c86
Not Forgotten: The Jasmine Minks – ‘The Jasmine Minks’: on older brothers, cassette pets and discovering the world of Creation
MY ROUTE into The Jasmine Minks and the whole world of early Creation Records – Slaughter Joe, Biff Bang Pow, Revolving Paint Dream and so many others? Mine was the time-honoured one: that is, the combined good agency of a friend’s older brother and the humble cassette. It’s a story repeated everywhere there are older …
News: Swiss punk popsters Chin Chin’s brilliant ‘Stop Your Crying’ and The Siddeleys’ ‘Sunshine Thuggery’ EP are the latest indiepop nuggets in Optic Nerve’s singles club – and not forgetting Girls At Our Best …
OPTIC NERVE, the Preston label which is repressing indie 7″s with love and care in its singles series, version 3.0 of which is with us now, is poised to release a little unearthed gem by Swiss punky girlpopsters Chin Chin and The Siddeley’s classy Sunshine Thuggery EP up next. In recent times, the label has …
Album review: The Catenary Wires – ‘Birling Gap’: Amelia and Rob take a look at how we’re doing as an island in folk-rock and fuzzpop
AMELIA FLETCHER and Rob Pursey have been making intelligent British indiepop together through more incarnations than your current, faithful scribe cares to shake a stick at, and thus that stick shall remain firmly static. Their relationship goes right back to the days of the lovely Talulah Gosh, one of many bands tarred only partly accurately …
See: The stop-motion animation for Semihelix’s ‘Recoil’: a dreamy Texas take on the Flying Nun sound
DREAMING guitar pop dreams on the vibrant Austin, Texas scene, the fine trio Semihelix are bidding for love with their new track, “Recoil”, which comes accompanied accompanied by a quirky stop-motion involving bejewelled beetles, reel-to-reel tape, toy cars and ladybirds; go have a looksee at the end there, it’s a lovely thing – and it’s …
Track: The Catenary Wires – ‘Mirrorball’: Amelia and Rob twirl the indiepop glitter
AMELIA FLETCHER and Rob Pursey: a marriage of minds and music who’ve kept those of us who love love loved the C86 guitar pop sound so well musically fed down the years. They forged out of the Talulah Gosh era together with Heavenly, Tender Trap, Marine Research; these days they’re just as busy, working together …
SEE: Davey Woodward & The Winter Orphans – ‘Bad Day’ cornering a brilliantly thrashy alt.pop nugget
FORMER Brilliant Corners singer Davey Woodward is fashioning rather lovely, lo-fi, alt.folk indiepop these days, along with The Winter Orphans – a quintet rescued from the chill winds atop Spaniorum Hill to help him in his lifelong pursuit of low-slung, perfectly drawled, South West pop. They’ve just dropped the video for “Bad Day” – plenty …
SEE: The Wedding Present feat. Louise Wener – ‘We Should Be Together’
I MEAN, it’s just isn’t stopping, is it, this viral ice age that has a grip on our music scene; but at least musicians are out there creating, bringing us new aural joy to keep us going through the grind. And at the forefront of all that are indie legends and darlings in equal proportion, …
ALBUM REVIEW: Heavenly – ‘A Bout De Heavenly’: seminal sevens compiled in time for Santa
Rolling down through Heavenly’s career through the prism of the single, you can see what a great band they were at that seemingly most humble, but powerful and demotic of formats, all packed full of the goodness of proper indiepop
EP REVIEW: Quiet Marauder – ‘Tiny Men Parts’: a critique of the male condition in bounce-along indiepop
Tiny Men Parts nails masculine creepiness and ineptitude with insouciance and tons of guitar pop like they used to make
NEWS: The Wedding Present announce album of lockdown versions and more – see the stripped back ‘Crawl’
ALL THIS viral mess around us: it’s meant musicians have had to lock and load, get going as the going got tough. Plates, stepped up to. New ways adopted. New records made. And you can bet your bottom dollar that David Gedge’s The Wedding Present wouldn’t sit back and let it wash it over them. …