unpopular

Talking September Girls

 

A new 7" from September Girls dropped through the letterbox the other day/week. I lose track of time so easily... 'Some For Me' featured on the last Unpopular mix and if you are quick you might just catch the download link before it shuffles off the virtual coil. Meanwhile there is a bonkers Pop Art video for 'Talking' that you might enjoy...

 

It's lonely in the universe

 

Saturday morning saw the arrival of this lovely package from the very wonderful Boy Least Likely To. A signed copy of their new album 'The Great Perhaps' and a tasty tote bag. Result! The album doesn't disappoint (not that I expected it to), being filled to the brim with Pop sounds that bubble and bounce like the long lost sun shining on a late April afternoon. But don't let the sunshine fool you. There's still a chilly wind a-blowing, and this is Pop that knows the ache of love's transience; a Pop that nods in recognition to the passing of years; a Pop that wraps you in its arms and whispers its condolences in your ear. Just the way I like it.

 

Alpaca Sports - Singles Going Steady

I may not have a local record store of note, but thanks to Pebble Records I was able to snag these new Aplaca Sports discs this week. The CD collects all the singles tracks from the past year or so and as such of course is a treasure. It includes 'Telephone' which is on that shared 7" with Acid House Kings' gorgeous 'I Just Called To Say Jag Älskar Dig' from their 'Music Sounds Better With You' set from a few years ago. Both records are already sold out from Pebble and are probably going to be tricky to find anywhere. Good luck...

 

New arrivals: Tullycraft and Breathe Out

Two excellent records arrived this week. Tullycraft's 'Lost In Light Rotation' single is just one standout of many on the new album of the same name. The video, I am sure you will agree, is a magic Pop artefact too. Also in the mail was the new EP by Breathe Out. I'm sure you already picked up on the very wonderful 'Concrete' that kicks off the latest Unpopular mix and the good news is that rest of the EP is every bit as fine.

 

Happy Together on the Telephone

Hey, there's a new single from Alpaca Sports. I guess you probably pretty much missed out on the vinyl though... Here's the lovely video. For some reason it reminds me a lot of Sophie and Peter Johnston. But with better haircuts.

 

 

Monument To A Lost Cause

Dance and sing all night... <tricky to miss download link for the whole mix. And don't forget to support the artists you like by paying for their music. It doesn't grow on trees you know.

Concrete - Breathe Out (from 'Absolute True Love' EP. Bandcamp)
Tina Weymouth - This Many Boyfriends (from 'This Many Boyfriends' & Soundcloud)
Agincourt - Tullycraft (from 'Lost in Light Rotation')
Gary Glitter Fan Convention - The Bitter Springs (on 'Everyones Cup Of Tea' LP also live on YouTube)
Monument To A Lost Cause - Post (on Idle Fret Free Download EP)
the Black Crow - The Wave Pictures (from 'The Songs of Jason Molina' - Bandcamp)
You Can't Win The Heart That You Broke - Rockingbirds (from The Return of the Rockingbirds')
Unopened Letters and Unanswered Calls - The Left Outsides (from 'The Shape of Things to Come')
Salty - North Highlands (Bandcamp)
Cement - PUPS  (Bandcamp)
Ghost World - Strange Relations (Bandcamp)
Take It Slowly - Life Model (Bandcamp)
Some For Me - September Girls (Bandcamp)
Figurehead (Wet) - Jonnie Common (from 'Figurehead' - Soundcloud)
Carpet Burns - Trwbador (from 'Trwbador' LP)
From Above - Death And Vanilla (Bandcamp)
Try to Be - Blue Hawaii (Bandcamp)
PPO Kissing Behinds - Sleaford Mods (on Idle Fret Free Download EP)
Riot On 1655 North Cherokee Avenue - Fulhäst (Bandcamp)
Fencing - Flies On You (Bandcamp)

bury your feet, shave your head

Maybe I will feel this way in ten years...

 

If I had heard Makthaverskan's eponymous debut album when it was released back in 2009 I think I'd have been spinning crazy in love and telling anyone who cared to listen that, hey, this is a bruising, blistering, brittle and bitter sound that somewhere echoes with the souped-up, thrashed out post-punk ghosts of Pauline Murray & The Invisible Girls and The Organ. Especially on the beguiling 'Enough': a song that bristles with the forlorn passions and hapless obsessions of youth growing up into the tentative, unknown shadows of adulthood. On their recently released second album (the imaginatively titled 'Makthaverskan II') they sound less post, more punk and whilst I miss the edgy empty spaces between the thrashing guitars and keyboards there is no denying that they sound even angrier with the world. As though those shadows of adulthood turned out to be filled with demons and monsters. And if there is a startlingly repetitious use of the f-word perhaps it is by way of retreating back to the places you can never go back to. Or maybe they just grew their hair, drank more alcohol, had more sex and toughened up. Whatever, today, this week, Makthaverskan sound like the finest, noisiest Pop band I've heard in ages. Fleeting love is always the fiercest.

 

 

 

 

What's Done Is Done

 

Wigan based Neil Jarvis has a pea-green cassette out on the 'On The Grind Label'. The PR suggests links to groups like Felt, Pavement and The Pastels but what I'm most reminded of is the no-fi shimmery psych of Orange Cake Mix. Lovely stuff.

 

Babbacombe

For many years I associated Babbacombe with William Golding. 'The Pyramid' was my favourite novel for a long time, all through my late teens and into my thirties. It still ranks right up there and I have a hankering to read it again. It is one those novels that is short enough to nestle down with over a weekend. 

It took me a while to realise that Babbacombe was a place, however. An Art School colleague from Paignton mentioned it was just along the coast from where she grew up, and I vowed at the time to visit it someday. So it only took me twenty five years…

I have passed Babbacombe many times in the past few years of course. Babbacombe Road rises out of Torquay and is one of my favourite hills. A Strava segment finishes just beyond the turn off into the village itself so naturally I have never felt the urge to pull over and detour along the cliffside promenade. Such a shame, for I realise now it is quite lovely, with dramatic views. Never so dramatic as last week when we visited on the morning after a significant landslip that left the sea coloured red and an already damaged house half destroyed, timbers strewn on the rocks and floating on the waves whipped by the fierce Easterlies.

  

New Arrivals: Dan Mariska & The Boys Choir, Life Model and The Left Outsides

Three new arrivals this past week/weekend. First up is the Dan Mariska & The Boys Choir 7" which came all the way from Minneapolis. You may have picked up on the ace 'Stupid Fucking World' from this Unpopular mix. If so I trust you also bought your own copy of the ruby red vinyl and picked up on more of Dan's previous recordings from his Bandcamp pages. Then there's Life Model from closer to home. That would be Glasgow to be precise. So close to my old home, not so close to the present one… but certainly closer than Minneapolis. I don't know much about Life Model except that they make a lush dreampop shoegazy type of noise and that I suspect some of them might be Art School students. That suspicion is probably wide of the mark, but hey ho, in my mind all the finest things in/from Glasgow lead in some way back to the Art School. Did I ever tell you about my first visit there, when I was maybe 14? Marvelling at the weird looking students. Strawberry Switchblade playing in the Vic Cafe (when it still WAS a cafe). Life changing and all that jazz. 

Anyway, I know I told you about the new/oldish Left Outsides album recently. Well it turns out they have some copies of their fine 'The Third Light' 7" still available, also featuring a remix of the excellent 'Deep Rivers Move In Silence - Shallow Brooks Are Noisy' by Edinburgh's FOUND. Except they'd have called it a burn.