beginnings with a playful edge. The cyclical motif utilised once more, though each iteration is altered and built upon so that a sense of organic life is imparted to the flow.

As highlighted in the next three tracks, much of Tiny Houses is pitched somewhere between insular and expansive, the echo and hum suggesting loneliness, though one which could apply to a crowded room or wide open plain. Put another way, the sadness Hour conjure could be either external or internal—a mindful person living within a lonely space, or a lonely person trying to feel more at home within an indifferent one. “This collection of songs explores the cracks and crevices of the spaces we occupy and call home,” the press release explains. “Each song balances the transcendence and claustrophobia that can come with sharing those spaces with others, and the decision, at times liberating, at times painful, to leave and start the process over again.”

With its more insistent percussion and experimental sound, ‘Town Meeting’ has a disorientating undercurrent, the intermittent field recordings of wordless babble adding to the perturbed vibe. Samples are a key part of the title track too, with subtle birdsong and the great rush of wind filling out the background of the simple acoustic sound. The ambient hiss of this track continues onto the grand, slow-burning ‘Doxology’—the most cinematic, post-rock inspired song on the record, bringing to mind talons’ minus the lyrics.

The album is closed by ‘From a Bus Window in Central Ohio, Just Before a Thunder Shower,’ and the sincere preciseness of the title is a good indicator of the sound. Again, the song emerges in gentle waves, a naturalistic patience that eventually rises into some of the most affirming moments on the record. As a finale, it feels like a message of sorts, Hour’s insistence that there can be value and meaning within the simplest of things, beauty within quiet calm, a home within any place, no matter how great or small.

Tiny Houses is out now on Sleeper Records and you can get it from Bandcamp. Also, Hour recently put out three videos which, speaking to The Line of Best Fit, Cormier describes as “attempts at capturing slices of three distinct artistic lives and visions, in process and imperfect, connected by songs from the latest Hour release.” Check them out on Youtube:

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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.

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Tracklisting:

Twelve Gardens – maria
Gorgeous Bully – oh why
Girl K – Neighbours
Kintsugi San – Time
Brunch – The Goose
Young Jesus – Feeling (Half Stop Session)
Wych Elm – School Shooter
Steve Maloney – Exits
Haley Heynderickx – Oom Sha La La
M.A.G.S. – Mexico
Iris Jupiter – Buzz Cut
Ylayali – Cherry Tomatoes
Anamon – Stubborn Comfort
Micah Vaultz – endless rain, for limitless pain
Pavey Ark – Leaf By Leaf
Henry Jamison – The Last Time I Saw Adrianne
Shamir – 90s Kids
SALES – Talk a Lot
Nassau – Ain’t It Time
Long Neck – Cavity
Pastel – Silhouette
Old Earth – Pit Dynamics

You can find all of of monthly mixes here, plus an assortment of other playlists and song collections. Stayed tuned for October!

The post September 2017 Roundup appeared first on Various Small Flames.

The new tape is similarly atmospheric, shrouded in a grey translucent graininess, sounding like heartfelt slowcore run through an antique tapedeck. ‘pb’ begins with a droning fuzz, like a giant mosquito at the other end of a long distance call, before the entry of turbulent guitar and clipped downbeat vocals, a combination that brings to mind Brian Borcherdt’s work as Dusted. Meanwhile, ‘cherry tomatoes’ is slow and murky, with a Trace Mountains-style slacker drawl, Lyons sounding stretched beyond caring into apathy, or perhaps beyond hurting into an emboldened state of nothing to lose.

“I’ll pick the cherry tomatoes out myself
swear I’ll knock those restaurant fuckers down”

‘bus’ sounds like a bedroom-recorded Low song, existing in a slo-mo freefall, all quietly desperate vocals and blown out drum rumble, while ‘inside yourself’ is warbly and distorted, a lo-fi pop track bubbled through some cloudy liquid. In comparison, closer ‘plastic bag’ sounds positively cavernous, a wonky lo-fi rock song with thumping percussion and squawking feedback.

The tape is a strangely satisfying mix of bummed out minimalism and expansive experimentalism, occasionally erupting in big staticky towers of noise. The lo-fi homebrew vibe adds rather than detracts, the blurry introspection sounding somehow very real, without a single molecule of sugary production to mask what Lyons is trying to say. Basically, it does what Lily Tapes & Discs have become very good at doing, and is a worthy addition to their catalogue.

yy is out now on cassette via Lily Tapes and Discs and name-your-price download via the ylayali Bandcamp page.

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When we heard that Super Fan 99 was releasing Talking Quietly of Anything With You and “Pretty Good” on one cassette for European audiences, we thought it would be a good time to have a chat with Bennett to explore her songwriting and the reasoning behind her transatlantic venture.

Hi Katie, thanks for speaking with us! You have just re-released two of your albums, “Pretty Good” & Talking Quietly of Anything With You in the UK and Europe on Super Fan 99. How did that opportunity come about? And are you excited to share your music with a whole new audience?

Hey, thank you! Luke Barham, owner of Super Fan 99, messaged me on Facebook about six months ago asking if I’d want to put out a cassette with them. I was excited by the idea of having tapes available in the UK because we’d ultimately like to go and play over there. I checked out the Super Fan website, loved the sounds and look of their label, and trusted Luke to make our release special.

There are also plans to cross the Atlantic for your first UK tour. That must be really exciting. Have you visited the UK before? Is there anywhere you’re particularly excited to visit/play in?

I may have been a little premature in revealing our plans to tour the UK, because as of right now we don’t have the funds to, but it’s definitely in our long-term plan. We’ve never played outside of the US & Canada, and I’ve never been to Europe save for a trip to London with my family when I was eleven. But we’ll get there!

The cassette also comes with a mini zine that you have made. What can people expect from that?

The zine contains a series of diary entries I wrote over the course of our progression as a band. It gives a little insight into how starting a band and getting over insecurities can be extremely difficult, but is ultimately extremely rewarding.

Your songs always sound very personal. Are they based on your own experiences? Do you keep a diary or something that forms the basis of your songs?

My songs are always based on my own experiences, and often the seeds of them come from things I’ve discovered through writing a journal entry. Initially, when I didn’t think people would ever hear my songs, I would write and record them in the midst of a strong feeling as a way to document that feeling and my personal history in general.

I love to listen to these kinds of audible journal entries/ “demo” songs from other artists, and I continue to make them myself (while also often focusing on crafting songs). Now that I’m aware there’s a small audience for my music, I’ve been holding onto these sorts of songs and thinking about how/ if I want to put them out. I’ve been curating more, thinking about my intentions, and asking myself, “What do I want to say/ show by sharing this?” because I know people will be asking that of the songs and I want to have an answer.

At least to me, Talking Quietly of Anything With You, is about getting older in your own way, about leaving behind teenage years but not completely all the feelings that go along with them. Would you say this a fair assessment? Is the album about a specific period in your life, and if so, what inspired it?

The album is for/ about anyone who is in a period of transition, is unsure of their life-plan, or just likes pop music and enjoys a little humor/ absurdity.

That being said, I wrote the album in my early 20s, and I think you’re right in saying that that specific time period is heavily reflected in the lyrical content of the album. It was a difficult time for me, between moving somewhere new, trying to find a job, trying to make new friends, etc. In many ways, even though it’s been a few years since I wrote those songs, I still feel and relate to that struggle. Now I’m just used to the feeling of being unsettled, it isn’t oppressive.

Is there anything else that you consider a major inspiration? Perhaps books, films, other people’s music?

Yes to all! I spend a lot of time reading, and often I’ll come across a word or phrase that jolts me and I’ll have to stop and write a poem or song or journal entry. I recently re-read two books that I’ve loved for years and that inspire me a ton: Diane di Prima’s “Recollections of My Life as a Woman” and Kate Zambreno’s “Green Girl.”

The final track On “Pretty Good” is a cover of REM’s ‘It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)’, a song which seems pretty relevant in light of recent events. Without asking you to provide a hot take on US/global politics, what’s your take on all this? And how can we all do a little to fight bigotry and hate?

Keep doing the work you love and believe in. Keep going, be bold, don’t be afraid.

Last month, thirty six beautiful artists and musicians, some of whom I’d met and many of whom were friends of friends, lost their lives in the Ghost Ships fire in Oakland. Since then, conservative groups (fueled & encouraged by Trump’s win) have been using that horrific event as an excuse to try and shut down artist’s spaces by harrassing them online and telling fire departments the spaces are “unsafe.” A few places we were supposed to play on this tour got moved because they’d been threatened. Someone even brought a gun into one of the spaces the previous month and shot the ceiling. The threat is real and ridiculous, and while safety is our priority, we can’t just stop playing shows and making music because we are afraid. Making music and playing shows and connecting to that community is a life-line for me and for so many people.

Finally, could you name 4/5 bands or artists that you’re into at the moment. They can be brand new or golden oldies, whatever you’ve been listening to.

I’m so lucky and grateful that people from my favorite music projects are touring with me as the free cake band. Drummer Francis Lyons plays/ records as ylayali, lead guitar Evan Marré is Russel the Leaf and bassist Heeyoon Won is Boosegumps.

You can get “Pretty Good” & Talking Quietly of Anything With You as a double tape and zine package from Super Fan 99 Records, and be sure to check out the Free Cake For Every Creature Bandcamp page for previous releases.

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Until then, here’s our June Roundup, a playlist of songs rounding up everything we covered during June. Clever, huh? Click on the artist name in the tracklisting to be whisked away to the specific post.

Tracklisting:

1. Trisha Please Come Home – Advance Base
2. Slower Now – Star Horse
3. I Make Boys Cry – Adult Mom
4. Cordella – On The Water
5. Destroy – Henoheno
6. A Long Time Ago – Kalle Mattson
7. Only One Who Feels a Little Bit Bad – Fazed on a Pony
8. Ohio Snow Falls – Unraveler
9. Pylon Pile On – Benjamin Shaw
10. For Luck – Cyberbully Mom Club
11. The Offer – Yowler
12. When I Met Death – Right Away, Great Captain!
13. Patriarchaeth – Gwenno
14. Future Bones – Bells Atlas
15. Beautiful Brian – Harley Alexander and The Universal Lovers
16. Whip-Poor-Will – Morning River Band
17. I Admit I’m Scared – Eskimeaux
18. Ideal World – Girlpool
19. Observation Satellites – GRNDMS
20. Podesta – Peptalk
21. Cwm Llwm – Yucatan
22. Clouds – Estan
23. Lullaby – Long Neck
24. KiwiKisses – Trenton Point
25. My Only One – PONY
26. Return to View – The Wandering Lake
27. Clicking Clanking – Ylayali
28. Pull Me Apart – Lung Cycles
29. Red Coat – Adeline Hotel
30. Johnny Go Riding – Damien Jurado
31. When the Day is Fresh, and the Light is New – The Wooden Sky
32. The Crow – Sean Henry
33. Yolanda – O-FACE

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