Day 220

Soulbird: Last Tuesday I interviewed Peter Green from the great Hearts On Fire. As mentioned on the interview he has been making music as Soulbird and actually just released an album called “Sparkledust”. It is up on Bandcamp now and it sounds really good! 14 top songs.

Hamburger: out on December 11 on Specialist Subject Records is the 6 song EP by this terrific Bristol band. The EP will be released on vinyl and you can check out one of the songs to be included, “Supersad”. There’s also a tote bag for sale and that’s nice. It’s been a while since I’ve bought one.

Flying Fish Cove: I enjoyed a lot the record this Seattle band put out on Jigsaw Records. Now the band is back with a 4-song EP called “Viridian”. A few things about it, 50% of the sales will go to Mutual Aid South King County.  And also very important is that there’s a song called “Xuxa”.

Rosehip Teahouse: now back to this Cardiff band that have been a favourite on the blog this year. They will be releasing a 12″ EP titled “Fine”. It will have 5 songs in total and we can preview two of them, “I Meant What I Said” and “A Million Times”.

The No-Yeahs: From Vallejo, California, here are 5 songs of lo-fi bedroom pop, which takes us back to the days of soulseek and CDR burning and mix CDs and blogspot, and all those things, the time when many of us fell in love with indiepop. This sounds like that. Proper DIY in this “Homily for a Gloomy Day” EP. Very nice.

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We all know Alison’s Halo, right? The great Tempe, Arizona, shoegaze band  that featured Catherine Cooper on vocals and guitar, Adam Cooper on guitar and Lynn Anderson on bass. But are you all aware of the EP Adam and Catherine released as The Pastry Heros?

After the demise of Alison’s Halo in the late 90s, Adam and Catherine relocated to Chicago. But before this relocation, just in between they would record a different sort of record, more chamber-pop sound than dreampop, and self-release it. It would be a five song EP called “Horn Rim Fury”. It was to be released on their own Submersible Records in 1998.

The story says that in 1999 they would change names again, this time to Insta, and then re-release the EP on Sunday Records.

But let me go back to the original release on Submersible (SBM001). It had 5 songs as I said. These were “Sydney”, “Nite-Lite”, “Sparkle”, “Jazzed Up!” and “A View from Space”. They were recorded to analog tape at Jetpack Studios between August 1997 and March 1998. Then they were mastered at Sonic Fish Studios by Ken Mari.

Aside from Adam and Catherine other people that were involved in the record were David Rogers (Alison’s Halo, Half String, Insta, Kitten Factor) on bass, Ken Mari (from Soul Shock Remedy, Arizona Dry Heat Rescue and Insta) on drums and Ben Currier (Air Miami, Eggs) on drums on “A View from Space”.

Aside from this release the band had their song “Sydney” on a compilation called “The Unheard Pleasures of Inane – Somewhere in Europe, 1972 Vol. 1” released by Sinedín Music (SM004) and Inane Records in Spain. This CD came alongside the magazine Factory on its 22nd issue. It featured lots of great indiepop bands like Eggstone, The Cherry Orchard or Club 8. A cool detail, our friend Gregorio Soria did the artwork for this compilation!

I believe that the Insta re-release of the EP that came out on Sunday Records (SUNDAY 940) in 2002 is the same. There is different artwork and instead of coming in a slim jewel case the CD came in a cardsleeve. I am curious why they changed names. And why re-release it?

We know that both Catherine and Adam continued making music in other projects. We know of Insta of course but also of Kitten Factor.

Not much more about The Pastry Heros. Much more on Insta. But I like doing things in order. I want to know what happened during The Pastry Heros days. Did they play gigs? Why the change of style of pop? Why a new change of name? And a re-release? Many questions, that I hope I get answers someday! Do you remember them?

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Listen
The Pastry Heros – Nite Lite