unpopular

Summer Feel

Malcolm - Aberfeldy (from the 'Somewhere to Jump from' album. on Soundcloud)
Kevin Currie - Spaghetti Anywhere (from 'Arrochar' on Bandcamp)
Your Sympathy - Devon Williams (from 'the line of best fit'. On Soundcloud)
You Don't Want to Live Like That - The Art Museums (from the 'Dancing' EP for Slumberland and on Bandcamp)
Time Is Right - The Feelies (from 'Here Before' )
I Wanna Be With You - The Sneetches (covering them Raspberries on YouTube)
Pop Song - David Kilgour (from 'Left By Soft' )
Kelvin British Summertime - Lenzie Moss (on Bandcamp)
The Memory Of Wounds - Edinburgh School For The Deaf (on Bubblegum records and live on YouTube)
Poppy White - The Jasmine Minks (on Oatcake records and on YouTube)
På randen - Testbild! (from the 'Barrikad' album on Bandcamp)
No Pressure - Secret Cities (YouTube)
Summer Feel - Phantom Power (from 'FUCK.' on Bandcamp)
Colour of a man (PSB organic mix) - The Hidden Cameras (on Soundcloud)
The Corner - Chairs Missing (from 'When Now EP' on Bandcamp)
Happy As Can Be - Cut Off Your Hands (free from their record label)
What Am I Going To Do - Pop Art Toasters (from the Pop Art Toasters EP. Kinda hard to find now...)
Lake Abe - Family Cactus (from 'Spirit Lights' on Bandcamp)
Dunedin from the Bay - Robert Scott (from 'Songs Of Otago's Past' at Buy Dunedin Music)
Good Morning People - David Kilgour (from 'Solstice' compilation)

Unceremonious Splendour

Thunder... Thunder and... lightning... Pause. Crash.

Last night, over to the west, drifting out in the early hours. Brampford Speke church tower silhouetted in the flashes. Every time now, for a handful of decades, every time I hear thunder these lines tease my head. “One drop of rain on the back of my hand...” It was Verlaine at first of course but in my heart it is always Langley... breaking, breaking...  Chris Roberts described the thrill best. Something about “ravishing green fingers playing hoopla with halos” and dancing on throats. Well quite.

The sweetest thing about love is how it re-configures itself, re-invents itself, winks in the darkening evening light and says ‘remember this?’ You fall into yourself and its arms. It’s not as though you had forgotten, just that you hadn’t necessarily remembered.

Blink the sleep from your lips and kiss the morning. Dance on the treetops. The world might well be fucked, but you, you’ve got this. Tie a knot in your teardrops.

Silver Rays - Animals That Swim (you'll find it on iTunes) 
It Hurts Me Too - My Teenage Stride (Bandcamp)
They Don't Know - Kirsty MacColl (you don't have this already?! Buy the Best Of on Amazon )
Gruesome Castle - Wild Nothing (Soundcloud)
Plastic Flowers - The Wake (from the Here Comes Everybody and Singles reissue on LTM)
What a Pleasure - Beach Fossils (Soundcloud)
Strange Girl - duplodeck (Bandcamp)
Unceremonious Splendour - Sleuth (Bandcamp)
Punk Means Cuddle - Tsunami (find it on the World Tour and Other Destinations set)
Little Surprise - The Wave Pictures (Soundcloud)
Words Fail Me (Acoustic) - Chris T-T (you'll find it on iTunes)
For My Mother - Let's Wrestle (from new album 'Nursing Home' which you can pre-order now from Amazon)
Teenager - Apache Dropout (Bandcamp)
Lawrence - Girls Names (from the 'Dead To Me' set on Slumberland)
Fields and Fields - Family Cactus (Bandcamp)
High School Lover - Oregon Bike Trails (Bandcamp)
Doppelganger - Freezepop (free from their site)
Ready To Go Steady - The Go! Team (YouTube it, dude)
On A Breeze - Ghost Wave (a blog has it here...)
Breaking In My Heart - The Blue Aeroplanes (one version is on the old vinyl edition of 'friendloverplane' and another is on the 'Warhol's 15' CD compilation, both out of print. Go and dig around, see what you can find...)

Flying into the sun

So here is my easter gift to you, dearest readers. It may not be made of chocolate, but it is filled with delicious treats. Lot's of the music is free, or at least the price of a swedger, so follow the links and support the groups. Send them your love. Tell them I sent you. Not that it will mean anything to them, but what the heck... The next installment is already under construction and will likely feature the likes of Let's Wrestle, Wave Pictures, Chris T-T, Wild Nothing, Go! Team, Duplodeck and the utterly brilliant Sleuth. 

There Will Never Be Another Night Like Tonight - The Arctic Flow (Bandcamp)
A Summer's Night Lullaby - Inverness (Bandcamp)
By the Sea - Summer Fiction (Bandcamp)
Flying Into the Sun - Crystal Stilts (YouTube)
Down The Discotheque - Sarandon (buy it on Amazon!)
Do The Dance - Sarandon (buy it on Amazon!)
Don't Look at Me (I Don't Like It) - The Lovely Eggs (YouTube)
All We Wanna Do - Two Wounded Birds (YouTube)
I will never hold your hand - Tiger Tape (Bandcamp)
The Greatest Light Is the Greatest Shade - The Joy Formidable (from A Balloon Called Moaning)
The Beat Of Our Own Blood - Jeniferever (Soundcloud)
Cleaning Out The Rooms - British Sea Power (youTube)
The Flooded Room - French Curves (Soundcloud)
There's Something About Mary - The Hit Parade (Soundcloud)
Recalling - The Proper Ornaments (Bandcamp)
For Jacob with Malaria - Boca Chica (Eardrums Pop)

Two Pint Take Home

Got a Two Pint Take Home after dinner at The Beer Engine in Newton St Cyres tonight. We got the 'Silver Bullet', and very nice it is too. It reminded me of the 'Two Pint Take Home' fanzine from way back when. Did it come with a flexi with a cover of The Chesterfields' 'Ask Johnny Dee' by The Rosehips and 'You Opened Up My Eyes' by Fat Tulips? Or did it just feature an interview with Fat Tulips? Whatever, it would have prompted me to send off for their demos tape which I remember enjoying enormously at the time. In more recent years of course I would have denied that vigorously, and listening again to 'You Opened Up My Eyes' from this download of those demos, I can definately see why that would be the case. Still, young and foolish, right? Right.

 

Everyone Feels That Way Sometimes

Rattle My Cage - The Primitives (Amazon MP3 )
Lego - Ok (soundcloud)
Impressions of a City Morning - Brown Recluse (Soundcloud)
Trances - Mariage Blanc (Bandcamp)
Travelers - Arches (mediafire)
Georgia - Yuck (soundcloud)
Tokyo - California Wives (soundcloud)
Time to Dance - The Shoes (soundcloud)
Soul Handsome - Kuhrye-oo (soundcloud)
Everyone Feels That Way Sometimes - Computer Magic (band site)
Marshall Meadows - People Of Water (Amazon MP3 )
The Fall Of Great Britain - Factory Star (occultation label)
Alexander Hamilton - Howth (bandcamp)
Cold Weather Sunshine - Morning Teleportation (Amazon MP3 )
Small Garden Wedding - The Haints of Dean Hall (Bandcamp)
Bunhill Fields - Amor de Dias (Soundcloud)
The Millionaire - Ex Cops (Soundcloud)

It's My Heart And I Want You To Break It

Raise a glass, a shout, a finger. Head deeper underground, even if only in your mind. Spot the connections, make the hops, skips and jumps. This is how it goes: the songs that brighten the days and nights; the words that smother your dreams in imaginary kisses; the swords that pierce your heart. A last glance over the shoulder then disappearing in crowds of metropolitan isolation. Music for the lost couple.

Chandeliers - Dream Cop (spotify)
Stuck in my Id - Reptar (band site)
If You Want It - TV Girl (Bandcamp)
Don’t Make Plans - Ducktails (YouTube)
Cashmere Paisley Polyester - Fingers of the Sun (Bandcamp)
Someone is Waiting - I Was A King (spotify)
Throw Me From the Bridge of Flowers - Hands and Knees (Bandcamp)
I Wanna Do It - Sonny & The Sunsets (Soundcloud)
Ghost Lover - Las Robertas (spotify)
Suitcase - Standard Fare (spotify)
Our Scrapbook - Tompot Blenny (Bandcamp)
GreenThingsMovingThroughtheWaterOnLand - Orchard Thief (Bandcamp)
WHALE - Yellow Ostrich (Bandcamp)
On a Ride - Dignan Porch (spotify)
Bones - Young Circles (Bandcamp)
Sunsetter - Ghost Wave (Bandcamp)
Boulevards In Blume (Galaxies Version) - A U N T I E (CorporateRecords)
Ghosts (Spirit Come In) - Michael Parallax (Bandcamp)

Hands And Knees

Horses on Raddon Hills, originally uploaded by unpop.

Here’s a route for you then. Out over the farm roads towards Poltimore, skipping up past Killerton House, the brief 14 per cent ramp to the chapel and the drop to the bridge at Ellerhayes. Rise again to the dark corridor of trees on Park Road and on through Silverton, home to the Exe Valley Brewery. Across the Exe valley road, slipping through Up Exe and Latchmoor Green before passing fading remains of the old valley railway line; the former station house outside of Thorverton, the road cutting that once passed below the tracks, then on into the village itself before emerging onto the lower slope of Raddon Hill. Up past Raddon House, remodelled in recent years but mentioned in Pevsner’s Devon as the old, original house. Turning then down through Efford and Shute, on to cross Langford Bridge and eventually back to the main Crediton road just before Half Moon. Finally over Cowley Bridge and onto Stoke Road, skirting Stoke Woods with the flood plains opening over to the left, electrical pylons striding majestically beside river and London mainline alike.

And at Raddon, the halfway point, two horses in the field rushing to meet me. An apology for having nothing nice to share, but they let me stroke their noses regardless. Behind them the sun squints in an almost pristine blue wash of sky. The horses pose, as horses are prone to do, and as I ride on I hum ‘The Day I Was A Horse’. As you do. Well don’t you?

Of course ‘The Day I Was A Horse’ reminds one mostly of The Vaselines but for me it always recalls the fabulous Hands And Knees whose early recordings I released when they were still called La Fea (they changed the name a week or two after the first 3” CDRs went out in the mail, necessitating a hasty sleeve change...). A sparkling cover of ‘The Day I Was A Horse’ was but one of the highlights of their set.

Now it occurred to me as I rode the last few kilometres home that I had lost track of Hands And Knees after the excellent ‘Et Tu Fluffy?’ set of 2009. So a quick trip to LastFM, a hop to Bandcamp and there we have it: a brand new release for 2011 in the ‘Wholesome’ set. Fine stuff it is too. Easily up to the standard of their previous releases, it is the sound of Pop that revels in knowing its place. It is Pop that spins its clicking fingers back to the roots of rock’n’roll and that swings in tune with the spirit of, say a Postcard shimmy and a Flying Nun swirl (they previously recorded a more than satisfying version of ‘All My Hollowness To You’) infused with the warmth of the 20th Century American tradition of Byrdsian folk-rock. It’s already one of my favourite records of the year.

The Orchard Thief

I seldom remember the routes I take.... No, let me refine that. I seldom remember the methods I use to find the routes I take. The routes themselves, if they are worth hanging on to, well, those stay inside forever. Secretive sometimes, like the previously mentioned stretch of cobbles my friend kept tucked away from us nearly thirty years ago. Or the means by which we might stumble on a new sound. The steps we take. The hours lost in wandering. Once through racks in flea-ridden second hand stores, cheaply copied pages in fanzines and barely decipherable scrawls in letters but now, perhaps, through the underground pipes of blogs and bandcamp pages.

So I don’t remember the route I took, and even if I did I doubt I would share that with you but, hey, I arrived at the Orchard Thief and let me tell you it’s a rather wonderful place to alight.

What is there to know about The Orchard Thief? Precious little, which is how it ought to be after all. A blog that hasn’t been updated in a year. Some drawings and collages. An empty Facebook page ‘liked’ by thirteen people. I like that number so I’m not going to add to it. What difference would it make anyway? There is more to numbers than counting.

A LastFM entry says something about coming from “the alluvial plains of La Crosse, Wisconsin” and you know, sure enough, I can hear this music as a soundtrack to ‘Wisconsin Death Trip’. Spooked and stretching to distant, glowering clouds. It also says that The Orchard Thief is self-described as “teenagers in outer-space” which is marvellously fetching and fitting. Indeed it puts me in mind of how we might once have described the recordings of a fledgling Orange Cake Mix, though I rather think Jim Rao’s teenage years were already distant when he recorded the magical likes of ‘When the sky was falling down on you’...

So what else does The Orchard Thief conjure? For me there are echoes of the madcap laughter of psychedelic pranksters Blackmothsuperrainbow; the fragile, history-soaked landscape paintings of July Skies; Durutti Column’s brittle guitar sketches of summer; sometimes hypnotic techno clashing with found sound noise; Maurice Deebank scouring the Pavement. Or, if you prefer, it’s the sound of a blasted heath sheathed in snow reaching far into the sky, kissing bronzed clouds gently on the horizon. Something like that anyway.

There are several Orchard Thief recordings to find, of which 2009’s ‘Work’ and last year’s ‘Coin Purse’ are the most fully formed and intriguing. The beguiling ‘GreenThingsMovingThroughtheWaterOnLand’ from the recent Total Bummer Compilation Volume 1 collection is also well worth tracking down.

(Nothing to do but) Get High In The Afternoon

End of February and here’s a blend of blistered, blurred and blissed out guitars, beats and electronic glitches for you. Personal highlights would be the the Loveless lovers’ space rock of Young Prisms, Alien Pimp and Spatial’s subterranean techno and the glorious Pop electro smooch of Living Rooms and especially Icky Blossoms, whose aptly titled ‘Perfect Visions’ gives title to the mix. Not forgetting of course the salacious sludge rock of Fungi Girls and Girls Names: shifty, bedsit noisy Pop whose aim in life is surely to soundtrack a moment of mixtape romance and then to be be gone (and hence remembered) forever. Mission accomplished.

Haller Lake - The Cave Singers
I Want To Be Around You - Jonny
Stay Awake - Young Prisms
I Did It Sober - Idiot Glee
Ungirthed - Purity Ring
Another Sunny Day In Barcelona - Alien Pimp
100319 - Spatial
You're A Mirage - Living Rooms
Perfect Vision - Icky Blossoms
Sleepless City - Punches
Belong - The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Pacifica Nostalgia - Fungi Girls
Tear Me Down - Girls Names
Meet Me In the City - The Babies
Youth Is Wasted On The Young - Chain And The Gang

Boredom so loud.

ribbons

ribbon, originally uploaded by unpop.

I bought some nice ribbon in town this morning.

Midnight Movies - 'Ribbons'