A Mix for Sea Otters to Listen to With Their Ears

A Mix for Sea Otters to Listen to With Their Ears

It's no secret that I love making mixes, so today I decided to make a new one. CLEARLY, it's a mix for sea otters to listen to with their ears, but it's mostly just twelve songs of mostly noisy indiepop bridging nearly two decades from 1983 (Twa Toots) to 2001 (The Aislers Set). I think it's a real great mix, though, and I'm pretty sure of it, as I always feel the need to listen to the mixes I make all the way through at least five times before I post them. That could have been a run-on sentence, it's kind of hard to say. Well I guess that's about as much intro as you need... the music pretty much speaks for itself. So go listen to it with your ears! As always, the mix are tagged as a compilation, with artwork and proper track order, so it should be pretty easy for you to handle.

[ZIP]: A Mix for Sea Otters to Listen to With Their Ears (12 MP3s, 32mb)

Tracklist:
01 My Bloody Valentine :: Sylvie's Head
02 Black Tambourine :: For Ex-Lovers Only
03 McCarthy :: We Are All Bourgeois Now
04 The Siddeleys :: Bedlam on the Mezzanine
05 Pastel Collision :: Like Water
06 The Pooh Sticks :: Indiepop Ain't Noise Pollution
07 The Flatmates :: Shimmer
08 Television Personalities :: This Time There's No Happy Ending
09 Henry's Dress :: Target Practice
10 The Aislers Set :: The Red Door
11 Twa Toots :: Please Don't Play 'A Rainy Night in Georgia'
12 Even As We Speak :: 100

Related:
Skatterbrain's Lazy Springmix

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Let's Kiss The Boys Who Pee In Mud

Múm

I haven't stepped off the indiepop sidewalk for a post in quite a few weeks, so allow me to do so now. Come September, I'm predicting that Múm's first new record in OVER THREE YEARS will very likely become my favorite of the year. Of course, this could be untrue, but at the moment I'm crossing my fingers that Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy will be beautiful, incredible and eveything I'm hoping for. I'm still pretty bummed that Kristín Anna is no longer in the band, but with the actual "band" now up to seven members, hopefully they'll be able to make up for the loss. The songs on the new record come from all different periods of the band's career, with one of the tracks dating back to Yesterday Was Dramatic, Today Is Okay. A version of the new record's title track was recorded during the band's Hlaupanotan session this past March 19th, and I've been pretty addicted to it the past couple days, so I figure that can only be a good sign!

[MP3]: Múm :: Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy, Let Your Crooked Hands Be Holy

Again, Go Go Smear The Poison Ivy will be out in September on FatCat Records and will probably have really great packaging as per usual.

Múm on MySpace

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Whatever You Want From Me, Whoever I Try To Be...

Karolina Komstedt and Johan Angergård are Club 8.

Until I was recently made aware by both Charles over at Heartache with Hardwork and Tom at Indie MP3, I was completely oblivious to the fact that... THERE'S A NEW CLUB 8 RECORD COMING OUT! Color me absolutely psyched! Here's the first single from their new record supposedly by the same name and supposedly coming out soon on Labrador (though they have yet to mention it on their website).

[MP3]: Club 8 :: Whatever You Want (Highly Reccommended!!)
Can I please get a huge "YESSSSSSS" for the handclaps in this song?! It's like, "oh here's our extra chorus of hands, they're going to be our percussive melody now." It's exactly like that, assuming that percussive is actually a word. Also great is the fact that Karolina's vocals -- like always -- are sweeter than a glass of lemonade with extra sugar sitting in a bowl full of sugar on a summer day when it's raining sugar but still sunny out. LISTEN NOW.

Club 8 on MySpace!

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Get In Your Car and Drive It All Over Me

Slightly photoshopped You Made Me Realise 12" cover art.

I love My Bloody Valentine a lot, a real large amount. However, while I do consider -- like many people -- Loveless to be one of the greatest records ever, I do, for the most part, prefer their earlier, poppier moments quite a bit more. It took me quite a while to track down the You Made Me Realise EP, but it's got one of my all-time favorite MBV tracks on it. It was released by Creation Records around August of 1988 as a 12" and a maxi CD single, and featured probably the best cover of any of their records up to this point. There's just something about it. Anyway, "Drive It All Over Me" is a real great track, mixing the perfect amount of shoegaze and pop together with Belinda's super catchy vocal melody overtop it singing cryptic lines like:

Cover up your windows
Close up all the doors
Time has come for me to really shine
Pick myself up off the floor
Things that'll make yourself cry
Can be tied above the well
Helplessly withering away
But I'll never ever tell

[MP3]: My Bloody Valentine :: Drive It All Over Me

Okay, so, if you've heard this song before you should give it a shot. That's all I've got to say. Oh, and, happy Wednesday! Oh, and I wont be able to make it to the NYC Popfest, so everyone else enjoy it for me okay :'(

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Tell me why can't it be true

I've been quite an avid frequenter of Fireflies' MySpace for the past six months or so, and now I'm super excited because Music Is My Girlfriend and Lavender finally have some solid plans to co-release a Fireflies record! No exact release date yet, but hopefully we'll have one soon.

For those of you new to Fireflies, it is the one man band of a man named Lisle. He writes all the songs and plays all the instruments and records them all himself and stuff, and he is really good. Obviously influenced by the melancholy indiepop of bands like The Field Mice and The Cat's Miaow, his songs are literally like a dream. When you're listening you feel so at peace, and then when it ends you just play it again because you don't want to wake up just yet. His cover of Air's "Cherry Blossom Girl" is absolutely phenomenal, and in my opinion, much better than the original. I think you should listen to it and then take a nap.

[MP3]: Fireflies :: Cherry Blossom Girl (Air cover) (Highly Rec'd!)

If you like this, you should DEFINITELY head over to Fireflies' MySpace and listen to the rest of his songs, particularly "I Was A Brontosaurus" and "Snowstorm"." Okay, that's it for now, have a wonderful weekend! :)

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A Girl whose favorite thing is snow, snow and being alone

The Last Holy Writer cover art.

I've been meaning to post this song for weeks and weeks now and I kept forgetting, but Larryhag's Interview with Bobby Wratten over at Indie MP3 today reminded me! Trembling Blue Stars' new record, The Last Holy Writer, is just further proof that anything Bobby Wratten touches turns to gold. So, it's no surprise the record includes what is probably my favorite song of the year, in the form of "Idyllwild."

[MP3]: Trembling Blue Stars :: Idyllwild (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!)
There are so many parts of this song that I love. I love Beth Arzy's voice. I love the lyrics. I love the melody. I love it all! Musically, it's probably the most upbeat song on The Last Holy Writer, despite the fact that lyrically it's really quite sad. Beth Arzy sings (quite beautifully), "Life was so open then, now it’s closing in / Life was wide open then, now it’s closing in / One by one, we’ve watched our dreams disappearing." It's really quite an amazing song and I hope you love it as much as I do! The rest of the lyrics can be found here, if you want to read along while you listen, cause I really love to do that.

If you do love it as much as me then you should probably go pick up the record from Elefant Records. I assure you it's wonderful. Beautifully wonderful, infact!

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Knuckle Down, Knuckle Down, Knuckle Down

I really really love Sky Larkin, and their song "Summit", and the video for that song. This is the video for that song "Summit", by that band that I really really love... Sky Larkin.

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NYC Popfest Update!

Tickets and passes are still avaiable!

Hey guys, a bit of a Popfest update here. Finishing School, which is the wonderful solo project of Sasha bell from The Essex Green and Ladybug Transistor, has been added to the last show of the Popfest. The fine Popfest folks tried their best to get The Essex Green, but since Chris wasn't able to make it, Finishing School stepped up. Jeff and Julia may also be joining Sasha on stage anyway, so it should still be pretty great. They'll be playing alongside Allen Clapp and my darling Lil' Hospital on the last day of the Popfest, Monday May 28th, for the Memorial Day BBQ Day Show! Don't miss it!

[MP3]: Finishing School :: Destination Girl

You can still grab tickets and passes here!
and you check out the schedule here!

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Girl of the World: 5 Years Old 7"

5 Years Old 7" [Heaven Records, 1993]

5 Years Old was the third release from Australia's Girl of the World and number 11 for Heaven Records. Heaven Records was started up in 1990 by Matt from the Fat Tulips to release the Fat Tulips' first 7". They went on to release a total of 13 records, including singles from Strawberry Story, The Rosehips, Bulldozer Crash, and, of course, Girl of the World. Information on Girl of the World on the internet is few and far between. I did however find out that guitarist Bart and drummer Cameron from The Cat's Miaow were previously in Girl of the World. So there you go, a tiny bit of biographical indiepop history. Just listen to the single though, okay. Personally, I love the B-side "3,000 ft.", much more than the single's A-side, but hey that's just me.

Girl of the World
5 Years Old
[Heaven Records, 1993]
DOWNLOAD IT (.ZIP file, 9mb)

Tracklist:
1. 5 Years Old
2. 3,000 ft.

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I'm Back! / The Sea Urchins: Pristine Christine 7"

"Pristine Christine" (SARAH1)

The Sea Urchins' Pristine Cristine 7" marked the very first sounds to come out the door of Sarah Records back in 1987. Though it may have not been apparent at the time, the song "Pristine Christine," would end up being a pretty solid (for the most part) display of things to come for Sarah Records. Those bright jangly guitars, joyful choruses, and beautifully simple guitar solos are some of my favorite things ever and they're all right here on this record. "Pristine Christine" is the single's obvious highlight, but while a bit more toned down, "Sullen Eyes" is definitely one of my favorite Sea Urchins tracks ever. There's a bit more Sea Urchins info to be found at Twee.net if you care to investigate. Well, enjoy, and keep those requests coming!

The Sea Urchins
Pristine Christine
[Sarah Records, 1987]
DOWNLOAD IT (.ZIP file, 18mb)

Tracklist:
1. Pristine Christine
2. Sullen Eyes
3. Everglades

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Exams, man, exams...

Well, actually, exams won't be too hard, but I've busy with that, among other things, so I'll be back next Monday. Okay. Bye!

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The Big Gun: "Heard About Love"

"My band was called the Big Gun, and all the members were about 17. We saved up and recorded a single and sent it to John Peel, who played it four times on his night-time show, after which we were described in the NME as "the sort of band that made England great". We then played a few gigs in the South and promptly split up.

But the thing I'll never forget is the night Peel played the song: all of us huddled round a stereo in Andy Crone's bedroom, each with the same haircut and the same shoes, biting our nails and passing a cigarette as we waited for Peel to come on. We had been told he was planning to play the song that night. Heard About Love it was called. We waited. And then, it came: 'Here we have it,' said Peel, 'from Ayrshire, melody coming all unheralded into the programme.'

We had made it. We were good. There was nothing else to be achieved with the Big Gun, which was just as well, seeing as Keith and Andy and the rest of us only really had one song. It reappeared the other month on a German compilation album called (bizarrely, for us) The Sound of Leamington Spa."

This might just be the best pop song you might have never heard before, and I'd like to share it with you. The single was originally released on Hi-Fibre in 1987, and seriously, this song is every single part of the bee, and it makes me smile everytime I listen to it. The excerpt above comes from an article on John Peel from the Telegraph, and it pretty much tells you everything you need to know about The Big Gun, and their song, "Heard About Love."

[MP3]: The Big Gun :: Heard About Love

P.S. If you're not singing "Let's hear it, love, let's hear it for love!" over and over for the rest of the week then you are just dead inside, or something... something real bad!

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The Mary Onettes

The Mary Onettes standing/sitting on some majestic hill.

Since I've been covering the Popfest lineup pretty much for the past week or so, I haven't really had much time to mention some of the things I've been seriously enjoying lately. One of those things is Sweden's Mary Onettes and their debut self-titled record. This year has already been a fantastic year for pop and it just keeps getting better. Think of a modern indiepop version of A-ha mixed with a bit of The Wake and earlier JAMC and that's pretty much The Mary Onettes in a nutshell.

The record's got a dark feel to it, but not dark enough to the point where you'd only be able to listen to it at night. The record's first single, "Void", is lush, driving track and like most of the rest of the record, it moves along on top of a super solid bassline. Though the song doesn't neccesarily rely on it, it sure as hell enhances it, adding a bit of urgency to the vocals that ultimately makes the song much more powerful. I really used to love describing music and now I just hate everything I write, so I guess I'll stop now, but I really think you should listen to this and if you like it then you should probably pick up the record cause it's really really good.

[MP3]: The Mary Onettes :: Void (Highly Recommended Okay!)

Buy The Mary Onettes from Labrador Records!

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Road to the 2007 NYC Popfest: The Baskervilles

New York's Baskervilles!

Incase you haven't been paying close attention, I am STILL on the Bs in the alphabetical Popfest extravaganza. I last covered The Ballet, and if I'm doing this right we should be moving right on ahead to New York's very own, The Baskervilles. Like The Ballet, I hardly know a thing about The Baskervilles. Their MySpace lists influences from the Television Personalities to Dolly Mixture to Johnathan Richman, so at least you can be sure they're working off a pretty solid foundation. Mostly I just hear a pretty strong TVPs sound to the songs that I've listened to so far, which is miles away from a complaint, infact I'm pleased as punch to have finally heard these guys. OMG RUN-ON SENTENCE LOCK ME UP/.

They're currently doing this thing called the Twilight 14 where they are releasing a free MP3 (all produced by Mitch Easter) on their website with virtual sleeves designed by a different contemporary artist each month, and well, it's a pretty awesome idea. Download April's single and don't forget they'll be playing the Popfest May 25th at The Delancey with Mitch Easter, The Secret History, and The Smittens!

[MP3]: The Baskervilles :: Have You Seen Them? (follow the link)

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The 2007 NYC Popfest on MySpace
Super Mega 2007 NYC Popfest post with dates and lineups

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