The Artisans (photo stolen from Roque) Today is a great day! Why, you ask? Because about a week after posting a new mix featuring a song by the fantastic band The Artisans , whom I've fallen in love with over the past month (only hearing just two songs!), I come to find out that Roque will be releasing a 3" CDr compiling their entire career output. Now, "entire career output" here only means six songs, but that's four more than I'd ever heard before, so I'm pleased as punch! More pleased than punch, to be [...]
Real quick, you have to watch this, it's adorable and great. Thanks to William Skipping Stones for pointing this video out!
How sad is this ? Lost Music has come to an end. Sometimes, life is about knowing when to stop. Over the past month or so I've had to question my love for doing Lostmusic. A few times I've found myself not enjoying it as much as I used to. These doubts made me decide that it was better to end Lostmusic rather than let it linger. The easy option would be to continue and let it become something I do, rather than something I love. It was when I realised [...]
Another year and no popfest for me! Yay! The lineup for this years NYC Popfest has finally been announced and it's as amazing as anyone could have possibly hoped! Unfortunately it's been scheduled smack dab in the middle of finals week, so I (along with, I would assume, many other popkids in college!) won't be able to make it! Fantastic! Hopefully this scheduling conflict will be taken into consideration next year! Anyway – my peril aside – this year's popfest WILL be amazing for those of you actually going. After an initial scan of [...]
Cats On Fire My copy of the new Cats On Fire record Our Temperance Movement hasn't arrived in the mail yet (it should be showing up soon, along with Pocketbooks' Flight Paths !), but between listening to "Horoscope" over and over and now watching this new video for "Tears In Your Cup", I'll be very surprised if Our Temperance Movement doesn't end up being one of my most loved records of 2009. I'm not sure what to say about it at the moment as I have yet to hear [...]
Pete and Pete = Springtime. Right? The Springtime Is Killing Us! Well, not really – to be honest, I'm on spring break right now and the entirety of the week here was dreadful and wet, but today just happens to be the nicest day we've seen so far around here! Now, what's a spring break without a new mix celebrating the (late) arrival of Spring?! Why that's no spring break at all! So, since it's just beginning to turn into spring outside and I haven't made a mix since, well, a while, I made a new [...]
The Hermit Crabs The new Correspondence Course EP from Scotland's Hermit Crabs – which I only just heard very recently – has become an integral companion for me as I'm beginning to welcome the Spring season back into my life. The EP (out on Matinee Records ) is four tracks of sugary-sweet indiepop that seems to just cover your whole body with sunshine! The best part? Melanie's immensely catchy vocal melodies – and they're made even better against the backdrop of the bouncing, almost surf-y lead guitar. In my opinion, these [...]
Tullycraft When stopping by the Tullycraft blog today, I was greeted by some very saddening news. It seems that Tullycraft have decided to throw in the live show towel! Noooooooooo! Now, as much as I can understand their reasons, I'm still quite broken up about this because I've never had the opportunity to see them live. They are still going to be playing a final show at this year's San Francisco Popfest, but I simply don't have the mean$$$ to make it across the country this Summer. I guess there's always YouTube :( Fortunately [...]
Pocketbooks "I'm overwhelmed sometimes, by all the rational types who just dismiss coincidence and instinct and perception, as a trick of the mind" sings Emma Pocketbooks on "Fleeting Moments" – the second track on the London pop group's debut LP, Flight Paths . I just ordered my copy this past weekend, so I haven't gotten a chance to hear the whole thing yet, but I've heard wonderful things from all corners of the world and the one new song I have heard is a gem, so my expectations are pretty [...]
I admittedly don't know too much about Ubangi other than that they were Swedish and featured Cia Soro who would later be in the more well-known, and much less stranger, Whale. This song is incredibly infectious though – well, for me it is anyway. Though who could really deny how fantastic that guitar is, really. Watch at your own risk! Haha. Several of their records are pretty easy to come by, though Oh No, I'm Pregnant! , the album this song originally appeared on, is proving to be exteremely difficult to track down. [...]
Butcher Boy's second LP React or Die , out in April. Over two years ago, I described Glasgow's Butcher Boy as very "Felt-y" – hardly an incorrect assessment of their sound at that time. However their new single "Carve A Pattern", for me, feels like something different. The whirring organ still manages to peek through the mix from time to time with that tone that is just SO Forever Breathes The Lonely Word , but the backbone of the song is in the bouncing piano melody, which is neither Felt nor the [...]
I don't know about you, but I never knew these were in existence. I'd seen the other FLI videos a million times over, but I just noticed this live set from OSAKAvsTOKYO last night. I'm not sure what the date is on this, so if anyone knows, could you let me know! Under the assumption that I'm not the only who A.) loves the Free Loan Investments and B.) has never seen these videos before, I feel it my duty to share them with you!!! These are a few of the highlights, in my opinion, but you can [...]
The Softies I don't know where this recording originally came from but I got it from Mr. Pinefox a few days ago – and with perfect timing, too, on a nice rainy day! This is a really great recording and it's nice to hear all of these songs live; especially "The Best Days"! It's fun to listen to Rose and Jen's cute stage banter back and forth, too, being that I missed my chance to see them live when they were, you know, still around. I'd really recommend grabbing this and getting a nice hot cup [...]
Japan Air I first mentioned Japan Air almost 2 years ago and since then they've recorded new songs, released a single on Cloudberry Records and starting putting words in their songs. However, they've got a new video and it's for one of their older, instrumental songs – the first song of theirs I ever heard, actually – called "Crack of Dawn". Watch it! Japan Air's 3" single is still available from Cloudberry and I would really suggest grabbing it. All three songs are perfect [...]
Liechtenstein Yes yes yes! The Liechtenstein girls are back! Not that they ever left, but I for one didn't expect another new release this soon, and as you can see I'm a bit excited about it. They've just released a brand new three-track CDr called 'Everything's For Sale' on a new label called Drill Building. They've got the title track up on MySpace and I've been playing it over and over quite a bit, killing the time until my copy comes in the mail! It reminds me of a song of which [...]
The Metric Mile Since finally, happily, receiving my copy of The Metric Mile's 'In Praise of Ski Jumpers' 7", I don't think it has really left my turntable – in short, I'm definitely in love. I'm hearing bits and pieces of all my favorite bands – The Wake, OMD, The Field Mice, etc – all rolled into one and it's just perfect! I first fell in love with A-side "In Praise of Ski Jumpers", which prompted me to order the single in the first place, but it's the B-side, "Codebreaking", that now has me [...]
Brilliant at Breakfast I don't quite remember how it was that I happened upon Brilliant at Breakfast 's quiant little MySpace page, but my breakfast this morning (no kidding!) was all the much better for it! The band consists of a seemingly anonymous group of folks from Yogyakarta, Indonesia who play, in their own words, "Pop with dabs of madness. Perky, childish, whimsical songs. Themes range from popular culture (comic book superheroes, Greek mythology, urban legends, novels, other bands) and everyday life (end-of-vacation blues, intoxicating drinks, sugary drinks, road accidents)." Sounds good to me! While [...]
They like to rest on windowsills So, it's been quite a while in the making, but it's finally 100% done and you can finally order one! The compilation was a great joy to put together and finish and I only hope you'll love it as much as I do. As I've noted before, they come in a beautiful handmade sleeves – screenprinted in a lovely blue ink on nice, thick white stock! Oh, and hand-stamped discs, too! But the music is just as good as the sleeve it's in! New or previously unreleased songs (mostly) from [...]
The Wentletraps I was introduced to The Wentletraps a few weeks ago, and I've been listening to them on and off since then, but today – sitting inside, watching the outside turn into a frozen wonderland – they just seemed perfect. Ria and Chary play soft, twinkly pop songs ala-Softies straight from The Philippines with love! The two girls take their name from the precious Wentletrap seashell. A good name indeed for a band so delicate and beautiful. "The Rain Knows" is my favorite of them all, but every song they have up [...]
While reading through this article (and it's subsequent comments) on Tom and Trev's new Fuzzy Pop blog (which you should read, by the way), I came upon this video. I pray this isn't for real, though I think that it may just be. Not only are the entire seven and a half minutes of the video tremendously cringe-worthy, but some of it is just factually incorrect! Postcard Records released C86 in 1985? Uh huh, and Tony Wilson founded Sarah Records, too! If you really feel the need to make such [...]
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