You're stuck on me, and I'm stuck on you

One Happy Island's new EP, Secret Party That The Other Party Doesn't Know About, is so gloriously perfect. Lead track "Temporary Tattoo" is the cutest, catchiest thing I've heard all year since Strawberry Fair's "Why Won't He Answer." I try to not throw around the word "twee" too much, but geeeeeeeeez, if "Temporary Tattoo" isn't totally and amazingly twee as fuck, then I don't know what it is! The EP shines elsewhere though, too. I smile bright as the sun everytime the bridge comes along in "Earth's Circumference" – it's just too pretty for words. I highly suggest picking this up very soon-ish!!! This EP also marks WeePOP!'s very first vinyl release! Hooray! You can buy the 3" CDr now, or you can preorder the 7", which should be out very soon!! For now, listen to "Temporary Tattoo"!

[MP3]: One Happy Island :: Temporary Tattoo (Hiiiighly Recommended!!!)

One Happy Island on MySpace!

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Oh, Lead Me To A Quiet Cell...

The first words I've uttered concerning Leicester's Mai 68s were on Anorak, and I believe it was something like "oh my god. oh my god. so good. so so so good." Yknow, something like that. I meant it, I really did – no hyperbole at all. Their new single on Cloudberry Records – and particularly the song "Lead Me To A Quiet Cell" – has been on endless repeat here since I first heard it. What The Mai 68s have got is a perfectly controlled mess of dreamy vocals and multiple waves of ringing guitars that seem to splill into a haze of feedback at all the right moments. There's also gotta be something quite great about the drums because they've been bouncing around in the back of my head for the past two days. Basically, how can anyone not love these guys(and girl)? The Mai 68s are 2008's Black Tambourine. There, I said it. Everyone else was thinking it, surely.

[MP3]: The Mai 68s :: Lead Me To A Quiet Cell (Super Recommended!!!)

Go get the single from Cloudberry Records while the getting's good!
The Mai 68s on MySpace!

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Twee As Fuck NYC!!!

THIS THURSDAY!!! TWEE AS FUCK NIGHT MAKES IT'S WAY TO NEW YORK! It's looking like I'm not gonna be there, but if you have the means, I highly recommend heading out. It will be SO CHOICE. I need to stop missing good things, I really do. Let me now how it goes, somebody, anybody.

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Burnt Out Landscapes

Is it fair to consider a compilation as an actual album? Because if it is, than The MLS have just released the best record of the year, hands down. Within the 26(!!!) tracks on Burnt Out Landscapes, there are at least 26 awesome songs – some of which transcend awesome ("You'll Never Get That Guy," "Johnny Boy," "Head Over Heels"), and require a different adjective all together (tre-awesome, perhaps(just rewatched Camp Nowhere the other day, what can I say?)). I heard "Johnny Boy" for the first time live back in March at the Cake Shop in NYC and I've been dying to hear it recorded ever since – but even with my super-high expectations, it's still blowing me away. The Manhattan Love Suicides can seriously do no wrong in my book, and they just keep pumping out songs left and right. Go and order Burnt Out Landscapes from Squirrel Records, right now!!!

Listen to "Head Over Heels"!
[MP3]: The Manhattan Love Suicides :: Head Over Heels

Watch the (creepy as shit) video for "Clusterfuck"


ALSO: while you're at it, I just found this video of a great acoustic version of "You'll Never Get That Guy" (perhaps my fav MLS song ever?) and you should watch it!

The MLS on MySpace!!!

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Bounce Around

Will return soon. Currently too obsessed with Minisnap's Bounce Around to function. Why on earth did it take me this long to get to listen to it?! It's utterly brilliant, through and though, and then some!

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Here Comes The Summer

I really don't know too much about London's Pastel Collision aside from the fact I love the crap out of their songs. This makes the fact that they barely exist according to the internet that much more unnerving. They made great songs, really great catchy, summery, jangling smile-fests (with horns!) and it's a shame I'll never have some faces to put to the songs. Or is it, really? I've sat for hours on many an occasion thinking about that exact thing. Of course, there's no way to ever really know, but maybe there's something about the sweet anonymity of something old and halfway forgotten that makes it just burst with charm.

Aaaaaanyway – they never released an album, just a handful of brilliant singles before moving on sometime after 1996 when they released their final record "Wherever You Go, Take Me With You" on Siesta Records. I've always been a bit more partial to the two singles they released for Spirit of 86 Records: the "Young" in 1994 and "Here Comes The Summer" the following year. Every song spanning the two 7"s are completely essential summer pop jams. Here's "Like Water" and "Here Comes The Summer"! Enjoy!

[MP3]: Pastel Collision :: Like Water (Highest Rec!)
[MP3]: Pastel Collision :: Here Comes The Summer (Yeah! This one too!)

Pastel Collision on Twee.net

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Summer! A sun-shining, toe-tapping summer mix

Beach photo by flickr user rednightsky.

I know I just made another mix fairly recently, but I do enjoy making these mixes more than anything else I do here, so here we go again. I hadn't planned on doing another mix for a while, actually. That was, however, until the summer heat in the past few days finally reached the always welcomed, but quickly regretable mid-June highs. With those highs also comes the tremendous delmarva humidity, capable of draining every drop of life out of even the strongest of Summer warriors.

With that in mind, I decided to make a Summer mix so potent that even the hellish humidity wouldn't stand a chance against it. On here you'll find a pretty good spread of old and new stuff, working together to not only put a smile on your face, but to keep your salty forehead sweat from running into it! Please enjoy, and take it anywhere!

DOWNLOAD IT! As always, this mix is lovingly tagged as a compilation, complete with the cover art seen just up above.

[ZIP]: Summer! A sun-shining, toe-tapping summer mix (80mb, 14 MP3s)

Tracklist:
01 Milky Wimpshake :: Blow Out At 80 Miles Per Hour
02 McCarthy :: Kill Kill Kill Kill
03 Strawberry Fair :: Why Won't He Answer?
04 Go Sailor :: Long Distance
05 Slow Down Tallahassee :: Never Be Lonely Again
06 Bearsuit :: Keep It Together, Somehow
07 Speedmarket Avenue :: Way Better Now
08 Girl Of The World :: Travel
09 Ponies In The Surf :: Holes In The Walls
10 Allen Clapp And His Orchestra :: She Grins And Waves Goodbye
11 The Faintest Ideas :: Another Sunny Day
12 Girls At Our Best! :: Warm Girls
13 Eux Autres :: The City All To Himself
14 Belle And Sebastian :: Dirty Dream Number Two

Okay! Bye! Don't die out there!!!

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I Smiled Yesterday podcast #3!!!

The third installment of the amazing "I Smiled Yesterday" podcast is now up for your listening pleasure – and it couldn't have come at a better time! With the thermometer hitting 95 in Annapolis today, there's nothing better than some expertly compiled summer jams! As with the previous podcasts, there's a little bit of everything here, but it's all perfect! Nice to see Skywave, Vivian Girls, AND SHIRLEY ELLIS' FUCKING "CLAPPING SONG"!!! Too good, Guys, way too good!

I suggest you listen immediately! Click here!

Here's the tracklist:
1) Shirley Ellis "The Clapping Song" ("The Complete Congress Recordings", Congress Records)
2) The Starlets "You Don't Love Me" ("Girls Go Zonk!!", RPM Records)
3) Antoine et Les Problemes "Si C'est La Nuit" ("Antoine Rencontre Les Problemes", Magic Records)
4) Sic Alps "Speeds" ("The Soft Tour in Rough Form", MtStMtn Records)
5) Let's Wrestle "I Won't Lie To You" ("In Loving Memory Of", Stolen Recordings)
6) Les Aspirateurs "On Y Go" (7", Felicite Records)
7) Baby Lemonade "Secret Goldfish (demo)" ("45 rpm", Egg Records)
8) South Ambulance "Die 5times times5" ("s/t", Labrador Records)
9) The Bodines "Paradise" ("Creation Soup", Creation Records)
10) Vivian Girls "Wild Eyes" (7", Plays With Dolls Records)
11) Skywave "It's In Your Eyes" ("Echodrone", Cherry Coated Records)
12) Cheap Time "Spoiled Brat" (7", Sweet Rot Records)
13) The Delmonas "I Feel Alright" ("Do The Uncle Willy", Get Hip Records)
14) Grow Up "Joanne" (7", Object Music)
15) The Lovettes "Little Miss Soul" ("Big In Wigan", Kent Records)
16) The Triumphs "I'm Coming To Your Rescue" ("Okeh, A Northern Soul Obsession", Kent Records)
17) Third Tuesday "Third Time Under" ("Girl Crazy", Goldmine Soul Supply)
18) Mr. Lucky and The Gamblers "I Told You Once Before" ("Northwest Battle Of The Bands Vol. 1", Big Beat Records)
19) Pussycat Trash "Mock Style Examinations" ("The Brat Years 1992-1995", Kill Rock Stars Records)
20) Forbidden Tigers "Forbidden Tigers" ("Magnetic Problem", Deadbeat Records)
21) So Cow "Government Complex" ("These Truly are End Times", Covert Bear Records)

In other Slumberland news, Searching For the Now 7"s #3 and #4 are now available for preorder. #3 features the Philly's amazing A Sunny Day In Glasgow and The Sunny Street. #4's got the always lovable and fuzzy Pobpahs and Australia's wonderful Summer Cats!!! You and I do not want to miss these!!!

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New Speedmarket Avenue Video!

I don't know about anyone else, but for the past month or so, my ears have been glued – at least several times a day – to Speedmarket Avenue's new record Way Better Now. I'm in love with vocalist Sibille Attar's voice, it's so beautiful and effective on both the record's slower songs, as well as the bigger, more upbeat tracks, too. There's now a video for the record's title track "Way Better Now" and you should watch it because the song is awesome! Really awesome!



Way Better Now is out RIGHT NOW on the lovely Elefant Records
Speedmarket Avenue on MySpace!

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Everyday is awesome because of Red Pandas

Seriously, can I just have them? All of them.

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What the heck happened to Lilydale Records?

They were so great and promising and they seem to have completely disappeared from the face of the earth – the internet earth, at least. I wonder what's up?

www.lilydalerecords.com - DEAD!
www.myspace.com/lilydalerecords - GONE!

Perhaps they called it quits? Already? How sad :(

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New Summer Cats Video!!!

A new video for The Summer Cats' Cloudberry single "Lonely Planet" has just finally seen the very light of day, TODAY! I've been in love with the song since the moment I heard and the video fits it just perfectly! It's a an interesting song, actually, I think, because it feels like a bit of a slow-burner (as slow-burning as indiepop can get), yet it's totally and 100% danceable! Everyone dancing and clapping! Isn't that what every music video should be, really?



You can/should grab the single from the ever-amazing Cloudberry Records
Summer Cats on MySpace!

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Still Corners!

London's Still Corners

I recieved Still Corners' debut Remember Pepper? a month (maybe two) ago and for some reason I've been sitting my lazy out-of-school-for-the-summer butt on it for that same length of time. Not that it's a dire issue, anyway, it's a really lovely record and people don't necessarily need my help to realize that. But, I figured I love it enough a lot, I might as well say so.

Now, I mean this as complimentary as I can possibly get across, but Remember Pepper? sounds like Still Corners somehow uncovered six as-yet-unknown missing tracks from Broadcast's The Noise Made By People (perhaps one of my fav records ever) and went and made EP out of them – albeit, an astonishingly good one, and all their own, mind you. But still. Yeah. These six songs (Yep, all six of them lovely) couldn't possibly be more breezy and dreamy even if they were blowing on clothing line in outer space. Whoa! Favorites of mine include the lead track "History of Love" and oddly enough, closer "French Kiss." Reverb is good, friends, it is ALWAYS good. It's particularly good if you slather it all over some nice electric organ and sing like and angel over top of it. Remember that forever. Now, how about a song? Yes! A song indeed!

[MP3]: Still Corners :: History of Love (Highly Recommended!!!)

Still Corners on MySpace!

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The Special Places!

The Special Places are the charming and lovely duo of Jenny Mears and Corianton Hale of Tullycraft! They played their first official show ever this past Saturday in Seattle! The back and forth vocals and bantar between them the whole time is just adorable – I really hope they'll be recording soon, or playing more, or something! This is just too promising! Watch!

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Today It's Sunny, It's Way Too Early, and I Don't Want To Get Up

The Wendy Darlings

It always amazes me that everyday there's still an opportunity to lift up a metaphorical rock on the internet and stumble upon something fantastic. Case in point, The Wendy Darlings – most likely named after Peter Pan's Wendy Moira Angela Darling and clearly influenced by early 90s indiepop, but sounding more like a janglier Bratmobile – have stolen my heart. For how long? It's hard to say, but that's not really important RIGHT NOW is it? All I know is I can't get their song "Get Up" out of my head, and I'd say that's good enough. Even more, another song ("Enormous Pop") is bouncing around up there right next to it... who knows... maybe the two songs are dancing together!?

The Wendy Darlings hail from France and are made up of three oddly aliased folks: Saddam Suzy on guitar and vocals, Dr. Poppy on bass and vocals, and DJ Sepia on drums. A bit odd, indeed, but jangly pop songs first, questions later, I always say! Now I'll be on my way and let you get these songs stuck in your head, too!

[MP3]: The Wendy Darlings :: Get Up (Super Recommended!)
[MP3]: The Wendy Darlings :: Enormous Pop

Oh, they also remind me a bit of The Haircuts! Yes! That's it!
The Wendy Darlings on MySpace!

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