Starting a new week, and April is almost over. Not much news yet on our side, we still wait for the pressing plant with news for our Salt Lake Alley 7″. It seems it is taking longer thanks to Record Store Day. That awful day that happens once a year in April. A day for big labels and for silly collectors. I can’t be bothered. Sure, there are some fine releases available that day, but I don’t like this gimmicky day, so I’ll pass. Won’t support it.

So while I wait, I keep discovering new music. What else can I do? Even though I can’t offer new releases as I have the label release schedule fully booked, I am always in need of new music. So this is what’s new, what I’ve discovered thanks to the Twee Lovers Club group:

Flaaurs: one song available on Bandcamp from their “Holyydays” EP by this lo-fi bedroom pop ensamble. Why just only one song? It is strange. Don’t know much about this band aside that they hail from Indonesia. The EP will be released by Yellowroom Records from Bandung.

Sharesprings: one of my favourite Indonesian bands, all-time, have a new song called “Elza, I’d Write You a Song” and it is a cracker. What else can I say but to go, hurry, listen to it. Rusli Budianto, Ardhi Yudho, Putriani Mulyadi and Yehezkiel Tambun keep creating brilliant short indiepop nuggets!

Cooper: Alex Cooper has been making music since the 80s in Spain. First with the legendary band Los Flechazos and later as Cooper. Always true to mod sounds. And he keeps going and going always on Elefant Records. There’s a new video for a song called “Infinito”that will be part of his new album “Tiempo, Temperatura, Agitación” which will be released on May 18th.

Plastic Girl in Closet: shared one song by this superb shoegaze/dreampop band from Japan a month or so ago. Now there’s a new track on Soundcloud that sounds terribly good called “Like A Strawberry” which I had to recommend! It seems this song is part of “Lesson1” which looks like a CD of re-recordings of their best material from 2010 to 2012. I need to order this record!

Blush Response: this Adelaide, Australia, shoegaze band will be releasing their debut album “Hearts Grow Dull” on June 2018. Well, the vinyl version. The CD version is already available on their Bandcamp. There are 10 dreamy songs that sound superb. The band is formed by Alister, Joseph, Walter and Zach and they must be getting quite a following as I see they are playing in Spain on June 9th! That’s quite big for an Aussie band, it is a long way too!

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As I was saying on my previous post, I’m on a 90s run. It is probably the period I know the least when it comes to British indiepop. I think I know more Swedish bands from the 90s than English? Or am I exaggerating? In any case I’m going over some bands from the time now, and as I’ve always liked their song “White Horses and Shooting Stars” a lot, I had to focus my investigate work on Pullover. It had to be done.

Pullover: sweater or hoodie, a piece of clothing “pulled over” the head instead of buttoned or zipped-up

Discogs tries to confuse me right off the bat. They list a self-titled album by Pullover, but it turns out it is from a Brazilian band with the same name. That means, we only know 4 proper releases, all singles, by the band.

Their first 7″ was a fantastic one, “This is The Life”. A great song! On the B side there we find “The Great Pretender”. It was released in 1995 by the label Fierce Panda (NING 09 and it came packaged in a very nice red and white jacket. A collage of all sorts, we see all sort of figures in it. The art is credited to a Mary Walsh.

Fierce Panda was based in London and at this time it is quite a big label for indie standards. I wonder how it was back in the mid nineties when Pullover signed with them. There’s even a Fierce Panda Canada now I believe. The next 7″ by the band came out in the same label then, the same year too, 1995. “White Horses and Shooting Stars” (NING 14) had “Oddball” as its B-side. But stop for a minute and listen the A side. Tell me it is not a wonderful slice of pop? Catchy, dreamy, jangly. Top song!  I even uploaded it to Youtube many years ago. It had to be done. The art again is credited to Mary Walsh, this time a duotone of purple and white with some horses attacking a man on the floor! There is some credits too for engineer and producer, someone called Ott, who according to Discogs, is a UK-based dub and downtempo composer, producer and sound engineer, and label manager of Ottsonic Music.

Their next release on Fierce Panda was the “Holiday” 7″ (NING 20). This two-song record came out in 1996 and included “Holiday” in the A side and a cover of George Michael’s “Last Christmas” on the B side. We see that this song has some credits, engineer James Drew and mixed and produced by Martin Isherwood. Something quite interesting is that a video was made for “Holiday“. British friends, which beach is the one that appears on the video?

Lastly, “Holiday”, was also released as a 7″ and a CD single on the label Starfish Records (STF6). I don’t know why the change of label and why the same song on the A side. Perhaps this was an international release? Discogs does have it as a UK release though. The song on the B side was different mind you: “In Every Season”.  The CD even included one more song, “Over You”. The art now wasn’t by Mary Walsh as the previous three singles, but by Louise Wallace. Also for the first time we see the names of the band members on the sleeve: Carol Isherwood (vocals), Joe Duddell (drums), Lee Damarell (bass) and Michael Malley (guitar).

There are some compilation appearances too. They contributed the songs “Holiday” and “Tiny Tears” to the CD version of the comp “A Gift From Sing Sing” (Poof 9)  and only “Tiny Tears” to the LP version that was released by Popfactory in 1996. This compilation included two other favourite bands of mine like The Shapiros, who had been featured on the blog, and the Heartworms.

On my last post about Disco Pistol I mentioned the 1997 compilation “Snakebite City Six” (BLU009), and I will again mention it. It is because Pullover appears here too with the song “Liar”.

Lastly, Fierece Panda’s 1999 compilation “Nings and Roundabouts” included two of their songs, “White Horses & Shooting Stars” and “Last Christmas”. Something that catches my attention is what appears on the inserts. Here it says that the band signed to Starfish/Big Life and recorded an album that was never released. Then the band split up. What happened!! Where are those songs from the album?

The superb website Manchester Digital Music Archive has a bunch of news clippings about Pullover. This means the band hailed from the Manchester region. There is one scan from “City Live” where they are previewing the Olympian Showcase gig at Night & Day. The problem is it is a bad scan and one can’t really read it. But what it was is a monthly event at the Nigh & Day Cafe and this time around Pullover were celebrating their homecoming on August 2nd in 1996. There are a few more promos in there, but nothing that really adds to their story.

I look for information about the band members. To my surprise I find an article on The Business Desk website. Here the headline is quite impressive, “Britpop singer turned entertainment industry lawyer ideally qualified”. I look more into it. I see Carol is now an Associate at the National Intellectual Property Group and specializes in Creative Industries.  She also is a regular speaker at music industry events. Interesting that she kept involved with music but on a different side of it!

About the other band members, Joe Duddell has his own website and mentions all the different projects he has been invovled with. HE has worked with the London Symphony Orchestra or with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra for BBC Radio 1 and BBC 6 Music and more. Sadly in his bio there is no mention of Pullover.

Couldn’t find anything really for Lee Damarell or Michael Malley.

I stumble upon the blog “Too Much Apple Pie” who had written about Pullover back in 2007. It seems there used to be a Pullover Myspace. That doesn’t exist anymore. Here it says that the band recorded two albums. One of which is the one that never saw the light because of label problems. Then, the 2nd album was to be released on their own label, Knitwear Records, and it was going to be called “All You Need is Love”. What happened to it? I need to explore! Some comments on the blog say the beach that appears on the video could be Hastings.

There’s not much more on the web about them. But I’m hoping here can let me know whatever happened to those two albums they recorded. Where are they now. If they continued making music. Or if they had been involved in any other bands back in the day. Any of my Mancunian friends remember them?

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Listen
Pullover – White Horses and Shooting Stars