Indiepop news blog

How brilliant would it be to have the newsletters from most labels you buy records from, bands you listen to and gigs you want to know about to all in one blog?

Trev (Lostmusic/ Indiemp3) had this simple, but pretty ingenious idea, and created a blog that is there for all indiepop/DIY labels/clubs/fanzines to use as a daily/weekly news resource to keep people abreast of what is going on in the indiepop world.

It's only been live for a week, but there's already a long list of labels and clubs on the contributors list and quite a few posts.

This is going to be amazing! Check it out on indiepopnews.com.

Santa is coming to town!

Christmas is just a few days away, there's been christmas parties, christmas gigs, and there is certainly a lot of christmas songs out there now.

Allo, darlin' has put out the most lovely christmas ep ever. It has 4 songs Elizabeth recorded during her trip to Australia a couple of months back and if you had the chance to see her play live in the past month or so, you know how good they are. You can stream a couple of them, and get a copy of the ep on her myspace.

The Mexican kids at home got a bunch of friends and bands they like to put some christmas songs together and the result is an excellent little compilation. It starts with their own track, which is probably my favourite of the bunch and goes on to lots of other good bands, including the Just Joans, One happy island, Allo darlin and David Gibb. You can get hold of a copy by contacting the mexican kids on myspace.

Eux Autres has an excellent animation for their single "Another christmas at home". Gotta love a banjo playing snowman!

If you're still hungry for more christmas pop, Marianthi posted an ace mix over at Hey hey honeypop!. I have already made some room in my ipod so i can have it with me for going away next week.

Hope you all have a nice time and happy holidays!!
x

Popcast #6 - Warm in the winter

As much as i love summertime and summer songs, i think winter is an underappreciated season. Winter's great! It's perfect for cuddles under the covers, mulled wine, snowball fights, snowmen, and any sort of snow fun, hot cholocate, and mittens.

Winter's great for playing pop songs, and dancing to them till you drop as well. This popcast is a tribute to wintertime and winter fun!

The tracklist is:
Dolly mixture - Winter seems fine
Aden - Snowy sidewalks
Horowitz - I need a blanket
The specefic heats - Winter fashions
The icicles - Snowman song
Aislers set Hit the snow
The Smittens - Jeans and mittens
The fairways - Winter song
Pas/cal - I wanna take you out on your holiday sweater
Land of ill earthquakes - Long winter
Spoilsport - Snowball
Snoozer - Winterclothes
Sambassadeur - Ice and snow
Tiny records - A picture of winter
Belle and sebastian - Winter wooskie
The Shermans - Snowsong
The Postmarks - Weather the weather
The grade grubbers - Snowman
Laura watling - Spend the winter with me
Your heart breaks - Warm in winter
Stiv Bators - It's cold outside
The tidy ups - Snow song
The mother z's - Sweater weather
Nixon - Snow day
Velcro stars - Another winter
The pinefox - Chocolate snow
Au revoir simone - Fallen snow

You can download the file here.

Enjoy! xx

Label of the week: Magic marker

Following that last popcast, which was entirely dedicated to weepop! records, I decided to start a "label of week" thing, and talk a bit about my favourite labels that are around at the moment.

I was mulling over which label i should start with, there's so many i love for different reasons, and i couldn't just choose a single one, but then tullycraft came on my ipod, and being one of my favourite bands ever, it settled the matter - I decided to start with the label that has been their home for a few years now - Magic marker records.

Magic marker started with a compilation callled "We can still be friends", almost 10 years ago. It featured tracks by kisswistle, tullycraft, the minders, lunchbox, ladybug transistor, kissing book and lots others, some of which released full lengths in the label later on.

Throughout the years, they put out stuff by lots of bands i love, like dear nora, the galactic heroes, benji cossa, kissing book, the best friends group, walker kong, the gazetteers, etc; and I can say it's certainly one of those labels I trust to the point I'd gladly buy anything they put out, even if i had never listened to it before, just because I know I can count on it being good.

Their latest additon to the family was Mexico's Hello seahorse!, with the ep "Hoy A Las Ocho" that had been released online only up to now + 3 bonus tracks. I have just ordered it, along with a big compilation of rare songs by dear nora, which should be a very nice christmas present to myself.

They have at least one mp3 available as a free download for each release, here's a collection of some of my favourites:

Boycrazy - Stark street
Galactic heroes - Coffee and pastries
The best friends group - The free man
The gazeteers - Bedroom community
All girl summer fun band - Grass skirt
Walker kong - Battleship of Thieves
Benji Cossa - Knock out
Tullycraft - The punks are writing love songs
Dear nora - Make you smile
Hello seahorse! - Won't say anything

Visit Magic Marker on magicmarkerrecords.com.

In love again, again

Jacob Borshard has a new album out, it's available as a free download on his website and it's just as awesome as the previous ones.

The third in a set of three, "A glow in the dark" ties in really well with the other two albums, and even after a dozen listens, i'm still finding little bits in the lyrics that make me smile when i realize he's singing about someone or something that connects to the stories in "songs for a small stereo" and " the last brontosaurus".

Get it on creebobby.com.

POPCAST # 5 - WeePOP! records

It's been a while since the last popcast, but they're back now with a special on weePOP! records, which is a small diy label I'm involved with, and that I love so much!

The tracklist is:

Roadside Poppies - Just Another Love Song
Bugs eat books - Killers From The Start
Little My - Heavy Heart
Desmond Reed - Neat
Tinyfolk - Really really blue: a tale of unrequited (perhaps) romance and lizardry
Bunnygrunt - 1000% not creepy
Sunny Intervals - Let the city run away with us
The Just Joans - Bellshill station
Allo, Darlin' - Emily
The Motifs - Matches
One happy island - Anita
Jacob Borshard - Nine cocktails (before we set sail)
Little My - Ruining Things Like Everything
Wonder for all - Can't say it
Mexican kids at home - Start a one man band!
Summer Cats - Passion Pop
One Happy Island - Temporary tattoo
The Just Joans - Hey boy... you're oh so sensitive
Let's Whisper - Hey sunshine
The Lorimer sound - Through the Park
Megamoog - Eleanor
Kuma - Hello, my name is Kuma

You can download the file here.

Hope you enjoy it!
x

Guten Tag, Megamoog!

Megamoog came over to Europe for a mini tour in the UK and Germany last month and I managed to miss the whole thing because I was overseas myself.

As a little consolation, I found out Megan started a blog just before she left home – megamoog.wordpress.com – it’s a diary of the tour, with quite a few videos and some photos. It made my day!

Check the blog on here.
Listen to Megamoog on myspace.

Hold on twice...

Even the rain let go, let go, let go...



Matthew (who runs does an ace night in Bristol called Big Pink Cake) mentioned this video to me about a month ago and I have watched it over a dozen times ever since.

The whole thing - music, words, watercolours and animation - is made by Francois, and i wonder if there's anything this boy cannot do.

I first heard of him a couple of years ago, back when Camera obscura still played at small venues, and he was the support act for a gig they played at Cargo. He played with his band, The Atlas Mountains, and they were amazing! I went back home with a couple of cd-rs and a smile on my face.

He has released a couple of splits since then, and by the looks of it, is always busy making awesome-nesses!

More about Francois on his website or on myspace.

Desmond's red socks

I know nothing about baseball, but I can only assume Boston's Red sox are pretty awesome, because they managed to inspire Desmond Reed to write a whole album about their 2008 line up, with a song for each of the team's players.

You can listen to the whole thing at www.boston.com. Baseball fan or not, the songs are a lot of fun and definitly worth a listen.

POPCAST # 4 - One man band

The tittle says it all for this one - Popcast number four: The one man band mix.

The tracklist is:

Colin Clary - Every little van
Benji Cossa - April
Michael Barrett - Yesterday and today
Rose Melberg - I will
1996 - Imovie
Tafra - Oh daniel
Megamoog - Love, love!
Darren Hanlon - Punk's not dead
Desmond Reed - The best part
Nat Johnson - Judy's first beat
Pete Green - Best british band supported by shockwaves
Blackberry Wine - Morning breaks me
Laura Watling - Same
Anthony Atkinson - Half an hour in the afternoon
Jacob Borshard - Vincent and theo
The Get-Arounds - I can't be your Friend
All of a sudden - Friend in need
Adam Green - Tropical Island
Jellybean! - I hate vegetables
Agent Simple - Brother
The Voluntary Butler Scheme - Long long long division
A boy named Thor - Pacemaker
Sunny Intervals - Falling by the side
Kimya Dawson - Tire swing
Fránçois - Hold on
Calvin Johnson - Deliverance
Sealove - Summertime

You can download the file here.

Hope you enjoy it!

x

You're oh so sensitive!!!

The just joans have a brand new video for the tittle track of their last ep, "hey boy,you're oh so sensitive":



And from the same creators, here's a live footage of Let's whisper playing "open road" at the train platform late at night at Indietracks, with some clips of the whole festival awesomeness.



It makes me wish it was Indietracks all over again.

The motifs on 12" vinyl

The Australian label Knock Yr Socks Off records ventured into its first full length vinyl release, and after a couple of problems here and there with the pressing plant, "Cross Paths" by the Motifs is finally out and it's amazing!

Adding up to 40 minutes of dream-like delicate songs, the record compiles some of the Motifs' best songs out of their previous releases - Dots (on Music Is My Girlfriend, now sold out) Away ( on Lost In Found Records) and Matches (on WeePOP!, also sold out), as well as a few brand new songs.

The LPs come in beautifully hand made sleeves, individually painted by Alexis herself, and is limited to only 200 copies.

Order it from Knock Yr Socks Off records.
Visit The Motifs on myspace.

POPCAST # 3 - Wired love

Woot!! Time for another popcast!

Falling in love with somebody you met online, programming languages, love signals thru circuit boards, passwords, ex boyfriends emails, computer servers, social networks…

This might be the geekiest mix I ever put together. I love it. Great songs and some very amusing lyrics.

The tracklist is:

The Electric Pop Group - Popgirly
The Hot Toddies - HTML
Darren Hayman - 8 bit world
The Superfantastics - The only one I C++ is U++
MJ Hibbett & The Validators - It only works because you're here
Allo, Darlin' - Oh no! Another email from you!
My Little Airport - I don't Know how to download good Av like Iris does
Antarctica Takes It! - Circuits
Desmond Reed - Who I'd Like To Meet
Showdown At The Equator - EmailU
Barcelona – I have the password to Your shell account

You can download the file here.

Hope you enjoy it! x

S-M-I-T-T-E-N-S, C'MON!

After two weeks touring the uk, the smittens are heading back to Vermont, and leaving us with that “I want more” feeling you get after a great show.

Luckily, they also left a bunch of copies of their brand new album – The coolest thing about love, out now on HHBTM. It had been in the making for a long time, but it was well worth the wait! The band’s third album, and possibly the best so far, features 14 songs of incredibly catchy, sugar sweet bubblegum indiepop.

The innocence and simplicity of the lyrics, quite often about being love, out of love and the things they enjoy, fear or worry about in life, combined with those alternating (and sometimes overlapping) vocals I love so much and their choice of instrumentation totally made it for me.

A few weeks ago I posted about the their cover version of “my boyfriend’s back” that came out on the 7” split with tullycraft and what excited me the most about the cover was that it still sounded somewhat like a 60’s girl pop song, but with modern elements that only made it better. Listening to the new album, I realized that a lot of the smittens own songs are like that – they’re filled with 60s influences and yet sound new and refreshing.

One of my favourite songs in it is the cute bittersweet tale of a lost summer love “half my heart beats”, which you can listen here.

Order the Coolest thing about love on HHBM.
Visit The smittens website, or stream their music onmyspace.
Watch the video for gumdrops.

Big stages VS small venues

I really like small gigs, small venues where the stage is just a couple feet high, and you can stand right in front of the band as they play.

So, after having seen Red pony clock outdoors at Indietracks last weekend, i was quite excited to see them again in London, at the much smaller and intimate stage of the Gramaphone. So there I was last night, still tired and recovering from the weekend, but all charged up for what promised to be a great gig.

But then the magic didn't work, the sound was terrible at the Gramaphone , the whole thing was way too loud, and the vocals were barely audible, actually, you couldn't hear much apart from the the bass and brass. It was such a shame, because it would have been great if it was somewhere else - all 8 (or nine?) of them managed to squeeze in the small stage, and even though they had been touring for a couple of weeks, the they were full of energy, syncronizing tons of different sounds ( a couple of guitars, a violin, drums, vibraphone, clarinet, trombone, trumpet, oboe and an accordion) and dancing non stop. They were still fun to watch, but all their effort seemed wasted as most of the music was getting lost in a big loud mess that was coming out the speakers.

And then, on the other hand, I've been wanting to see Darren Hanlon at a small venue like that for ages, I missed his shows a couple of times in the past couple of years, and only got to see him for the first time a couple of weeks ago supporting the Magnetic Fields at a big concert hall, the acoustic was beautiful, but it didn't feel right. Then i saw part of his set at Indietracks, playing in the same big outdoor stage where i later saw red pony clock. And it was nice, most people were just sitting on the grass and basking at the sunshine while watching him play, but there was still something missing...

So i guess i can only keep my fingers crossed Darren will play a couple of smaller shows before he heads back to Australia, and that someday i'll see Red pony clock again, at the exact opposite kind of venue - somewhere not so small, not so intimate, and to a bigger crowd who can dance away under the sunshine.

POPCAST # 2 - Heartbreak

Hey there,

Welcome to Popcast #2, which collects songs about breakups and broken hearts.

And even though I think that when your heart is actually broken, the songs that really get to you are the sweet happy love ones, that's a different story… for another time maybe.

This time, the tracklist is:

The Field Mice - Anyone Else Isn't You
Snowbirds - Day after day
Let's Whisper - Snowy Sunday Afternoon
Michaelmas - Winter starts today
Jacob Borshard - My sweet sky line
Electrophönvintage - Break My Heart Again
The Icicles - Sunday Song
Math And Physics Club - Look At Us Now
The Electric Pop Group - She's Playing With Your Heart
Heavenly - Pet monkey
Shermans - Ever After
Brighter - Never Never
Miniskirt - Be Here With Me
Tiger trap - My broken heart
Roadside Poppies - Cycling and crying
Go sailor - I'm still crying
All of My Brother's Girlfriends - We're Through
Club 8 - I'm Lost Without You
Comet Gain - Don't Fall in Love if You Want to Die in Peace
The Field Mice - You're Kidding Aren't You
Magnetic fields - I Don't Want To Get Over You

You can download the file here.

Hope you enjoy it! x

Smittens new video

heeee, can't wait for the new album!

Allo Darlin Demos

Allo, darling is the Darlings’ new moniker, they had to change the band's name after a spooky email from another band with the same name.

Although they haven’t released anything under the new name yet, Elizabeth has been writing lots of new songs since their Photo ep (released on weepop late last year) and the best part is that she’s been recording them and making the demos available on her website.

There’s eight songs there now. They’re just lo-fi bedroom recordings of Elizabeth and her ukulele, but they sound really good. The lyrics, clever and quite often funny, go from sweet love songs to being uncertain of where life is going to take you, and annoying ex boyfriends.

My favourite is “Henry Rollins Don't Dance”, with its very amusing lyrics and upbeat melody, it might not make Henry Rollins dance, but it certainly made me!

Check Elizabeth’s website: www.elizabethdarling.com
and the band’s myspace: myspace.com/allodarlin

POPCAST # 1 - Handclaps

Hey,

If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands! Clap, clap!!!

If there’s something that’s almost guaranteed to make me smile when I hear a song, that’s gotta be some handclaps. So, for the first ever “Bored to hear your heart still breaks popcast”, I collected some of my favourite handclapping songs.

The tracklist is:

Land Of Ill Earthquakes - Amy's Song
The Lil' Hospital - I'm A Little Hospital
Confetti - Yes Please!
Poison Control Center - All Summer Long
Rocket Punch - pink cashmere
Eux Autres - Other Girls
Hello Seahorse! - Lost Cause Heart (acoustic)
Hefner - Hello kitten
The Motifs - Jour Defete
Kisswhistle - Let's be together today
Zipper - Un buen chaparron
Amy Linton & Stewart Anderson - The Lights Are Out
The Toothaches - Kiss Me Sweetly
Bmx Bandits – Taste
The Lucksmiths - Off With His Cardigan
The Specific Heats - Are You For Real Mehgan O'Neill
Loch Ness Mouse - My Cat & Me
Red Sleeping Beauty - It Happens
The Steinbecks - How near or how far
Tullycraft - If You Take Away The Make-Up
Colin Clary - 8 Kisses
Strawberry Fair - Why Won't He Answer
Kissing book - Sad City
A Smile and a Ribbon - One-night wonder

You can download the file here.

Hope you enjoy it!
x

Tullycraft and the Smittens together - can anything get any better than this?

I got home from work yesterday to find the third instalment of hhbtm singles waiting for me. It had been a while since the last batch and i was excited to get it, especially because that meant two brand new songs by two of my favourite bands ever.. in the same piece of lovely coloured vinyl! That is the Smittens and Tullycraft split.

Well, it turns out neither songs were really totally brand new, both bands recorded cover versions for the single, but they both managed to make old songs sound new, fresh and addictive.

The smittens'cover is the 60s-girl-group classic "My Boyfriend's back". After having listened to it about 5 times straight and thinking to myself that it's got to be the best cover version ever, i realized it's actually not that different to the original (which is a great song anyway), but while keeping all the goodness and cuteness of the 60s pop (hey las and handclaps to spare), they changed a lot of its feeling by alternating boy and girl vocals. Both Max Andrucki and Colin Clary have very distinctive voices and they work perfectly in this song. Oh, Im totally hooked!!!

And then there's Tullycraft... Tullycraft seems to love cover versions (we even made a whole podcast of "songs tullycraft have covered" back on not quite rocket science), and they generally manage to turn good songs into even better ones. No exception here: Their version of The Pooh Sticks' "on tape" is as catchy as it gets. Again, the song itself is actually not dramatically different to the original, but they changed a lot of the lyrics, and i kept smiling as i listened, because i can identify with most of the stuff they refer to in the song, and before i knew it, i was already singing along..

The single is part of hhbtm's singles club, and although i don't think it's sold separately, the whole collection has been great so far and there's still a few subscriptions available.

Time for a new blog!

"Not quite rocket science" was a lot of fun for a year, and then it had to go and i don't think it will ever be back as it was, and even though we never used to keep it up to date, i liked making it, and i miss it a lot. I especially miss putting those thematic popcasts together...

So i guess it's time for something new and here it is. Please come and check it out every now and then.

x