I visited one record store in Lisbon. I can’t recall the name now, though it was very close to the Santa Justa lift. It was on the way up (or down) some stairs. I entered without any hope of finding anything, it looked like your usual jazz and oldies records place but after a good look I was to find some fine indiepop records. Sadly I didn’t buy any because they were crazy expensive.

For example I found the two Razorcuts LPs on Creation. Both of them were being sold for 25 euros. I believe you can find them cheaper on Discogs or eBay. Then I was surprised to find some 10″s by Anthony Adverse or Marden Hill. Nice records indeed, but again overpriced. So I returned to NYC without any new records.

I also visited the FNAC thinking that it would be similar as in Spain, that I might find some of the latest releases by Elefant. But no, none of them were available. The selection there for indiepop in general was very poor.

But of course that doesn’t mean I had a bad vacation! It was terrific, I really loved the country. Buying records wasn’t part of the plan for Portugal. It would be if I go to England, Sweden or Germany for sure, but for other countries, I don’t go with the mindset of buying records. Of course, if I find something, it would be a treat and would be appreciated.

I have to cover indiepop news too, so can’t be just talking about my trip. I’ll tell you more next time, but would share my travel route, the cities I visited: Lisbon, Evora, Sintra, Fatima, Obidos, Alcobaça, Batalha, Coimbra and Tomar. So many beautiful places I couldn’t visit. Really, 8 full days weren’t enough!

There’s been a few festival announcements, but I’ll start from where I was last post, Madrid Popfest! And yes, I’m looking into going. I need to figure out some things but there is a good chance I will attend. That would be nice, after one long year (2017), not attending any indiepop festivals!

Madrid Popfest will happen on the 2nd and 3rd of March in 2018. That is on a Friday and on a Saturday. That is quite convenient for me, I could return on Sunday and be back to work on Monday. The festival will be held at the Galileo Galilei venue, which I’ve never been but after Googling, I can say it looks like a good choice.

Some bands have already been announced and for sure my excitement went to another level when I saw that Eggstone was playing. Wow! They had a reunion not so long ago and I believe so far they’ve played only in Sweden and Germany. Only now they will travel to warmer climes. For me, this seems to be a unique opportunity to see them live as I really doubt they are going to play the US any day soon. So indeed, what a chance to see this legendary band!

Another big band announced is the BMX Bandits. I’ve seen them a few times. I’ve always been a fan and I’m sure I’ve mentioned them on the blog many many times.

Then we have The Tuts, Terry Vs. Tori, Cosmen Adelaida, Melenas and The BV’s.

The BV’s are a favourite band of mine these days. I’ve raved about them here time and time again and hopefully I will have some exciting news about them soon!

The Tuts have got a mention too when I’ve looked into Indietracks lineups years ago. So I’m familiar with them. There are then three bands that haven’t had a mention on the blog so I’ll have to check them out!

Terry vs. Tori is the one band I’m familiar because my good friend Cris from The Royal Landscaping Society has worked with them. He showed me their music last year and I thought it was really enjoyable. The Sevilla band’s latest release dates from May 2017. The “Leap Day” EP is available to stream on their BandCamp and as I was saying earlier, it is great! The band is formed by Erica Pender on vocals and guitar, Manuel Jiménez on guitars, Jose Prieto on bass and Rosa Ponce on drums. Very curious to catch this band live and hopefully get their records which at the moment I don’t own any!

Cosmen Adelaida hail from Madrid and have more than a few releases. Their last release also happened this year. Last March they released their 10 song album “Dos Caballos” which I’m listening now for the first time. I must admit I know the band by name for years now, I think they’ve been around since 2009 or so! But for some reason I never paid attention to their music. Why? I don’t have an answer. But well, better late than never, right? Maybe the reason was that they are not strictly indiepop?, I can see their post-punk influences but also influences of La Movida in their sound. But instantly I’m hooked by their punchiness and catchiness. Maybe it is time now for me to go through their back catalogue?

Melenas could be my favourite “new band” from Spain at the moment. This girl group from Pamplona Pop City is formed by Oihana on guitars and vocals, Leire on bass, María on keyboards and Laura on drums. They have just released their album as a vinyl LP and what a debut it is! This self-titled record has 10 songs and it is being released by the very fine Snap Clap Club label from Barcelona. I know I need this record. Should I wait until I can go to Madrid and save postage or have it now? I probably will need it soon because I am loving it. Upbeat, girl vocals, quirky lyrics and catchy melodies. What else can one ask for these days? I’m playing the songs on Bandcamp on loop for hours now!!

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About to close the international world tour of indiepop review. Time for the USA now, for the 41st band on this special feature where I’ve been showcasing at least one obscure/lost band from each country that has produced indiepop/guitar pop.

Who doesn’t love the sound of Dearly? Those who have heard their pretty music gets hooked. I own two records with their music, their 7″ and the split with the Castaway Stones. Today I was looking at Discogs and saw that there was even an earlier release, a split tape with The Legendary Jim Ruiz. I realize I know very little about them, so I get on detective mode and being the investigation.

It seems this cassette came free with the first issue of a fanzine called Let Us Be Nice To You. The tape had no sleeve but had the tracklist written on the label. I see that the catalog number was LETTUCE 1 and it was released in 1993, but where was this fanzine released? In their native Minneapolis or somewhere else? And who made this zine? Was the band featured on it too? It would be good to know, I’m sure if they were, we’d know many more details about them.

Each band contributed 4 songs. Dearly got the B side and their songs were “Without You”, “I’m Breaking Up With Myself”, “Anniversary of Nothing” and “Light Headed”.

The next year, 1994, would be their proper debut. They were to release a 7″ with two songs, on the A side “Only Betweens” and on the B side, “I Don’t Want to Go”. The record came out on the classy Grimsey Records (Grimsey 002). Now that I think of, wouldn’t it be great to do an interview with Andrea Toolin who ran the label that was named after an Iceland island?

The artwork for the record is credited to Tree of Heaven. The record was produced by Bryan Hanna from The Bomb Pops. Here we also find the names of the people behind Dearly. We have Aaron Lundholm, David Jarosz, Marcel Galang and Matt Gerzema.

I click on each name on Discogs, I find that Aaron had been involved with The Hang-Ups and The Owls. Marcel on the other hand had been in The Autumn Leaves, The Hang-Ups and The Owl while Matt was on The Autumn Leaves too. David doesn’t seem to be listed in any other bands.

Their next release wouldn’t be until 1998. A split 7″ with The Castaway Stones was released by Brittle Stars Records (Brittle Stars 003). This is a special release as The Castaway Stones is a band that features indiepop legends like Archie Moore or Pam Berry. Dearly appears on this record with the song “No Respect”. Here I notice that Aaron Lundholm or David Jarosz don’t appear on the credits. Instead it appears like this:
Matt Gerzema on bass, organ and backing vocals
Marcel Galang on vocals and guitar
Bryan Hanna on drums, low whistle, tambourine and backing vocals

Bryan Hanna replaced Aaron and David? I wonder. Bryan also produced this song at Lucky Rocket Studios. The record was mastered by Greg Vaughn and the artwork was designed by Ocean Design.

It is true we know more about their other projects. They are more familiar to all of us, The Bomb Pops, The Autumn Leaves and especially The Hang-Ups. But I’m curious about this project. I have never heard the songs from that split tape and would love to. Were there any other unreleased tracks? What are they doing now? How long did they last as a band?

There are no photos of the band on the web, nor any reviews (only a similar blog post as this by the Shelflife blog). Did they play many gigs? It looks like they were more of a studio project, but who knows? Maybe some of you remember them?

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Listen
Dearly – I Don’t Want to Go

I’m writing these lines before my trip to Portugal as I would be returning on the Sunday and this post should be up today, on the Monday. So yeah, not much about my Portugal trip or my experiences there. Hopefully in the next post I’ll tell you about my adventures in Lusitania.

There is of course the news of Madrid Popfest that was announced the week I was leaving, but I haven’t had the time to digest it because I really want to go and I don’t know if I’ll be able. So I’ll leave that for the next post, probably on Wednesday or Thursday. So today just a review of new sounds I’ve found on the web!

The Keep Left Signs: I recommended this band quite some time ago, I really liked their songs on SoundCloud and had no information about them whatsoever. Well, seems Shelflife and Kocliko Records are releasing their debut album on December 7th. What’s cool about this band is that they are members of some very fine Swedish bands like The Electric Pop Group and Cloudberry friends The Mare. You can listen to the seven songs that form the album titled “Tomorrow” on the linked BandCamp page! Fantastic jangle pop and a must buy!!

Day Wave: I just found out this LA one-man, fronted by a Jackson Phillips, band on SoundCloud and it sounds pretty good. Of course I feel that there is a bit of a “let’s push him” to be well-known attitude from the label and perhaps from the band which you know I don’t like. Maybe targeting to the hipsters. I guess it is not a bad idea as the music is friendly and hard not to like, I’m actually liking it a lot! And of course that matters the most. So far they have released an album titled “The Days We Had” which has 11 songs. So try to ignore that hipster vibe and enjoy the music, check out too the video for “Something Here” which is a very fine jangly and dreamy track!

Plastic Picnic: another hipster band that sounds good. Based where else but in Brooklyn, Plastic Picnic has a bunch of songs on SoundCloud that are part of their first single “Nausea in Paradise”. I check on Facebook their influences and I don’t like any of them really. Shame. I do like their songs though, and again, I have mixed feelings. Liking the music, not liking what the band represents. Again, try to ignore the hipster-ism and listen to the music.

Black Sea: the good people from Melotron Recordings from Thessaloniki in Greece will be releasing on December 1st the album by Los Angeles lo-fi guitar pop band Black Sea. This CD will include the album that was available only on tape plus 3 unreleased tracks. It will also come with 2 inserts and a sticker. In total there are 14 songs that were performed, recorded and produced  by Cole Devine.

Marc Elston: lastly our friend Marc has put together a limited edition CD titled “I’ll Build a Better Castle”. What’s in there? Well, 11 jangly pop songs by the ex-Bulldozer Crash and Liberty Ship! This is a very lovely release which I’m already enjoying streaming here. Now I need to order it. Classic indiepop sounds by Marc who got a little help from his brother Graeme (The Love Parade) on mixing and mastering these songs.

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Finally, the 40th band on our worldwide review. And still there are a few more to cover in the next coming days and weeks. I’m quite impressed to say the least!

On this feature I’ve been back to the Myspace many times. It was a good time, 2005-2008, for indiepop, to discover bands. Also for bands to get in touch with fans and labels. I can’t recall exactly how I met Iowa Super Soccer, but it was definitely there, on Myspace, most probably around 2006. They sent a demo to the label I was running with my friend Jalito in Peru, Plastilina, and we liked it. But we couldn’t release it for many reasons at that time. It wasn’t the right time for us. Nevertheless we were quite impressed that for the first time we were listening to an indiepop band from Poland.

I remember reading on the indiepop-list about other “indiepop” bands from Poland, like Delons for example. I listened to them time after time, trying to find out where in the world they were compared to The Wedding Present. I couldn’t see it. So in my book there hadn’t been any indiepop bands in Poland up until Iowa Super Soccer appeared with their clear influences of Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura, and chamber pop in general.

The band may have been popular in Poland, I mean, they do have a Wikipedia entry in their language. On it I find out that the band formed in 2004 in the city of Myslowice.

Mysłowice is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, near Katowice. The population of the city as of 2008 is 74,912.  It is located in the south district of the Upper Silesian Metropolitan Union in the Silesian Highlands, on the Przemsza and Brynica rivers (tributaries of the Vistula). Mysłowice is one of the cities comprising the 2.7 million conurbation – Katowice urban area and within the greater Silesian metropolitan area with a population of about 5,294,000.

It says that the band was part of a scene that included bands like Negatyw, Gutierez, Twisterella and Peru. I should try to check them out. Especially Peru, right? We also know the band lineup:
Natalia Baranowska – vocals
Kasia Włosek – cello
Agnieszka Bednarz – violin
Michał Skrzydło – acoustic guitar , vocals
Wojtek Sawicki – guitar
Piotr Sawicki – bass guitar
Slawek Plotek – drums

Some former members also listed were Monika Mendak on vocals, Marcin Fluder on guitar and Alicja Herma on violin.

In 2006 they released two EPs, both of them don’t appear on Discogs. The first one was the “Iowa Super Soccer CDr EP” that included 4 songs: “Letter to Nowhere”, “Strange Planet”, “My World” and “Morning”. The second was the “Teenage Dreams So Hard to Beat” that also had 4 songs, “The River”, “If You Die Die Tomorrow”, “10,000 Miles” and “The Straight Story”.  I start to wonder about the band’s name. Where does it come from? I used to love as a kid the Super Nintendo game Super Soccer. But why the Iowa part?

Their first album was to come out in 2008 on Gusstaff Records. This was a small Polish indie label that was based in Zielona Góra. The album titled “Lullabies to Keep Your Eyes Closed” (catalog GRAM 0803), had eleven songs, some which had appeared on the previous EPs. The songs on the album were: “One in the Grass…”, “She”, “The River”, “Screaming”, “Cold”, “Letter to Nowhere”, “Robin Hood”, “Naive Song”, “Let Me Die”, “Live as If You’ll Die Tomorrow” and “Tony.” There was a promo video for “The River“.

On the credits for this first album we see that the artwork was created by Maciej Porczek, the photography was taken by Michał Skrzydło and Piotr Pisek while the record was produced and mixed by Błażej Nowicki, Grzegorz ‘Kuba’ Kubek, Michał Skrzydło and Zbyszek Olko. It was recorded at Cyberstudio in Katowice between 2007 and 2008.

Their second and last album came out two years after. In 2010, again on Gusstaff Records (catalog GRAM1001) they released”Stories Without Happy Ending”. On this album they had 12 songs: “Someone Like You”, “Wake Up”, “When You Return”, “My World”, “Sunday Comes”, “Little Joe”, “Scary Book”, “Oh, My Heart”, “Suzanne”, “Mr. Lonely”, “The Story of Our Picture” and “Rolling Around”. I remember a Cloudberry friend, John from Nottingham writing to me about this album. He was really loving it, especially the song “My World“, which had a fun cartoon video.

Discogs lists two compilation appearances. The song “My World” being included in the 2010 compilation “Gusstaff Ina Pill Vol. 10” and “The River” on another label compilation, “Gusstaff Ina Pill Vol. 7”. Both CDr promo samplers.

Wikipedia on the other hand has the track “10,000 Miles” appearing on a compilation titled “Alternative Trippin'”, a compilation released in 2007 by the label Chaos Management. Another compilation appearance would be on the “Alternative Program – Agnieszka Sydlowska” compilation from 2008 with the song “One Day in the Grass”.

Also in 2008 they had that same song, “One Day in the Grass”, on the “Offsesje 1” comp, which I believe is a music program on Polish Radio #3 run by Peter Stelmach every Friday.  Lastly that same year they would appear with the song “The River” on the compilation “Pop Nation 02” released by the Spanish label Bonvivant Records.

The band played many gigs according to the Wiki. They played at the first Off Festival in Katowice. They appeared on TV and radio, like on Trójka, TVP 3, Radioactive, Radio Kampus and Gazeta Wyborcza. There were other gigs like supporting Myslovitz, Lonely Drifter Karen, Troy Von Balthazar and Chris & Carla. Also a concert at the Polish Radio Studio.

So I look for these gigs on the web. And I find a BalconyTV gig in Poznan where they play “My World”. Also I stumble upon some acoustic presentations for the songs “One Day in the Grass” and “I Can’t Live Without You“. But more surprising is to see them playing in Lviv in Ukraine in 2010 or in China, in the city of Lijiang in 2010 at the Snow Mountain Festival. In general on Youtube, there are many live performances by the band, at festivals like Maj Music Festival or smaller gigs like the Art Festival Piotrków Trybunalski.

I look for more information about them on the web and there is not much, which is strange. As you saw on Youtube there were many videos. How strange. Also not much information about their albums. So why not check out the band members on Discogs, what else had they been involved with.

I see that Błażej Nowicki had played in the band Negatyw and also on Miss Polski. But what about the rest? Only Iowa Super Soccer seems to be listed for them.

There is not much more I could find. I look and look. Of course there’s the difficulty of the language, but still, even Polish sites have very little details about them, just like discography or band lineup. I wonder if they are no more. What are they doing now? Still making music? Anyone out there remembers them? And how come they got to play China? That must have been an experience!

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Listen
Iowa Super Soccer – My World

So very happy, Peru qualified for the World Cup, a party we haven’t been part since 1982!! I need to be in Russia next summer. I dream of it. Getting tickets to the games is going to prove the most difficult thing, but hopefully there’s a way. I’m very excited.

This is also the last post before I head out on vacations! Hope you’ve been enjoying this series of bands from all around the world. There’s been a lot of nice comments and messages especially from people that heard these bands for the first time. Also have gotten in touch with many of them! Some of these contacts have resulted in interviews and some others well, in nothing much. But still, I think it’s been a fun exercise and I still have at least a handful more countries and bands to feature after my vacation.

Having said that, it is time to discover some new indiepop on the web!

The Mallorys: what a nice discovery! I see a heavy influence of The Smiths in the songwriting and the music of this Lake Forest, Illinois, band. Their self-titled album has just been released on Bandcamp and also on home made tapes the band is selling for 8 bucks. There are 9 songs in total, all of them having witty song titles. The credits tell me that behind the band there’s one Danny Robles with the help of Emily Murmun on backing vocals. That’s it. Very talented this Danny!

Dumb Things: more tapes. 2017 has been the invasion of tapes. Cassettes and more cassettes. I have a few and since moving I don’t know where to put them. Oh well. I think I’m alone preferring a CDR as a cheap alternative over tapes. In any case there’s a fine label in Toulouse, France, named Hidden Bay Records that has been releasing a bunch of great records. I recommended them when they put out the Brunch Club tape remember? Well now it is time for Dumb Things from Pop City Brisbane. The band is formed by Pat, Maddie, Adam, James and Andy and they sound really great on the 10 songs of their self-titled tape debut!

Clemente: Daniel Soto from Culiacán, Mexico, goes under the name Clemente. He has just released on November 10th a CD EP on the same-city label Discos en Verano. The EP titled “Buenos Aires Soundtrack” has 6 songs and according to Daniel the songs are vignettes of the time he spent in Argentina. Right now you can stream two of the songs to be included, “Lobby Boy” and “Foto del Mar” and they are really nice, clearly influenced by Spanish bands like Family or Dar Ful Ful.

Sensaciones: Well after discovering this Mexican label I decided to explore what else is in their catalog. And I find this joint project by Daniel from Clemente and Jesús Sandoval from Emma’s House Records and Pure Morning. There is only one song titled “El Eco de Tu Voz” and the sound is not much different to the classy one that I was enjoying with Clemente.

Night Sports: And the last recommendation for this week is the latest release by Kocliko Records from Spain. The 10″ by Night Sports will be released on November 23rd but you can already enjoy the 6 songs to be included on BandCamp. Who are Night Sports? It is our friend Caspar Bock who used to be in Champagne Riot and for a bit on Northern Portrait, who I met just once, curiously in Spain. There are 6 songs of classy synth driven indiepop which would be great at an indiepop party (are there any still?!). I can’t wait to get mu hands on this record. Kocliko keeps surprising with very fine and unmissable releases!

Ok! I’m off to Lisbon for 9 days! See you in a little more than a week!! 🙂

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Our 39th band in this review! Quite amazing, isn’t it? As I said in previous posts I thought I was going to only be able to review around 30 bands, but this exercise has surprised me. I’ve found many new bands from all different corners of the world and I’ve been surprised by their quality. I hope you’ve been enjoying our “world tour” and today it is the turn for Canada. Who do I want to feature? A classic band who I know very little, Cannon Heath Down.

I remember listening to their music for the first time maybe 10 or 12 years ago on Myspace. I can’t remember if it was an official page or not. In Myspace a fan could set up a Music page for the band they wanted. That may sound odd as today that is not common. In any case I don’t know if it was official or not, but I was happy to discover a jangly band that was obscure but sounded brilliantly.

The band released one album during their time and with that album they reached cult status. I still don’t own it. That is embarrassing. I see a copy that is not expensive on Discogs now but it says the jacked has stains. I don’t need it mint, but stains? That is not good for me. The album was released in 1987 on the label Bongo Sunrise Records (catalog BSLP 5866-01). This label doesn’t have any other releases listed. Maybe it was a self-release?

The album had 13 songs, 6 on the A side and 7 on the flipside. On the A side we find “Light Your Eyes”, “Julia Rainbow”, “Je Suis Certain”, “Ma-de-moi-selle”, “Fortunate” and “A Charming Sound”. The B side had “Blue Skye”, “Bone of Contention”, “Having Dreams”, “Not Now”, “Safe as Milk”, “Quagmire” and “Belly Through”. It says that the album included a printed lyric sheet. The cover art has a cool color photo of the band.

The album was produced, mixed and performed by Cannon Heath Down. It was recorded and co-mixed by Cal Stephenson and Tom Ferris at Limited Vision, Coquitlom. Additional recording at Limited and the CHF Mobile. Preproduction at Bedrock Studio, Vancouver, British Columbia (David Osborne and Darryl Neudorf), and The Loving Room, Vancouver (Bill Sherbet and Bayou Drachma). Tape editing by Greg Reely at Mushroom Studios, Vancouver. Mastered at Location Recording, Burbank, California. Type and layout at Camart Studio, Burnaby, British Columbia. Photography: Chris Magnusson. Hair by Cair. Yeah, HAIR.

Discogs also lists one appearance. The band contributed the song “Bone of Contention” to the 1991 double CD compilation “Last Call: Vancouver Independent Music 1977-1988” that was released by Zulu Records (Zulu 5-2).

This song, “Bone of Contention”, actually had a promo video which is available on Youtube. It was the only video they made.

I find the website for the Museum of Canadian Music. This museum, based in Calgary, says that has the most comprehensive catalogue of more than 100 years of Canadian sound recordings. In this website I find a bunch of interesting information about the band.

The band was formed by Jeff Hay-Roe on guitar and vocals, Christopher Davenport on drums, Jonathan Brotherton on vocals and guitar and Cameron Brown on bass and they were based in Vancouver. The whole band lived together in a house in East Vancouver, Jon, Frank and Cam on the upper floor while Jeff and his wife Jacquie (and eventually their first daughter too) on the first floor. They had many cats.

Before being Cannon Heath Down the band was called The 5th of November. At that time only Jeff and Cam were in the band. Another friend of theirs, Rod, was the other member. Then they changed the name of the band to Bayou Drachma and during this period they used French names to call themselves, Pierre, Henri, Guy and Luc, all with the same last name, Lafleur. Later they would change their name to Cannon Heath Down after the book Watership Down which none of the members had read at the time.

Jon joined the band after seeing an advert for a drummer. In the end he didn’t end up being the drummer of the band, that was Frank. Now, who is Frank? I suppose that would be Christopher Davenport.

They also mention some bands they opened for like Grapes of Wrath, 54-40, Game Theory and the brilliant The Water Walk.

Another blog that wrote about them before me was the very fine Wilfully Obscure. Here he mentions a very interesting detail, that the band released in 1989 a tape titled “Peace Bum Days”. What was on it?!

To my surprise my search would made me go to Flickr. Here I found another release, a tape titled “Safe a Love” also released by Bongo Sunrise Records. There are also a bunch of clippings. On one I find that the band formed in the Autumn of 1985 and in January 1986 the band had already completed their first demo “Ma-de-moi-selle” which was released under the name of their previous band Bayou Drachma. This song received airplay on UBC campus radio station, CITR. The next spring the band started working on a recording project at Nettwerk’s Limited Vision studios. During the summer the band played its first gigs, playing with bands like U-Men, Go Four 3, The Rainwalkers and Stubborn Blood. Then the band went on a hiatus from performing but after their album was released they resumed gigging. It also mentions that the song “Bone of Contenetion” got airplay on CITR and SFU’s CJIV.

Finally I find the tracklist for “Peace Bum Days”. It says this was their 2nd album demo and was recorded on February 1989. What is strange is that says it was only made by Jonathan Brotherton and Christopher Davenport. What happened to the other two? The songs on this tape were “Julia Rainbow”, “Sunset Jim”, “Safe as Love”, “Ten Days for Boys”, “Like a Daughter”, “Deft H.”, “Baby Pool”, “Bright and Funny Too”, “Arms Around”, “Deft S.”, “Green Monkey”, “Je Suis”, “Feel Free” and “Day By Day”. Many songs!

I keep digging on the web. The band used to play a lot at a venue called The Town Pump. Another venue they played was the Commodore Ballroom.

I’ve heard only a handful from their album, but I start thinking that they would make a very nice collection for a reissue. Why hasn’t that happened yet? Maybe it could be a Cloudberry release? I definitely would like to listen to all their songs, but maybe this could be a good idea? I’m just thinking out loud.

There’s not much more on the web. Would be interesting to know what happened to them afterwards, if they continue making music. What are they doing now? Would love to know if there were recordings by their first band 5th of November. I would also love to hear the songs on the “Peace Bum Days”. There’s not much on the web about them, though can actually listen to a few songs on Youtube. They are these lovely jingle jangly songs, just as I like them. If you don’t know them yet, this is a good time to do so!

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Listen
Cannon Heath Down- Bone (of Contention)

Just a few more days for vacations. So needed! But my commitment to indiepop continues, hopefully with at least one more post before Friday. This year I want to finish this exercise of finding fine guitar pop, indiepop, around the world. I think I’m getting closer. Maybe at the end I can do some sort of diagram or graphic of the countries I found bands worthy to be featured here.

But as it is usual I don’t only care for the old, the classic, pop. I also want to find new sounds, new bands, the new generation of indiepop. So here are 5 recommendations to start this week!

For this review of new indiepop I must thank Pierre and his indiepop Facebook group Twee Lovers Club. It is there where I’ve found all of these!

The Primitives: The classic and legendary band has a new video by The Primitives for the song “Oh Honey Sweet”. This song is being included on the 10″ titled “New Thrills” that is being released by Elefant Records.

Math and Physics Club: their label, Matinée, has just unveiled the song “All the Mains are Down” on SoundCloud. This song is the first single from the forthcoming album “Lived Here Before”.  It is a brilliant and lovely by this already classic band who I’ve seen a few times, but never in the US I think! There are no more details about the record, so we can only wait!

The Legendary House Cats: John Girgus from Aberdeen has a new release out on his Bandcamp under this name. There are 12 songs which as the Bandcamp says are a collection of digital and streaming releases by this project. There are some remixes and some covers as well as some originals, and happily it is available on CD.

White Shoes & The Couples Company: the Indonesian band who has been around now for so many years (I remember we featured them on my very very old indiepop blog Mira el Péndulo) has a new video for the song “Hidup Hanya Sekali”. Here they add quite a Latin flavour to it. Or maybe that’s their new style? I haven’t been following them for years now if I’m honest!

Rocketship: the Portland based band has a new flexi disc out titled “Songs from Yorozuya Detective Story”. Yes, these are songs that were included in the movie with that name which I haven’t seen. Have you? The songs which are very very short are “Sisyphus Strut”, “Low Moon in Cancer” and “Low Strings in Cancer”. They are nice instrumentals, though I wish of course they had lyrics. You know me, I need lyrics to love my indiepop. But then, that is just me.

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Approaching the 40th featured country/band little by little. Today it is number 38 and it is the turn for Austria and the band Bicycle Thieves! Don’t confuse them with The Bicycle Thieves from the UK that we covered many years ago on the blog!

I know very little about the band to be honest. I only discovered about a week ago! I was trying to find out fine guitar pop from Austria and it turned out to be a difficult task. I knew of Die Brüder which Uwe had once recommended me and even made me buy one of their albums from a second hand shop in Berlin. But I thought that they were quite popular, not very obscure and you could easily find information about them on the web. So I had to dig further.

It was thanks to a blog called the Austro-Rock-Lexikon that I was going to find out about Bicycle Thieves. I thought their name sounded poppy enough, especially as there has been an English band with that name in the mid-eighties, and I tried my luck.

I was to find a treasure trove of press clippings and photos. They all looked very much DIY, in the indiepop spirit. I was sure I was in the right path to finding something interesting. What’s even luckier was that as soon as I searched for them on Google I was to stumble upon their Bandcamp. Now I could listen to them too!

So while I have their music playing I start my indiepop archaeology on Discogs. There I end up finding out that their first record, a 12″EP, came out in 1989 on Moon Records (catalog Apollo 1).  The “Gospel Marmite” EP is perhaps their poppiest, and definitely my favourite of their releases. On it they had 3 songs on the A side and 4 on the B side, 7 in total. On the A side there was “Mirror Man”, “Leaving By Train” and “There She Goes My Mind” and on the B side, “Bullets in My Gun”, “Sunflower Island”, “Down by the Fishes” and “Worms for Breakfast”. I listen to these songs and I think of Flying Nun Records. Don’t you?

On the back of the jacket we see that the band was formed by Ronald Hartwig, Peter Fally, Fritz Hartwig and Johannes Hönlinger. They were based in Vienna and the songs were recorded between January and February of 1989 by Gebhard Sengmüller. All songs were written by Ronald and the extra backing vocals on “Sunflower Island” are credited to Gary Danner. The artwork has these very cool insect diagrams. I like it a lot.

After this release their first album was to be released in 1991, “King Backwards II”. It came out on Moon Records (Apollo 2) and had 10 songs. I start to suspect that the label was their own. The A side had “Joe”, “Applecake Town”, “Belgium”, “God” and “Miriam”, while the B side had “Mesmerized”, “Romania”, “Christian”, “Karen” and “Magic Bus”. Here I see what instruments each of them played. Peter played bass, Michael, drums, Fritz guitar and Ronald guitar too. It says that the LP came with a lyrics sheet. This LP was recorded in Berlin and the art was made by Amina Handke.  On a review of the record their sound is compared to the Postcard bands.

Lastly, in 1992, the second album was released. Titled “The Liquid Dandies”, the 10 song record came out now on a different label, Sacro Egoismo (102). This was a label based in Baden and was around in the 90s. The songs on this record were “Mafia Methods, “The Liquid Dandies”, “Dead Line”, Life on One Leg” and “Gospel King” on the A side and “Stamboul Train”, “Losing My Religion”, “I Swallowed the Spoon (Instead of the Soup)”, “The Fryzas” and “Kafka’s Last Words” on the B side. 300 copies were made of this record.  This record was released after the band had already split. They are actually demo recordings it says, and yes, “Losing My Religion” is a cover of REM, but in a sort of tango.

I keep looking for information and notice that after the demise of the band Ronald was involved in a band called Trelkovsky. With this band he was to release a couple of CD albums. I could find a website for him but everything is in German, and I can’t seem to find different information to that on the Austro Lexikon site. It also seems that today Ronald is making music under the name Diatopia.

I look carefully to the press clippings, see if there is something interesting in them. I see one where it says that the band was around from 1986 to 1991. One that mentions them playing on October 29th 1989 at a venue called Chelsea. Another from 1991 when they played the Termine venue on February 20th.

I see on Youtube a little story on the Franz Bilik channel. Here he tells his experience about finding about the band: “first came across the Bicycle Thieves when Rainer Springenschmied mentioned them in an episode of the Punkerecke in FM4 (which was about a million times better than this travesty called “Basement Show” by the way) when he asked Panza if he paid attention to any of the bands after the first wave of Austrian punk bands and mentioned the Bicycle Thieves as an example. The Bicycle Thieves existed from 1987 to 1992. Musicwise they had a British post-punk influence going on with a lot of jangling guitars and hushed vocals. And while I definitely wouldn’t call the Bicycle Thieves punk in a musical way they certainly had a bit of the DIY spirit to them as well as releasing a record on the Viennese punk label Sacro Egoismo. After their split in 1992 guitarist/vocalist Roland Hartwig and drummer Michael Peter formed the experimental outfit Trelkovsky, who you can also hear on this channel.”

I start to wonder if they appeared on any compilations. I couldn’t find any. Nor if the other members of the band were involved with other bands. What did Fritz or Peter do afterwards?

This is definitely the first time I mention an Austrian band on the blog, perhaps there are Austrian readers and can help. What else do you know about them?

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Listen
Bicycle Thieves – Leaving By Trains

Just one more week before going to Portugal! Yes, next Friday I’m off. Will be returning on the 27, so any orders placed after the 16 will be posted on the 28th. But any orders placed before the 16 will be posted this week. Promise.

There are still many more discoveries and recommendations while we patiently wait for the My Light Shines For You! 7″. Also very soon I’ll be announcing the next release on the Cloudberry Cake Kitchen, so keep reading the blog.

Youthcomics: I know about nothing about this Kyoto band. The thing I know is that they are releasing a tape on November 11th on the very very fine label Miles Apart Records from Japan. The limited edition cassette is titled “Shower of 411 sec.” and I don’t know how many songs it will include. The only certainty is that the song “Youth In Our Backyards”, which I’m loving now on SoundCloud will be included. It seems that Japan doesn’t stop producing superb guitar pop these days!

Sound and Fury: the Chengdu band who I was raving not so long ago on the blog signed to Boring Productions. With the label, which our friend Jovi runs, the band will be releasing an album titled “Sprout” on November 24th. Now they are promoting it with a video for the song “Honey Knows” which is brilliant! I think this might be one of my favourite Chinese bands ever. And I want to visit Chengdu someday too.

Corrections: I have to thank Rich Farnell for posting this band on his Facebook, that’s how I discovered this Queensland, Australia combo. I think what caught my attention was that Rich described their drum machine a bit like The Field Mice. “Idolatry” is the name of the album the band has released digitally on Bandcamp. Will it appear on a physical record? Who knows. The jangle pop here is a bit darker, a bit post punk, so some songs are not exactly what I love, but sometimes like on “Shout” or “Underground City”, which might be their poppiest, are pretty good!

Salad Boys: another find by Rich. Yes, I keep an eye on my friend’s Facebook pages to find out new music. Salad Boys hail from Christchurch, New Zealand, and what Rich shared was a bit old, a 7″ that was released in November0 2015 titled “Scarce Tracks”, which is a collection of 4 songs of non-album recordings. Their latest though is a limited tape titled “Giving Compliments to Strangers” which was originally released by the band to sell during their 2017 tour in Australia. Now it has been released “properly” by Shit Teeth records. The band is formed by Joe Sampson, Ben Odering and Matt Scobie.

I Won’t Have To Think About You: Compiled by Bayu and Moopie: that’s the name of the Australian pop compilation the Melbourne/Berlin label A Colourful Storm is releasing. And what a compilation this is! The bands on it are fantastic, you get The Cat’s Miaow, The Pearly Gatecrashers, Love Positions, The Cannanes and more. Wow wow wow! There are also bands I’ve never heard before on it like The Particles, Ya Ya Choral or Maestros and Dipsos. This is a must order! And actually you can now, it is a bit pricey for me, 23 euros including postage for the world. So if you want to buy me a Christmas gift…

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The 37th band on the Cloudberry Cake indiepop world tour hails from Malaysia! More specifically from Kuching, Sarawak, in Borneo.

Kuching, officially the City of Kuching, is the capital and the most populous city in the state of Sarawak in Malaysia. It is also the capital of Kuching Division. The city is situated on the Sarawak River at the southwest tip of the state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo and covers an area of 431 square kilometres with a population about 165,642 in the Kuching North administrative region and 159,490 in the Kuching South administrative region—a total of 325,132 people.[5] Kuching is a major food destination for tourists and the main gateway for travellers visiting Sarawak and Borneo. Kuching Wetlands National Park is located about 30 kilometres from the city and there are many other tourist attractions in and around Kuching such as Bako National Park, Semenggoh Wildlife Centre, Rainforest World Music Festival (RWMF), state assembly building, The Astana, Fort Margherita, Kuching Cat Museum, and Sarawak State Museum. The city has become one of the major industrial and commercial centres in East Malaysia.

Before finding about them my only knowledge on Malaysian guitar pop was that of Ferns who were part of the Cloudberry split 3″ series. They shared one of our 3″s with the British band The Shandy Express back in 2009. Before that they had an album on Fruit Records titled “On Botany” which is very recommendable. But aside from them, I had no clue about any other Malaysian band making melodic and catchy pop.

Now, because of this exercise of finding indiepop from all corners of the world, I was to be introduced to Nice Stupid Playground or Nicestupidplayground as it is sometimes written on the web. I’ll start on Discogs which has become the usual first stop for finding about bands. There I see that the band released two records. The first one, “My Life is My Parents’ Biggest Television”, was released in 2000 on the label Positive Tone from Malaysia. Even though it was on an indie label it was distributed and published by EMI. The record had 10 songs and they were: “Stereo Girl”, “Girlfriday”, “What If It Rains”, “Ballistic”, “Adult Life”, “Two”, “Nineteen”, “Discouraged”, “Favourite” and “Thank You”.

Their 2006 album “A Beautiful Life” was self released. It also had 10 songs, “Beautiful Life”, “Miracle”, “Happy”, “Chasing Butterfly”, “Telecommusication”, “If All Else Fails”, “Stronger Than Before”, “Closer”, “My Teenage View” and “Because We Are”. Clinton Ang, their now manager, was the one that offered to fund this release according to a biography on Last.fm. Not much more information about these two releases on Discogs, but I’m sure I’ll find more about them elsewhere. But first I want to check their compilation appearances.

In 1996 they had 4 songs on the compilation “Boys & Girls 1+1=3”. They were “Bedroom Window”, “She Wants”, “And I Don’t Admire (The Things That You Do)” and “Bedroom Window (Reprise)”. This release was released by Positive Tone on both CD and tape format (catalog PT 3004). These songs don’t appear on any of the albums.

“And I Don’t Admire (The Things That You Do)” also appears on the 1997 CD and tape compilation “Name of the Game (Malaysia’97 Fifa Coca Cola Cup)” that was released by Positive Tone (PT 3006). This CD celebrated the Fifa World Youth Championship that was held that year in Malaysia were the champions were Argentina.

In 1998 the song “Bedroom Window” was included on the CD compilation “Radio Friendly Songs!” that was released by Pony Canyon (PMCL 0534) in Malaysia. Later in the year 2000 “Stereo Girl” was to appear on two CD comps, “Pheaw! Vol.1” and “They Came From Planet Earth”, both released by EMI in Malaysia.

The last compilation appearance on Discogs dates from 2014. On the cassette sampler “Tales of the Insomniac Raksaksa” they contributed the song “Beautiful Life”. This tape was released by Teenage Head Records (THRRR01).

I start some searches on Google. I am going to stumble upon an old Tripod website for the band. Do you remember Tripod? Those were the days! On it there are some tidbits about their releases. For example “My Life is My Parent’s Biggest Television”‘s name comes from their second demo. The album was recorded at Craze Studio and Synchrozsound Studio between June and November 1999. “Stereo Girl” was the first single the band used to promote the record, and “Two” was the second.

They also mention the compilation “Boys & Girls 1+1=3”. They say the songs they contributed were actually the first professional recordings the band did since signing to the label Positive Tone. Bedroom Window was the first single from the album and the song itself lifted Nice Stupid Playground’s name at the local music scene when it was handpicked by a Hong Kong movie producer to be featured as a soundtrack song in this Holywood movie called “The Chinese Box” starred Jeremy Irons and Gong Li. This Boys & Girls album also won the Best English Album at the AIM Awards in 1997 and the album achieved a double platinum in the same year.

Listed here is also the demo “…Of Course We Didn’t” that was released in 1992. This demo was released in 1992 and was actually a sort of split demo with the band Mr. Wilson’s Garden, a side-project Charles fronted alongside Mady and Andy from Faded Face. Hmm, would love to hear the songs by this other band. Also we know have some names. Let’s keep digging.

The second demo, as I mentioned earlier, was titled “My Life is My Parents Biggest TV”. This tape came out in 1994 and was recorded at Sutera Music Studio. The songs included were “Shampoo Your Head”, “Drain Dance”, “Do Re Mi”, “My Life is My Parent’s Biggest TV” and “Flu in the Morning”.

The last thing that is listed in this page’s discography is a third demo titled “Thirtyzeroeight” that was released in 1995. They say this was the most success of their demos, getting rave reviews and getting the band signed to Positive Tone after Paul Moss, one of the label’s producers saw their potential. It had five songs, “And I Don’t Admire The Thing You Do”, “Kurt Goes to Heaven”, “She Wants”, “Bedroom Windown” and “Swinging Hair”.

There is also a news section which seems to have been updated last in 2013. It says the band was currently working on their 3rd album. It mentions that this album would represent the band’s first batch of new material since 1997. Wasn’t the album of 2000 and 2006 new material? Strange. Before saying that, in 2007 they were playing with the idea of releasing a Best Of compilation. I don’t think that happened either.

I also notice that the band lists here a few gigs they played, Rock the World in December of 2004 to an estimated crowd of 20 thousand (!!) and also the Band Fest in 2005. Other piece of interesting news is that for their second album the band recruited a new guitarist, Nappy, who used to be in the band Radish Fan/Blue Wagon.

What was I to find next? Guess what, a Wikipedia entry, in English. Here I get the band members, Charles Rossem on vocals, John Boniface on bass, Abdul Aziz on guitar, Nellfee Alwi on guitar and Danny Jopi on drums. Also Adrian Ed is listed as a guitarist. There is also a small biography: Frontman and lead singer Charles Rossem started Nicestupidplayground in 1992; and modeled the sound after a distant early 1980s British rock sound, citing his initial influences as the Cure, the Smiths and The Stone Roses. After several contributions to compilations, their hit song Bedroom Window landed on the album Boys & Girls 1+1=3 which featured their song as the first and main single; the compilation won several awards. After being let go from Positive Tone Records in 2003, Nicestupidplayground continued to tour minimally, offered meetings with fans upon the album release of A Beautiful Life.

The band won a couple of awards, like best music video on the show Video Muzik for “Bedroom Window”, a Double Platinum for “Boys & Girls 1+1=3” and Best English Album by Anugerah Industri Muzik for that same release in 1997.

The curious thing is that I can’t find the video for “Bedroom Window” on Youtube. They also made a video for “Stereo Girl”. I can’t find that one either. There are some live clips and many audio only Youtube videos, but not their promo videos. Why? Maybe EMI doesn’t allow them to be online? Or what?

What you will find though is several bands and people covering their songs. It seems they did make a mark in the Malaysian alternative (and perhaps mainstream?) music.

From the live videos, I can think that the band still plays up to this day. Probably not too often. They don’t seem to have a Facebook nor other presence on the web as a Bandcamp or a SoundCloud. So it is quite hard to know what they are doing these days. I think their latest gig was at a big festival called Rocktoberfest Borneo last October.

I wonder what happened to that third record they started working on. If there were any other similar Malaysian bands? I see the name of the new BorneoPop in some articles, there must have been more bands for there to be a scene, right? I would also love to hear the songs from their earlier tapes. I’ve found some on Youtube but not all. Also would be nice to hear Charles other band I mentioned. There are many questions unanswered, the internet don’t have much written about them but it has been quite a discovery for me to hear these songs coming all the way from Malaysia!

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Listen
Nice Stupid Playground – Stereo Girl

It is so soon that I’m going on vacation. Just for a week, but still. I really look forward to it. Need some rest, so I come re-energized to keep Cloudberry busy! And the blog too of course. Need to finish this world tour of bands, there are still a handful of countries that I want to “research”!

But of course there are indiepop news all the time so why don’t we get into that. That way I leave you with a lot of new music before I’m away. Also don’t miss tomorrow that I’ll publish one new interview!

Doble Pletina: Sadly I still haven’t got around to get the Barcelona band’s last album from 2016 titled “Así Es Como Escapó”. Not that easy to get indie releases from Spain in the US. Sometimes Jigsaw Records carries them, but if they don’t, I need to hope my friends help me. This is a shame, because I really like this band which I’ve seen once in Madrid and once in New York. But I’m not here to talk about how difficult it is to get their records but about their new video for the song “Mausoleo” which has just been released. It is a very strange concept perhaps, but who cares, the music is lovely of course.

The Seashells: Our friends from The Seashells, who we put out their return 7″ last year, have a new song! And that is brilliant news of course if you like jangly guitars, the classic melodies of indiepop, and that Swedish sensibility that we’ve been fans in indiepop since like forever now! The new song is titled “Moments of Being” and it just appeared out of the blue, according to the band to celebrate All Saint’s Day!

For Tracy Hyde: Since I discovered them not too long ago this Japanese band has become one of my favourites from that country. I remember when I wrote about them and I was pointed out that I didn’t do my research correctly, that they actually had an album out! I claimed that they didn’t! Embarrassing! Well, I made amends. I bought their album and has been played a lot on my personal CD player. The news now is that the band has a sweet new song on their SoundCloud titled “Floor”. And that is not the best news. Actually the best news is that this song will be part of a new album that will be released  on the 2nd of November. Well, we are past that date. Maybe it is out already! The new album titled “He(r) Art” has a whopping 17 songs. I look forward to having it!

Dan Dan Dero: The Lima band has been a usual in the blog. In the last few months they’ve released a couple of videos and now finally their debut album is out. It is titled “La Gran Implosión” and it has 9 dreamy indiepop songs. Most of the album is sung in Spanish but there are a few songs in English like “Tangerine” or “Muriel”. I think this is a very fine debut but I’m concerned about it being released properly, at the moment it is only available digitally. Will there be a physical release in some format? I really hope so, as I would love to have it in my collection!

The Hummingbirds: Well, it only says “Coming Soon”. It is not available yet to order. What am I talking about? An LP that will be available on the “Hindsight – A Night for Simon” that will be celebrated at the Factory Theatre in Merrickville. 9 tracks that were never before on vinyl, only available on CD on the “IV Recordings”. But it seems it won’t be easy to get hold of one of these beauties. It doesn’t really say how many copies will be pressed but ONLY if there are any copies left after that gig these LPs will be sold on a first come, first serve basis on Monday December 4th noon Sydney time and only limited to one per person. That means 16 hours less in New York so 8pm of Sunday??? I will need to set an alarm!

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36th! That is the number of countries I’ve featured so far and there are more to come! Now I’m very happy to present a band from Portugal, a country I will be visiting next week!!! I’m traveling for 8 days starting on the 17th! So yes, mark that day because I’ll be on vacations and won’t be able to post any records. So if you need any Cloudberry releases order now and there won’t be any delays!

Portuguese indiepop is not very well known. To be honest there have been only a few bands. On Cloudberry I released a 3″ back in 2007 of a band called Safety Matches. A fun twee-ish band. I lost contact with them so I’m not sure what they are up to these days. I really liked them. Aside from them I knew nothing, so once I asked a Cloudberry supporter if he could recommend me some  bands from his own country. He recommended me the band Jaguar. I thought they were alright, so I decided to explore any connections I could find with any other guitar pop bands. This is how I discovered the DIY label Bee Keeper that was around from 1994 to 1999 and released more than a few gems.

The story says that the Lisbon based Bee Keeper started out as a joke by Elsa Pires, and was about making things happen and about making music fly as far as you want it to go. Against boredom, inercia and foolish jealous competition. Bee Keeper defended a spirit of cooperation between everyone who care. You can do it if you really wanna do it. Make your little riot happen and do it yourself.
Act now, react now.  That text appears on a BandCamp I found for the label, and it is very inspiring!

The label wasn’t only Elsa’s. Luis Futre was also part of it. There is a small story of the label and also the whole discography on a blog post by Under Review, a Portuguese blog that covers indie music. The discography, which I haven’t heard all, seems to be a mixed bag of music. There are all sorts, from indie rock to indie pop, everything done the DIY way. One of the few bands that made indiepop from the Bee Keeper bands was Captain Clown.

Their first appearance on the Bee Keeper catalog was on the CD compilation “This is Not a Damage Fanclub Tribute” that was released in 1996 (catalog BEE020). The edition of 500 copies was divided into two distinct parts. In the first part, 10 bands covered the  band Damage Fanclub. After these, 11 more bands appeared playing their own songs in a sub-titled part “Supermarket Music”. Captain Clown appears on the latter part with the song “Super Red Taxi”.

That same year the band was to release their one and only record, “7 Superheroes in Pink Driven Ambulance”. It came out on a format I’m not a fan of sadly, a tape. I haven’t been able to find a copy of it and haven’t had the chance to listen to the songs. I’m writing this post on the strength of the song from the compilation and in my curiosity of hearing this tape. Maybe someone could help.

The city of Castelo Branco  is a municipality and former bishopric in Castelo Branco District, in Centro Region, Portugal. The name means “white castle”. Castelo Branco gets its name from the prior existence of a Luso-Roman castrum or fortified settlement called Castra Leuca, on the summit of the hill of Colina da Cardosa. The population grew on the slopes of this hill.

The band hailed from Castelo Branco and according to the blog Under Review the band had 3 vocalists who sang true stories and that the band had 3 brothers who were in the band Mammies & Kids. Luckily this blog has a scan of the tape art and here I can find many important details. First the band members, Nuno Valente, Luis Valente and Inês Barata on vocals, Ricardo Mota on bass, Rui Osório and Vasco Daniel on guitars and Renato Jacobetty on drums. The songs were recorded in June 1996 at Estudio S. Tiago in Castelo Branco and produced by the band.

The fun art of the tape, a collage of different cartoons reminds me a bit of what was happening just across the border in Spain, with an interesting pop scene helmed by Elefant Records. Maybe there was some sort of influence. Or not. The tape included just 7 songs which were: “Super Red Taxi”, “Hello Again”, “17 (Seventeen)”, “Little Smile”, “Buzz”, “Friend” and “For Someone Special”.

What strikes me of course after all this information was to read the name Nuno Valente. It rang a bell almost immediately, an easy thing to a football fan like me. I remembered immediately the Portuguese player Nuno Valente that was part of the Portuguese national team in the Euro 2004 and the 2006 World Cup. I’m sure it is just a case of homonymy, but couldn’t stop thinking about it!

I look into the Bee Keeper discography for Mammies & Kids, see what they were about. It actually was a band that was around before Captain Clown. They released a tape titled “Pink Elephant is Gone?!” in 1995 (catalog Bee008) which is said to be influenced by Pavement. I do read on another blog, Braga Parks, that on this tape there was a Tullycraft and a Smudge cover. Which songs? I don’t know.

I start looking for more information about the band members. It is a difficult task as Captain Clown only has the previously mentioned compilation listed. But I do a good search and find that in 2010 Renato Jacobetty played percussion on the band Musgo’s CD album “O Negro de Boumkubé”. Also I see that Inês Barata played violin on a classical record by António Pinho Vargas. Is this the same Inês? I wonder as this CD was released in 1994 before she was in Captain Clown. If it was the same Inês wouldn’t she play violin on Captain Clown?

I couldn’t find anything else on the web. It seems like that era of Portuguese indie is not that well documented. There is barely anything written about that time. I do see that on Vimeo there has been an effort to unearth this music with small documentaries about the Bee Keeper bands. Sadly there’s nothing on Captain Clown, but you can find clips on Everground, Plasticine, Toast, Radioactive Man and Dr. Frankestein. It is said though that the intention was to release a full-fledged documentary about the label in 2012. Don’t know if that actually happened.

Do you remember them? Did they record any other songs? Did you ever see them play live? Would be interesting to get in touch and see if they can tell us the story of their fun band!

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Listen
Captain Clown – Super Red Taxi

A new week and it is already November. I always think of the classic Desert Wolves song, “November”, when the month starts. I guess that would be an interesting exercise to do next month or next year when our indiepop world tour ends. Try to feature a band that had a song for the corresponding month. Could be fun and interesting for our indiepop archaeology. What do you think? Good or silly idea?

There have been some new indiepop finds in the last few days, so I share with you, maybe there’s something you fancy!

Makeout Point: I got an email from this very young Swedish band promoting their fuzzy and upbeat indiepop. They shared with me a bunch of songs and I can see a lot of potential here. They remind me a bit of Joanna Gruesome in a way, they are poppy but also rough in the edges. You can check the video for the songs “Indie Girlfriend” and “My Name is Blank” too. The band is formed by Shiva, Simon, Theo, Alma and Andreas.

Submarino: I recommended the Lima, Peru, band Submarino some time ago when they released their latest EP “Transatlántico” in May. The 4 song EP had as its closing song the very fine “Dominique Crenn”. And now, the song named after Dominique Crenn, a French chef best known for gaining two Michelin stars for her restaurant, Atelier Crenn, in San Francisco, California, has a cool video to promote the record that was released by Faro Discos.

Glass Arcades: always recommended on the blog, Glass Arcades from Cardiff have three new songs on their Bandcamp. Naturally they are great! The one-man band by Anton Salmine has “Underachievement”, “The View From Your Rooftop” and “Home (Videos)” available for streaming now!

Wanpaku Graffiti: there is barely any information about this American band. There is a Bandcamp with two very fun songs and that’s about it. I like the artwork they’ve created for this digital single, with different toys and especially the opening track, “Shake your Ghost”. The other song is the fuzzier “Devil World!!!”.

Girlatones: it is becoming very common to feature Melbourne bands in my new discoveries. There are so many! It is a good thing that they like pop music and that they keep creating really fun music. The Girlatones continue that tradition and have released their first album on Zenith Records on November 3rd. The 9 song album is titled “Fitting in Well” and it was recorded on a 4-track cassette. The band is formed by Jesse Williams, Leah Senior, Tam Matlakowski and Jacob Booty.

Cheap Fantasy: lastly in this review of new cool discoveries here is a band from Minneapolis that mixes boy and girl vocals. That always wins me. More synthy than our usual guitar pop fare, but nonetheless very recommendable and enjoyable. Their latest release was a tape EP titled “Life of Glass”. It includes 5 songs, “Life of Glass”, “Chain in the Night”, “Glisten”, “Ain’t Hard” and “Out of Phase”. The band seem to have been around for a bit lomger, their first release on Bandcamp dates from 2016. But who are they? Are they a boy/girl duo? Or a full-fledged band? Bands should have more information available in their sites!

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When I think of Thailand I think of Smallroom Records. Why? Because that’s how I got introduced to pop music made there. How? It was thanks to a compilation released by Apricot Records from Germany in 2002 called “The Sweets of Siam: A Bangkok Pop Compilation”. Yes. that’s going to be our 35th country and band in our world indiepop review!

Yes, it was through that CD that had a beautiful look thanks to él Design I found out about many Thai bands from the time like Penguin Villa, Groovy Airline or Armchair. One of the bands that I liked the best on it was Death of a Salesman who appeared on this compilation with the song “Spin”.

I was not going to find their songs in Latin script anymore after this hit. Only Thai. And they don’t even have a presence on Discogs. But I do know, thanks to Youtube, that they released one album. I will need to find out more. I do know it was released by Smallroom. But did they release anything else? Perhaps other compilations?

I find on Last.fm a small biography and also an article from the Bangkok Post dating from May 7th, 2003. The bio says: A synthpop duo from Thailand, consisting of Krachai Chattalada (vocals,guitar, lyrics) and Prinn Amornsupasiri (guitar, lyrics). These two young guys have been producing their own songs since they were in high school.

While from the article titled “Till Death Do Us Start” and penned by Yingyong Un-Anongrak gives a lot of details about the band:
First it gives us the real name of Krachai, it is Chaturavidh. Also that the duo won the indie “Best Newcomer” award from the Channel V Music Video Awards. That both of them know each other since kindergarten but that their friendship only happened when they began university. It was a perfect match.

At the start they were a five piece, but for some reason that is not explained they ended up being a duo. Krachai is a master degree student in England but that doesn’t mean they took their name from Arthur Miller’s play. Well they did, but it wasn’t their idea. They hadn’t read it at the time. A friend just suggested it. Then at some point they heard Smallroom:001, the first compilation on the most known Thai indie label, Smallroom. When they did, they got inspired, and excited, they wanted to be on the label, so they made sure the label got their demo. The label loved it, and they offered a release.

My next stop happens to be Wikipedia, but the Thai version. Here I could find the tracklist for their self-titled album, and yes it is all written in Thai. There are 9 songs on it and they were: “เรือชูชีพ”, “สปิน”, “มีฉันมีเธอ”, “เพียงแค่หนึ่งวัน”, “ไปในดาว”, “เหม่อ”, “วันใหม่”,  “มอเตอร์ไซค์” and “รักในสิ่ง”.

I found also another article from the Bangkok Post on the web dating from 2006. On it they write about an October 8th, 2006, show called “Another Sound in the Room”, a concert where many Smallroom acts were to be featured like Death of a Salesman, Goose or Lemon Soup. The writer compares the sound to Swedish pop or twee.

Another link I find is from LAMPtv. They have a video on Youtube of a Death of a Salesman reunion from December 2014 at the Moose venue in Bangkok. The cool thing is that there is English subtitles and we see the duo talking about the band, mentioning that their album was to be remastered for vinyl. Was it released on vinyl then?

I would have liked to find that album when I was in Thailand a year ago. I didn’t even visit a record store in Bangkok. I guess I was just having such a nice vacation that record shopping didn’t cross my mind?! What a shame. But now I’m rediscovering the music of the bands from Smallroom Records and there are a few worth purchasing.

I especially like the song I share here in this post. It translates to “vacant”. I do find some Youtube videos by the band, promo videos. There’s video for “สุขใจ” and “เรือชูชีพ“.

That’s not all, there is a clip from a gig at the Keep On the Grass Music Festival 3 uploaded to Youtube. This happened on January 31st of 2015. Here is another clip from that same gig. There are some more goodies from the same channel. I see the band playing at a train station the song I like “เหม่อ“.  There is a second part for this video where they play the song “มีฉันมีเธอ“.

Then I see a listing on Tower Records from Japan a Smallroom compilation which I can’t figure out the title. On it I know Death of a Salesman had the song “Sook Jai”.

It ends up being very hard to find any more information. Everything is in Thai and even with Google Translate I can’t figure things out. I wonder about if their album was rereleased for vinyl as they intended. If they are still playing. If there are any unreleased songs. I really like when they go poppy and jangly, they can craft very fine songs. On which compilations did they appear? And where can I find a proper Smallroom Records discography?!

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Listen
Death of a Salesman – เหม่อ

I heard from Grant McPhee who made the great Big Gold Dream documentary and has lately put together the unmissable Teenage Superstars documentary too. He has told me that there are 3 more in production (!!!). This was definitely fantastic news. He mentions that there will be Fast Forward, which will cover the Edinburgh scene of the mid 80s (think Jesse Garon & the Desperadoes, Shop Assitants, Narodnik Records) and it is almost finished, Revolutionary Spirit which will feature the Liverpool scene and Zoo Records and also Anything Could Happen which will focus on New Zealand indiepop. There might be another documentary, a fourth one, but we’ll see. Anyways, that is all great news to me. I’m more than happy to know that there are people documenting the music we love and its stories. It is well worth the effort and we should support if we can! Initiatives like these matter so much!

The Occasional Flickers: finally our friends from Edinburgh who released a CDR and a 7″ with Cloudberry are releasing their 3rd album! Yes, “Sleep and The Time in Between”, has just been released by the prolific Jigsaw Records and you can stream this piece of perfect pop on Bandcamp, or better order a copy of the CD. There are all in all 10 songs.  The band has seen many changes during the years but we see Giorgos Bouras leading the march. Completing the band on this record are Panayotis Baras, Fraser Hughes and Robin Campbell Oliver. Very excited, need to order this ASAP!

Gingerlys: the New York band seems to appear on the blog everytime they sneeze, right? Every song that they have released to promote their upcoming album have been recommended here. So now that the third song of the self-titled album is available to listen I couldn’t stop that trend. So do check out “Let Down” which might be my favourite so far because I’m a sucker for boy/girl vocals. Lovely!

The Seams: first time I hear this Toronto band, and it is thanks to the latest song that has popped up on BandCamp, “Lemonade”. The band is signed to the Toronto label Hand Drawn Dracula and with them they had already released a tape album titled “Meet the Seams” a year ago. The band is formed by Kyle Connolly, Jonathan Rogers, Jesse Mirsky and Simone TB. Their music is just straight up jangle pop in the tradition of early Creation Records or even The Go-Betweens.

Grupo de Inventores: just found this Zaragoza band thinking their latest song was a cover of Josef K. Silly me. Anyhow their song “Sin Ayuda (Joseph K)” is pretty good! I see that the band is formed by G. Inventor, Jorge C., Jorge P., Enrique and Thomas. The band has a few more songs on their Bandcamp worth checking out. Their first release actually dates from January, 2015, and is a digital single for the song “Aislamiento Perpetuo” with its digital B side “Ojos (Ella Arriesga Por Amor)”.

Slowdive: not much to say about this beloved band, so no introductions needed. I just wanted to share the new promo video for the song “Don’t Know Why”.

Bokunofune: got a press sheet on the mail the other day linking to this Japanese band’s new video for the song “Nanamagari”. The band, said to be influenced by the aforementioned Slowdive, as well as by The Pains of Being Pure at Heart, will be releasing a new EP titled “Signal Flags” where I suppose this song will be included. At the moment there are no websites to buy their records, but maybe at some point?

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The 34th country will be Switzerland. Quite surprised by all the bands and music I’m discovering by doing this exercise of finding indiepop or in some cases proper guitar pop in many different countries around the world. It has been a true adventure! And There are still many more countries and bands to feature in the coming weeks! The well hasn’t ran dry!

When it comes to indiepop and Switzerland, which bands do you usually think of? Maybe Sportsguitar? Probably Chin Chin? Well, that is my case too. I’m not very knowledgeable about bands in the alpine country. So my search for finding out any more bands started there, with those bands. It was going to be a happy surprise that there was a pop band with members of Chin Chin before they were Chin Chin. That was lucky. I struck gold. Esther and Marianne had been involved in Sophisticated Boom Boom in the early 80s and even released an album!

It wasn’t cheap to order the record from Discogs. But I’m very curious after hearing a handful of songs on Youtube. I thought they were pretty good! Definitely not proper indiepop but fun girl group pop, sometimes even sounding a bit like Dolly Mixture. Who is not going to like that! Now I wait patiently for the record to arrive, but of course I do my little research, see what else I can find about them.

I think it is pretty obvious that they took their name from a Shangri-Las song that was written by George Morton around 1966. A song that came out at least twice as B sides, on the “I Can Never Go Home Any More” 7″ and on the “Long Live Our Love” 7″. They definitely didn’t take their name from Dead or Alive’s debut album of the same name as that record came out in 1984, at that time the band had already been around for at least two years. Now it is also important to mention that around the same time there was a band of the same name in Glasgow that recorded three Peel Sessions between 1981 and 1983. And it was also a girl group. But don’t confuse them!

So who were our Sophisticated Boom Boom? I go straight to Discogs to find out more about them.

Their self-titled album came out in 1982 on the label Off Course Records (catalog ASL-3306). This was an independent label from their home country that was based in Saas Fee, a resort town near the Italian border. Perhaps the most famous band they released was Grauzone. The album has fourteen tracks, on the A side we have “Yeah Yeah Yeah”, “Boom Boom Rap”, “Jimmy Jimmy”, “Frustration”, “Trocadero”, “Beat Girls” and “Numa”. On the B side there’s “Boom Boom A Go Go”, “Dance With Me”, “Number One in the Radio”, “Train to Boyscamp”, “Beat Girls”, “Ready to Dance” and “Out On My Own”. All songs seem to be credited to Ernest Maeschi, a Swiss guitar played and songwriter. On his profile it says he was part of the group. But he doesn’t appear on any of the photos of the record jacket. Were the girls just a front? I start to suspect that. I see that other credits for the songs are of Stefan Maeschi, Ernest brother, as a bassist and Pasquale Isernia as a drummer. I do see two songs where the girls are credited, “Beat Girls” has Monique Sieber and “Trocadero” has Marianne Sunier. All of them seem to have been based in Zurich.

So the girls are also all credited for vocals, Marianne, Monique and Esther. The organ was played by Chiclet and Jürg Naegeli. The saxophone by Rudi “Hotcha” Tüscher. The artwork was done by Martin Byland and Urs Steiger while the photography was taken by B. Kehrli.

There is a line that kind of clears the doubt about if the girls were a front or not. It says: “Backing band is The Sozz without their singer”. The Sozz being the Maeschi brothers and Pasquale Isernia. That would make sense. How did this relationship happen? Did the girls play any instruments on the record? I mean, they did when they were in Chin Chin. Or they were only learning the ropes of the instruments at this time? According to the press release that Slumberland Records put out when they re-released Chin Chin’s “Sound of Westway”, although Esther and Marie-Anne had experience as singers for local band Sophisticated Boom Boom, neither had actually played bass or drums respectively before.

The band appeared at least on two compilations. The first one dates from 1983 and is titled “Swiss Wave Album 2” that was released by the label Astan (catalog ASL 3307). The band appears here with two songs, “Trocadero” and “Boom Boom A Go Go”.  Later, in 2001, on the CD compilation “The Invisible Insurrection of a Million Minds” there is this song “Live at the Hellfire Club” that is credited to STT VS. SBB. SBB seems to be Sophisticated Boom Boom. I wonder how this song sounds like.

I keep digging and find a post on the blog Why Do Things Have to Change dating from 2016. Sadly it is one of those blogs that offer free full-album downloads so I won’t link to them. I don’t support that sort of thing. Though on the post it assures that the girl group hailed from Büren. That looks closer to Bern than to Zurich. Is that right then?

I look  for other bands the girls might have been involved. I do find that Esther aside from Sophisticated Boom Boom and Chin Chin was in the band Pull My Daisy. I must admit I’m not familiar with it. I will have to check them out. But what about the other two members, Marianne and Monique?

There is not much more on the web about them. I see comments where a lot of people confuse them with the Glasgow band of the same name. In any case both are quite obscure. Also because of their name most results are either for Shangri-Las or Dead or Alive. So it is hard to dig and find any important details about them. I wonder why did they split and start Chin Chin. If they had any more recordings. When did they start as a band. What was their relationship with The Sozz. And how did they all meet. Did they play many gigs. Many questions, no answer. But hopefully we’ll get to know more about them in the near future!

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Listen
Sophisticated Boom Boom – Beat Girls

Here again on a Wednesday. Seems this will be a three obscure band posts type of week. I also have an interview to post tomorrow. Things are very productive here at Cloudberry HQ. Hope you are enjoying all the new music!

FogPark: Continuing with Japanese shoegaze bands I found this band that released a CDR single earlier this year with two songs, “Cigarette Punch” and “Free Size”. It seems the Japanese know better, why release an annoying cassette when you can put out a CDR? A question I ask to all the bands this side of the world with no clear answer. The two songs are available to stream on SoundCloud as well as a month-old song titled “Sleeping Cat”. There are also three songs by a band called HotCake Mansion which I assume was the band the members of FogPark used to be in? You can also watch a video of “Free Size” on Youtube.

The Beths: First time I hear this Auckland, New Zealand, band. Their song “Great No One” is terrific! This is their latest on their Bandcamp, and I hope it gets released as a single, in an EP or in an album. Somewhere. The band is not new though. In 2006 they released a CD EP with 5 songs titled “Warm Blood” which sounds very good too! How come I never heard about them before? I should make up for it and order this CD. I’m going to go poor because I keep finding and finding great music that deserves to be bought! The Beths are Elizabeth Stokes on vocals and guitar, Jonathan Pearce on guitar and vocals, Benjamin Sinclair on bass and vocals and Ivan Luketina-Johnston on drums on vocals. Yup, everyone seems to be on vocals according to the credits. Bad thing though is that they will be playing on November 10th! That same day New Zealand and Peru will be playing a match to see who qualifies to World Cup!! Though I do think the game is at 3pm New Zealand time I think? Or is it already on the 11th? Oh dear it is hard to calculate with the time difference!!

Dan Dan Dero: the Lima, Peru, band has been recommended many times on the blog. The occasion for their mention today is that they have just released a new video for the song “Tangerine” which will be included in their forthcoming album. The video is a collage of clips that tell their adventure while they toured in Bogotá, Colombia, a few months ago.

Jarub: a fantastic song I hear all of a sudden, “Boing de Guayaba”. Who is this mysterious Jarub? Definitely he is from Mexico. It says on his bandcamp, Mor., Mexico. Where is Mor? May it be Morelia? I see that there are many, many, songs on his Bandcamp. But “Boing de Guayaba” is the standout. What is Boing de Guayaba? For those who don’t know, Boing are sort of these boxed juices that you can find in any supermarket in Mexico. Here in the US you can find them sometimes. I do in the supermarket close to mine. Guayaba is guava. So it is a song about a guava juice? This song is part of a digital album titled “Versiones Diminuidas” which is kind of strange. Song titles are in Spanish but he sings in English.

Soda Fountain Rag: our Cloudberry friend Ragnhild will be releasing a new 7″ in the near future with the Spanish label Kocliko. Because of that one of the songs to be included, “Keep My Headphones On: has been uploaded to the label’s Bandcamp! It will be released on December 23rd and I’m very much looking forward to it! How many more songs will it have? I’m guessing three more!

Half Forward Line: Jigsaw Records will be releasing the album “The Black of Mass” by the Half Forward Line, the new band from Brian Kelly of So Cow. The band is formed by Brian, Niall Murphy (Oh Boland) and drummer Ciaran o Maoláin. The CD album includes 12 indiepop songs, some fuzzier than others, with some power pop doses thrown into it. It is a very fine album which I should order soon. It is said that the album was recorded just over two days in the lounge of a derelict rural Irish pub.

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Back to Asia in our world tour! This is our 33rd different country and different band! It seems in the end I’ll be able to reach number 4o. I am pretty surprised by that, I thought, even with wishful thinking I was going to find at the most 30 countries that have had interest in producing indiepop, but I’m definitely very very happy to see there are more, that our scene is very international, and this is being proven here little by little! Time then for South Korean and the band Pirigwa or 피리과 in the local alphabet. A band that didn’t seem to have made a splash but left more than a handful of lovely sweet songs that are worth rediscovering today!

The band released only one EP which sadly is not listed on Discogs. The label is listed though, which is Beatball Records. The same label that released probably the most known Korean indiepop band, Linus’ Blanket. The Seoul label also did releases by BMX Bandits, Mocca or Advantage Lucy. So definitely this wasn’t a random thing. They did like their guitar pop! But why no one has taken the time to add Pirigwa’s release to Discogs? It would help me track their record and buy it!

Yes, I don’t own a copy of it. Which is a shame. The six song EP titled “Butane Gas Mon Cher” was released in 2007 as a CD digipak and it had the catalog number BEAT 36. The songs on the EP were: “Pajama Party“, “Superstar“, “외투도 입지 않은 채 Without Wearing Coat“, “이름모를 귀염둥이 미용실언니 Unknown Hair Shop Girl“, “Snowbound” and “감기도 널 죽이진 못해 Even Flu Can’t Kill You“. As you’ll notice I’ve been kind enough to link to all songs on Youtube for your listening pleasure.

I know that at least the band appeared on two compilations. On the Beatball compilation “Summer Has Gone By…” they had the song “Superstar” and on another Beatball, release, “The Christmas Express”, they contributed the song “Snowbound”.

I keep looking for more information about them. I finally hit some meaty information. It is not easy as I’m searching for the band in both different ways, as Pirigwa and as 피리과. I find an interview with the band Pigbit5 on a blog which I am not sure what is its name. Here I see that Pigbit5 formed from the ashes of Pirigwa. This is what it says: Pigbit5 was formed by Park Yeol, Koung Heo and Taeok Kim who were the members of Pirigwa in 2008 summer after Pirigwa was disbanded.

Okay now we have some band members names. But that’s only three names. I see on the photos of Pirigwa that they were 5 members. We are missing two?

I can’t seem to find any more information about the band. There are some Korean online shops that do sell the CD but for me, as I understand nothing of Korean, it seems like a big risk to try to buy the EP from them. Aside from that I can’t seem to find any blogs or websites, in Korean or English. Was the band based in Seoul? Pigbit5 are based there, in the neighborhood of Sangam-dong. So I feel like they did. But I can’t tell much more, the information is very hard to come by.

Definitely in this world tour this is the band I found the least information. It is a shame as the 6 songs the band put out are lovely. It probably has to do that it seems Beatball Records releases were only aimed to the Korean audience. Which is is surprising having Japan so close. Yeah, I couldn’t even find results in Google for Japanese pages. And hey, Japanese indiepop fans love this sort of sound! What happened to Pirigwa? Did they have any more songs?

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Listen
Pirigwa – 기도 널 죽이진 못해 Even Flu Can’t Kill You

Let’s start a new week with what we like. indiepop music! I’ll go back to the old format, I’ll write down the new music discoveries as a list.

New Tigers: the band finally has released, through their label Soliti’s Soundcloud, their new single that will be part of their forthcoming third album. And it is a goodie!!

Big Red Bus: this is very cool news, the classic band that released some fantastic records in the 80s will get a retrospective on Firestation Records. The CD titled “Youth and Other Hiccups: 1989 – 1992” is one not to be missed. You can preview a couple of tracks on the label’s Soundclod. Do check “Valleys & Peaks” and “All I Need” and you’ll understand why I’m looking forward to this album. The album was released just a few days ago, on the 27th!

Rosedal: I only could find one song by this Argentinean band that hails from the city of Rosario. The song is titled “Cuatro Letras” (Four Letters) and it seems it is just a preview of what it is coming up next. Yes, from what I read this song will be part of an album the band is working on. There is not much more information on their Bandcamp or their Facebook.

Softsurf: the Japanese dreampop band will release their first EP, “Into the Dream”, on November 8th on all digital outlets. Will there be a physical release? I don’t know. It doesn’t look like it. Their website has no information. I have to rely on their Facebook and will keep looking if there’s anything announced. For the time being we can listen to one of the songs on their SoundCloud and it is a very fine slice of shoegaze titled “Blue Swirl”. There is also some sort of sampler for the EP there where you can listen small clips for all the songs on it. The band is formed by Nobuaki Kitamura on guitar and vocals, Yuki Udono on vocals and tambourine, Yohei Maruyama on guitar, Yutaka Mukoda on bass and Mitsuko Ito on drums.

Cookie Romance Nonsugar: another very fine Japanese band I discover. As I said on one of my last posts, there are so many great bands appearing in Japan these days, like a sort of golden age for guitar pop, especially when it comes to shoegazey bands, dreampop bands. The band has just released their second EP, “Shell EP”, which is a self-released CD and it includes four songs all written and sung in Japanese. This is their second effort after the “Dawn EP” CDR that was released early this year. The band is formed by Kawai on vocals and guitar, Atsuko on backing vocals and guitar and Takeshi on bass. You can listen to three of their songs on the linked SoundCloud.

Twelve Fluffy Chair: even more Japanese pop for all of you. Hailing from Kyoto and with a very twee name, this quartet formed by Saki Muranobu on vocals, guitar and keys, Ryo Katayama on guitar and backing vocals, Nozomi Kamihama on bass and Manato Yasui on drums, have released so far two EPs on the label Rhinestone Records. The first in 2012 and the second in 2016. Both of the EPs had 3 songs. The first one, “Airless”, had the songs “Vega”, “Plain” and “Torso”. The second, “B A R”, had “Wednesday”, “A/Part” and “Estoppel”. Sadly the SoundCloud has mostly clips for the songs, no complete ones. It is a shame, I don’t understand why they don’t have instead of 5 or so clips, one or two complete songs. But well, it is the band’s decision. In any case they are very promising songs and would love to track down their records!

The Waterafalls: And lastly, another Japanese band. This Tokyo band didn’t release anything this year but I only got to hear them for the first time now. They did release their debut EP last year. It was self-titled and self-released on a CDR and it had 4 songs, “Ride”, “Somewhere”, “Fall” and “Open”. I especially like the second one, with some blissful and whimsical girl vocals. You can listen to the four songs and two demos on their SoundCloud. I wish I knew more about them and also wish I could find a copy of their sold out EP. Another very nice Japanese band. Definitely there’s something great going on in the land of the rising sun. I must visit soon!

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An obscure band and country when it comes to guitar pop. Right, that’s what I’ll do for the 32nd featured band in the “indiepop world tour”.

It is for sure that only lately we’ve heard of Russian bands. I feel like Motorama was the band that spearheaded the new Russian indie music. Then we’ve heard many more bands like Verbludes or Малыш Камю who are truly terrific. But what happened before all of that? Was there any interesting music being done in Russia? I had to do some research, out of curiosity, and just for these special features I’m doing for the blog, trying to find bands from all around the world, showing what different countries produced in the field of guitar pop. In the end I was lucky and I found the shoegaze/dreampop band Futbol!

These days it feels pretty damn right the name Futbol for a Russian band. Next year there will be the football World Cup in that country. Even better, the city were Futbol were from, Rostov-on-Don, will be a host city in the world cup. The Rostov Arena will host many of the group stage matches.

Rostov-on-Don: known from the time of Herodotus as a land of warlike Scythians, the endless steppes of the Don river basin eventually became home to the freedom-loving Cossacks.
Founded in: 1749
Population: 1.1 million
Distance to Moscow: 1109 km
The flamboyant Cossack culture is still prevalent in Rostov-on-Don, a modern city of one million inhabitants overlooking the beautiful Don river. The village of “Starocherkasskaya”, located 27 kilometres from Rostov-on-Don, is the former capital of the Don Cossacks. Today it is a museum city and one of the area’s main tourist attractions. Despite its profound history, Rostov-on-Don resembles a young and fresh city. The streets are romantically named Harmonious, Creative and Lucky streets. Here one can find the most unusual monuments: to a water pipe or to a newspaper reader. River Don provides the city with the serene and picturesque sand beaches and unique cuisine, featuring fish and crayfish dishes. Rostov-on-Don is situated about 1,000 kilometres southeast of Moscow and is a key transport and cultural hub of southern Russia.

I first stumbled with the band on Youtube when I heard the song “Звезда”. This translates to star. I thought that it was a pretty good song and wondered why no one has ever recommended me their music or why no one talks about them? Maybe they are really that obscure? I admit not knowing a thing about them so to be fair to them and you I will start doing some indiepop archaeology, see what I can find on the web!

It is not going to be an easy task, Russian is a language I don’t understand at all. Even worse, the Cyrillic alphabet is also something I don’t understand. But with patience and some luck I’m sure I’ll find the details I need. And I’m not mistaken, I found the website Lo-Fi Life which covers Rostov’s indie music. There I find a pretty good biography of the band which I try to read with Google Translate.

First things first, the band members:
Sergei Hevelev on vocals and guitar
Sergey Cherevkov on drums
Valery Kalkutin on bass
Alexey Hevelev on keyboards
Vladimir Karpov on guitar
Alexander Levchenko on guitar

On the biography it says the band was heavily influenced by the 80s sound of Manchester. It mentions other bands that were around the time too which now I’m curious to listen like Helen (Элен), Sputnik East (Спутник Восток), Matrosskaya Tishina (Матросская Тишина) or Infantil e Cans. Actually it is from the ashes of the latter that Futbol was to be born. Valery, Sergei and Alexei were in Infantil e Cans. Is there any music available by Infantil e Cans?

The band was formed in 2001 in Bataysk and they rehearsed in the premises of a local cafe that was owned by Vadim Dmitrienko who used to be the bass player on Sputnik East. This town lies 15 kilometers southwest of Rostov. For some reason the band decided to move, and established finally in Rostov. It is when they were in this city that Alexander and Vladimir joined the band. Alexander had been in bands like Man Cho, Nyk Antares and Urblud Dramader. Also we get to know that Sergey Cherevkov had been involved with Helen and Sputnik East. Seems it was a very incestuous scene, everyone having been part of many of the Rostov bands.

It is said that they chose the name Futbol because they loved going to see matches at the stadium. Were they followers of Rostov FC? Will they attend the world cup matches? I would. Maybe if my country qualifies next month I will see them there.

During their lifetime the band played only a few concerts, either four or five, and seems their sound differed to that in studio. In studio the band got the help of Sasha Cho who helped created a wall of guitar noise and keyboards whereas when they played live that wall of sound wasn’t present.

Their discography only has one record, the compilation “2003-2005”. All of their recordings were included in this record I think. I am guessing here a bit as the band doesn’t appear on Discogs. I don’t even know in what sort of format was released. I will guess on a CD. There were 10 songs on it: “Звезда”, “Мне пора”, “Война”, “Время”, “Закрой глаза”, “Самолет”, “Сумасшедший”, “Северный ангел”, “Жигули (alt. mix)” and “Закрой глаза (alt. mix)”. It also mentions a compilation “Jeronimo!” but there is no tracklist for it.

Then I find the website VK which looks kind of like Facebook. Not sure what it is to be honest. But here I find that you can stream 8 songs by the band. That’s really good news. There is even a video Alexander Levchenko posted for The X-Brothers. I am assuming this is the band members of Futbol are involved in now. And yes, that is the case. I was to find a Bandcamp for XBrothers where a 4 song EP titled “XBRobots” is available to stream. I notice Sergei Hevelev and Sergey Cherevkov are involved. They mention The Wedding Present and My Bloody Valentine as influences in their new band.

Time to look for stuff by Futbol on Youtube. I am lucky. I find a live gig clip of them playing “Звезда” and also “Мне пора“. There’s another clip for “Звезда“. For both cases I don’t know where were these gigs played.

There is also some information about Alexey Hevelev on the Russian Wikipedia. There it mentions that aside of being in the band he is also a pianist and a pedagogue. He has won the Governor’s Prize for his contribution to the development of culture in the Rostov Region in 2013. He also has a long career as a composer writing numerous piano cycles, string quartets, quintets and more. He even had a composition published in 1989 when he was only 10 years old. And that’s not all, at 15 he joined the Rostov State Conservatory becoming the youngest student in the history of this conservatory.

What about the other band members? And how come someone trained in classical music ends up playing the sort of music Futbol played? It is not that common.

I don’t know much more about them. It is not very easy to find information with their very simple name. Even harder when it comes that I need to search in Russian. But would be interesting to know what was on “Jeronimo!”. Or if their releases were a CD or something else. If they had unreleased songs. Where did they play those four or five songs? How did their previous band Infantil e Cans sounded like? What are they doing now? If they got much attention from abroad? How was that scene in Rostov in the early 2000s?

It seems the band was around up until 2010, and it seems they split quietly. Were their influence important to the new wave of bands that were to appear in Rostov-on-Don afterwards? Maybe our Russian readers could help shed some light!

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Futbol – Звезда