Radio de Outono (which translates as Autum Radio, me thinks) hail from Recife, a city in north-east Brazil. I'm told they mix indie-rock with a musical style called Jovem Guarda, which popped up in Brazil in the late 60's, a style dominated by naive lyrics and bubble-gum pop melodies. To be sure Radio de Outono produce insanely happy and melodic songs, my favorite being "Além da Razão", a title which the Google Translation Machine happily burped up as "Alem of the Razao" the first time I tried it, but then, with a little more common sense on my behalf, translates as "Beyond the Reason". Apart from an insanely catchy chorus, an overdoze of keyboard solos and a Big Muff effect-pedal on the bass, it also has some heart-stopping "stops" in the latter half of the song. An absolut must-listen.

The band has stubbornly refused to reply to my email, so that's about all I know, though it seems they released an album at some time. You know, I'd like to buy it, if you happen to know where I might order it.

Radio de Outono - Além da Razão

Video for Além da Razão on YouTube
Video for Sabe-Tudo on YouTube (the most insanely upbeat song I've heard in a long while)

Visit them on MySpace

Summershine was an Australian indie pop label run by Jason Reynolds with the remit of releasing classic indie pop pop records. Reynolds eventually relocated the label to America and in 1996 Slumberland Records released Just A Taste compiling some of the labels finer moments.

The Sugargliders may be the best known band to many from the label as they released a number of singles on Sarah. However the label did also put out an album, in conjunction with UK's Heavenly Records, by East Village as well.

I plan to run a short series on releases from this label which leads on from the series on Aussie & Kiwi indie pop run last year. Sadly my knowledge on the bands is minimal to say the least. So if anyone has any information about Tender Engines, Blindside & Autohaze can they contact me via the site's address and let me know.

In the meantime you can enjoy some of the tracks from It's A Taste:

The Sugarglides - Give Me Some Confidence

Jupiter - Leave The Ground

More tracks can be found here.

The Yankee Dollar are just the latest in a long line of bands who have taken their inspirations from Phil Spector and 1960's Girl bands, a sound that is becoming increasingly popular (again) these days.

Shana Lehar provides the voice whilst Mike Munywoki provides the sound and the band have just started recording. I suppose living in different cities does have it's drawbacks!

The tracks available on My Space are very much work in progress. Alongside the obvious Spector influences there are also suggestions of Broadcast as well as various strands of indie pop. Lehar's voice is very similar to that of Trish Keenan, Broadcast's vocalist. These tracks have much to recommend them especially as they hint at promise and potential. I wish they will change the colour scheme on their My Space page though!

The Yankee Dollar - Spent the Day At Sandy Lake

[My Space link]

After slowly building up a fan base in their native Leeds, heavy gigging as well as cybersphere support from many blogs and e-zines Sky Larkin deliver the goods on their debut 7" single.

There is certainly a lot of bite on One Of Two with guitars that punch way above their weight and Katie Holmes vocals, which were impressive enough on the early demo's, far exceed expectations with her forceful but melodious voice. Young Lungs is not as infectious as the a-side but is still shows far more promise than the same ol' unimaginative bands the NME try to force down your throats on a weekly basis.

Only time will tell if the band will fulfil their potential but this single provides assurances to the good.

The single is out now on Dance To The Radio or you can buy it in digital format from Rough Trade.

[My Space link]

I was wading through some old records tonight, and suddenly got this longing for old treasured songs that I value much, so I dragged a couple of them forth for your listening enjoyment.

I guess a whole lot of you have seen the movie To Sir With Love.
If not, check it out. Apart from being a decent tear-jerking feel-good movie, what grabbed me the most was the songs, and one of them, probably more than any other songs, stressed for me the importance of cheesy backing vocals, namely "It's getting harder all the time" by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders.

The Mindbenders also had a better known hit called "The Game of Love", and Wayne Fontana is probably still going strong, though his "official web site" isn't telling me anything useful right now.

Wayne Fontana and The Mindbenders - It's getting harder all the time

About the same time on the other side of the pond, american teenager's were pounding away on their instruments in various garages. The Back from the Grave compilations do a decent job of compiling catchy songs played with more enthusiasm than skill, by youngsters who insisted on playing wether they could or not. Usually worse played and recorded than their british counterparts, and usually a whole lot louder and faster, and yet incorporating the whole wonderful cheesy backing-vocals thing, there's a good many fun songs on these albums. I'd like to introduce you to one of these that should be right up the twee-alley at least:

One Way Streets - We all love peanut butter

Check out the Back from the Grave series
Get into the groove with The Mindbenders

And that's enough of old stuff for tonight!

The Revelations may be the only band played on BBC Radio Two I may feature on indie mp3! They have been in the news today being one of the bands that are forcing the BBC to change the way it structures it's playlist. The Beeb used used to play songs in advance prior to the shop release dates but since the chart rules have changed to allow downloads the BBC are now looking at acts with potential internet download sales and prior to any sales of any physical medium.

The Revelations, who are unsigned, are one such band and the BBC have given their new single B List status which guarantees at least 10 plays a week. They may well be the second unsigned band to break the top 40 following rockers Koopa who managed the feat earlier this month. However unlike Koopa The Revelations have plenty to endear themselves to indie mp3 readers with their take on 1960's girl groups. After giving their four tracks a listen on My Space they are pretty similar to The Pipettes, Lucky Soul, The Positions and The Carrots albeit with a more commercial edge. I am also wondering is there any more room in the world for yet another 1960's inspired Girl band and based on this evidence the answer seems to be yes.

Their début single If I Called You On The Telephone is scheduled for release on the 12th February 2007. You can view the video for it here.

[My Space link]

Gimme Shelter was a video that readers of the now defunct Melody Maker could send away for when it was released in 1987. Sadly my copy long went missing but last year a copy was sent to me on DVD by a kindly fellow blogger.

xPQwRTz has written about the video previously and I have taken the track listing from Crayola's page. He certainly is correct in calling it V87!

john peel/loop - introduction/spin
shop assisitants - i don't wanna be friends with you
talulah gosh - talulah gosh
14 iced bears - balloon song (live footage)
pastels - crawl babies
big black - fish fry (live footage)
world domination enterprises - hotsy girl
sperm wails - lady chatterley
dragsters - i'm not an american
laugh - paul mccartney
3 action - i get around
close lobsters - never seen before
bmx bandits - what a wonderful world
bats - made up in blue
wedding present - you should always keep in touch with your friends
ac temple - ulterior
wolfhounds - cruelty
mctells - virginia mc
verlaines - doomsday
mighty lemon drops - out of hand
that petrol emotion - keen
jesus and marychain - never understand
membranes - kennedy 63 (live footage)
june brides - in the rain
chills - i love my leather jacket
telelvision personalities - the painted word
sonic youth - schizophrenia (live footage)
pigbros - excessive
janitors - wall star
pop will eat itself - sweet sweet pie
bambi slam - don't it make you feel
stump - buffalo
soup dragons - can't take no more
james taylor quartet - blow up
loop - outro/spin

The only place you would have caught any of these videos was when they ran the indie chart on the Chart Show. However this was every three or four weeks. I certainly don't ever recall seeing these videos elsewhere not even on The Tube.

The only other video I had which was as near to this was the CND Carry On Disarming which was via the NME.

I have extracted the audio from the DVD copy and converted it to mp3. I have done my best to reduce the noise etc so bear in mind that these were originally from a video before be transferred to DVD and then to digital audio. Some tracks do suffer slightly with excess noise which I guess was introduced when the original was converted to digital video but that's part of the fun right?

Gimme Shelter - Part One
Gimme Shelter - Part Two

Remember these are mp3's of the tracks and not the videos. You can view the majority of the videos here.

Sadly walking down London's Strand these days and other parts of the city not much has changed in a number of aspects relating to homelessness during the past twenty years. If you downloaded and enjoyed these tracks then I ask you to make a donation to Shelter. Even a couple of quid will help.

I used:

Audio Only DVD Ripping Guide
Cleaning Up Audio Files With Audacity

An Italian label, My Honey Records, has just released a compilation CD featuring f.e. Luisa Mandou um Beijo, The Smittens, Celestial, Mutt Ramon, Mocca, The Shermans, Watoo Watoo, Locas in Love and lots of other bands, all in all 20 bands from all over the world. The songs all have a common theme, namely bees and/or honey.



Should you fancy a copy, contact Paolo at info@myhoney.it.

Complete tracklisting

Letterbox Records have made freely available two digital download singles to promote up and coming album releases.

The first single is by California Snow Story the band formed by David Skirving who was a founder member of Camera Obsura. Since their only single release, 2002's One Good Summer EP the band has undergone line up changes and David was joined by Sandra who was previously a member of Spanish band Superété.

It's titled Suddenly Everything Happens and is a taster for the forthcoming album Close to The Ocean. It's a lovely little track and if the album maintains the quality of this download single then we are in for a treat indeed.

California Snow Story - Suddenly Everything Happens

Two ex members of the band formed The Hermit Crabs who I wrote about here.

The second single is from Morning Bride who are based in my home borough of Hackney. The line up includes two American girls and three English musicians who apparently come from English seaside towns beginning with B. This isn't indie pop at all but is a mix of folk , blues and Alt-Americana that is quite popular with bands on labels such as Track & Field and Truck Records at the moment.

Time Delay is taken from the forthcoming Lea Valley Delta Blues album that is due for release on February 12th 2007. It's country music for the inner city.

Morning Bride - Time Delay

[My Space link]

The results of Scatterbrains Royal Court Of Twee are now in and you can view them here complete with an mp3 of each band that made the top 10.

Here's a blast from the Icelandic underground past. I recently dug this CD out of my collection and realizing I had not listened to it in many years, I gave it a well deserved proper listening to, and it's a darn fun CD, so I wanted to share it with someone. Realizing I knew virtually nothing about the band I got the singer to answer a few questions, and without furter ado I present you with PPPönk (PPPunk).

The Kid hail from Gothenburg, Sweden and unlike the majority of other Swedish bands featured on this site they are not inspired by C86 or jangle pop taking their cue from Joy Division and New Order instead.

Their later stuff is more influenced by the latter although with the female vocalist it is more reminiscent of The Other Two. Whilst this sort of music has gone around at least twice for an old 'un like me it may be well a breath of fresh air for the generation of today discovering 1980's influenced music for the first time.

Of the three tracks on offer I prefer the Joy Division inspired Kit Club Hotel.

The Kid - Kit Club Hotel
The Kid - Portion Control
The Kid - The Noble Art Of Jealousy

[My Space link]

Last August I ran a series of posting demos and live shows from a number of Sarah bands. I picked these up from a range of sources so thanks to whoever they originated from. The links on the original posts have since expired and following a number of requests here they are again:

Another Sunny Day - Demos (20mb)

When I first posted these demos Harvey Williams left a comment on the original post about the demos.

Haven't heard these demos for a while; some of them sound pretty uninspired. I guess that's why they never came out. Anyway, here's some recording dates... Eternal recorded august 1986; Her Friend & Who's To Blame (not the real title, can't remember what the real title is) recorded september 1988; I Want You recorded june 1986; It's OK If You Don't Love Me & The Boy From St Ives (a cover of a song by Penzance legends The Choughs) recorded feb 1987; What's Wrong...gosh, I'm not sure I remember... spring 1987, probably. All recorded on a Fostex x15; this is about as good as they ever sounded.

Brighter - Demos (23mb)
Brighter - Live 1991 (23mb)
Field Mice - Demos (54mb)
Field Mice - Live (78mb)
Field Mice - Radio Shows & Demos (104mb)

Anglo Svensk Promotions has been set up by Cath English who was one of the promoters of the Sweden Made Me club night. Like the club it's operations centre around Brighton and it's aim is to bring Swedish artists over the UK to play.

The next night is Sunday 4th February 2007 with Lisa Li-Lund (Herman Dune) playing. If you live in Brighton I'm not sure what excuse you have for not going! Details of future events can be found here.

Säkert! is the band put together by Annika Norlin aka Hello Saferide. Joining her are members of Vapnet, Laakso and Isolation Years. Whilst I am not that great a fan of Hello Saferide based on this exclusive track from Swedes Please I can say I can say I am well taken with her new project which sees the band singing in their native Swedish.

The Popguns were a Brighton based band who were described, rather unfairly I thought, as The Wedding present with a female vocalist. It didn't help that ex Weddoes drummer Shaun Charmen was a member of the band alongside vocalist Wendy Morgan, guitarists Simon Pickles and Greg Dixon and Pat Walkington on bass.

The band emerged in 1988 making the festive 50 with their debut single Landslide. This was followed by two more singles and their debut album Eugenie which was arguably their best effort in 1990. Charmen left after 1991's Snog album which saw the band leaving for the 3rd Stone label where they released two more albums but by this point interest in the band had waned. They called it quits after their final single Harley Davidson was released in 1996.

There were rumours of a reunion a few years ago but nothing materialised but new interest in the band was generated when Waiting For The Winter was included on the Rough Trade indie pop compilation.

The tracks here is an official live recording (on cassette) which was given away to fans at one of the bands gigs.

The Popguns - Official Live Tape (62mb) Download here.

For an introduction to the band, which rounds up the earlier (and better!) part of their career you should pick up the Another Year, Another Address compilation which is available on Cherry Red. You can pick up their 3rd Stone Recordings here.

My indie mp3 colleague Magnus wrote about about Brazilian band Luisa Mandou um Beijo in October 2005 and I must admit that I did not pay that much attention at the time. However whilst reading through some of the posts on Think Small I found out that the band have released their 2005 debut self titled album as a free release on the Aregueifa net label and, as I had nothing to lose, downloaded the album. And I am glad that I did!

This is indie pop at the top of it's game. It features wonderful vocals provided by female vocalist Flávia Muniz complete with a horn section that makes most, if not all of these songs infectious listening. This is one enjoyable album. Don't worry about the band singing it their native Portuguese as indie pop as high quality as this surpasses any language constraints.

Luisa Mandou um Beijo - Amarelinha
Luisa Mandou um Beijo - Bauhaus Today

Head here to download the rest of the album.

[My Space link]

Hello, i'm Russ. I'm new round here. I got to know Tom through him buying releases from my label, Freedom Road Records. He's asked me to return the favour and review some CDs for him, so here we are.

Field Music – A House Is Not A Home (Memphis Industries)

Field Music are a band I’d always written off in the past as the Futureheads annoying little cousins. Turns out I was way wrong, as the evidence in the single proves. There’s still an element of wonkyness to the single, as you might expect from a band that had spent so much time with the Futureheads (and indeed shared band members), but they’ve taken this one step further and turned into something far more intriguing than their counterparts. There’s a very seventies soft rock feel to it, but with twists and turns, and even elements of prog but with the knowledge of when to hold back and stick in a melody. Field Music have done an incredible thing and come up with something that sounds like nothing else around, an intricate pop single with a difference.

Piskie Sits – The Secret Sickliness (Wrath Records)

The debut Piskie Sits album wears its alt. American rock influences on its sleeve loud and proud. It starts off in fine fashion with the Pavement aping ‘No Hidden Chord’ complete with big multi vocalled chorus and ‘Big Fat Mouth’, all fuzzy melodies and a hint of the deranged mess that was the Vines. The problem is, like so many albums nowadays there’s little of substance in that which follows. Not that it’s bad, if consistent deranged slacker pop is your bag you’ll be happy, its just that nothing else stands out particularly.

Starflower – Moment In The Sun (Music Is My Girlfriend)

The debut from Starflower, a Finnish four piece, is a delightful album that slipped under the radar last summer. It’s at turns ramshackle and naïve, then accomplished and far-reaching. There’s echoes of Suburban Kids With Biblical Names and fey eighties disco pop, but it can also be lush and pastoral. The vocalist has that lovely light murmur that David Gedge employs to such great effect and this compliments the music perfectly. While not quite in the league of Field Music, this is another great example of how pop doesn’t always have to be simple, it can be a great multi-layered joy too.

Crayola at xPQwRtz has put together another couple of compilations featuring the singles and album tracks he cannot live without. There are plenty of songs here and it makes me even more determined to get my turntable fixed.

You may think xPQwRtz - what type of name is that? Well head here and download the peel session version of the track by Big Flame that gave it's name to the blog. By the way explore this site as there are plenty of other Peel sessions and tracks from bands from the C86 era. And not the so called twee ones either!

One Two Twee An Indiepop Retrospective was apparently a bootlegged compilation from 2004. Never heard of it? Funny enough neither have I. You can download it in it's three disc entirety. Part one can be found here and part two and three can be found here.

Pop Will Eat My Blog is a new fantastically named blog on me which sorts of does what the old indie mp3 site used to. Plenty to download here including The Mighty Lemon Drops Like An Angel 12" as well as dance mixes of Altered Images Pinky Blue.

The world's tiniest record label, Hugpatch, has just released two "7 singles with The Besties and Nosoträsh. You can listen to the songs on Hugpatch's Myspace page to begin with. After initial listening I particularily like "Rod 'n Reel" by The Besties, who have aquired a drummer since last release. I've never heard Nosoträsh before, but they sound pretty cool and have hitherto also released a copious amount of stuff on Elefant Records.

I wrote about Trucker Cleavage way back in November 2005 where I described their music as a of a bit mix and match. By their own admission things have been pretty quiet since then but the band have recently come back on the horizon with the news that they have been nominated as best unsigned act at the Swedish indie grammy awards.

To celebrate this fact the band have made available as a download what they call their signature song titled Imaginary Friend . It is not that bad a song with the vocals of Jonas Jakobsson being a highlight. Actually on second thoughts (and listens)it's pretty catchy and reminds me of Idlewild's You Held The World In Your Arms for some strange reason.

Trucker Cleavage - Imaginary Friend

[My Space link]

I will try to write more about this when I have gathered some more information, but it looks great doesn´t it?

Check out this link to read more about it: www.myspace.com/indietracks

A Smile And A Ribbon have been picked up by one or two blogs recently so I thought I had better keep up with the Jones'!

They are a Swedish (Malmo & Lund) duo consisting of Rebecca Mehlman & Martin Lindqvist. They also get friends to play with them on live dates.

Although I was tempted not to use the word twee to describe them I am afraid I didn't try hard enough and that's exactly what the band sound like. Rebecca's vocals have more than a touch of the Amelia Fletchers about them and their sound does lean to that of Talulah Gosh for the most part although The Softies also spring to mind. The songs deal with relationships & the troubles they bring.

A Smile And A Ribbon - Book Cover
A Smile And A Ribbon - Pebbles

Another track One Night Wonder is available for streaming from the Shelflife My Space page. Shelflife will be releasing the debut record by the band later this year.

[My Space link]

Somewhat train spotterish I was collecting all the bumph I could find relating to CD86 and the 20th anniversary gigs at the ICA and thought it would be a good idea to place them on this site. If you know of any more let me know. I have a few text files to go up as well.

CD86 Release Flyer



Animated Banner



The Flyer for the Gigs



CD86 Cover



E-card banner



CD86 - ecard
CD86 Press Release (pdf)
Bob Stanley article on Where Were You In C86? from The Times

[My Space link]

Labrador are releasing an 4 CD set compiling their 10 years as a label. They will be taking one track from every release they have put out. The release will also see a booklet of the labels history complete with interviews and comments on each track. You can pre-order it here.

The track listing can be downloaded from here (pdf) Plenty of mp3's can be downloaded from their sounds page.

I have been reading the Unpopular blog recently which is written by Alistair Fitchett who is responsible for the Tangents website.

One band who he has written about is Charming. The article reminded me that when I wrote about The Positions debut album back in September 2006 I meant to investigate Charming because both bands share the same lead vocalist in the shape of Nicole Stoops.

Thankfully I didn't have to search to hard because all of Charming's deleted releases are available as downloads on the bands site as well as tracks from those still in print. I listened to the four tracks available from 2001's Champagne and Magazines as well as listening to the My Space streams of tracks taken from last years Turn Down The Lights

The music is not a million miles away from what The Positions are producing although not so heavily Dexy's Midnight Runners influenced. However one thing which struck me about the 2001 tracks is how similar they sound to Lucky Souls output from the past year especially on You Were Not Meant For Me. Judging by the three tracks from Turn Down The Lights the band are heading towards a more mature mix of sixties girl bands and a northern soul sound especially on The Working Man and the wonderful I Was Wrong. I guess their music would be the perfect soundtrack to How Does It Feel To Be Loved.

Charming - You Were Not Meant For Me

[My Space link]

PS: After writing this article I found that I was sent a digital promo copy of Turn Down The Lights in November (whoops) and after listening to the album it reinforces what I have said above. The album will certainly appeal to fans of Saint Etienne, Lucky Soul, The Pipettes and all things indie pop. Details of where to purchase their albums can be found here.

It's been a while since the last indie mp3 podcast - since last October in fact. Hopefully this selection of tunes will more than make up for it.

Days - Simple things
Celestial - Fragile Heart
Airport Girl - I've Seen Mexico
The Manhatten Love Suicides - Things You've Never Done
Baby Calendar - Lemon Snaps
Fanfarlo - Fire Escape
Annemarie - Bubblegum I See
A Smile & A Ribbon - Pebbles
The How - I Was A Boy
Patience Please - Unpublished
The Crabapples - London Belongs To me (Pt 2)
Cause Co-Motion - Which Way Is Up

Subscribe to the podcast here by cutting and pasting the link into your podcast client or download direct (21mb)

All tracks were made freely available by the artists or labels prior to the podcast being assembled!

Here's a band I predict will be going places in 2007. Inspired by f.e. Henry Mancini and Burt Bacharach, The Postmarks will be releasing their debut album in february on the Unfiltered Records label. Here's a snippet of information from their Myspace page:

With nods to French pop and Brian Wilson's orchestral arrangements, The Postmarks believe they can rekindle the love affair people once had for beautiful music and well-crafted songs about the trials and tribulations of life. Christopher Moll and Jonathan Wilkins combined their love of the elegant and dreamy soundtracks of John Barry, the soothing and sophisticated sounds of Burt Bacharach and the passionate and poetic nature of The Smiths.

I am extremely fond of their song "Goodbye", although the other two songs available aren't doing as much for me, yet. But judge for yourselves.

The Postmarks - Goodbye
The Postmarks - Every day is Halloween
The Postmarks - Winter, spring, summer, fall

You can also stream the album in it's entirety and there you can also watch a video for "Goodbye".

Skatterbrain have posted the ballot for the Royal Court Of Twee vote it is running. Five bands from the twenty four listed will be selected as the Royal Court. Pointless but fun!

One thing that did interest me was this post on the defunct Yarn & Glue blog that Matt linked to. The writer who was probably under five years old or not even born when "C86" was compiled states that "C86" is a sub genre of twee. So Bogshed, A Witness, Stump, Big Flame etc are a subset of twee. I don't think so somehow! Any thoughts?

Moving swiftly on the C86 All Stars have posted videos of all the songs they played at the C86 night last December. You can view them all on their My Space page. It makes interesting viewing!

Finally Shredding Paper have listed 20 Reasons That 2006 Didn't Suck.

As I said yesterday I have been making my way through some of the bands who were unknown to me prior to the results of the Twee Net 2006 Poll.

Some have been pretty disappointing including the wonderfully monikored Casper & The Cookies who sadly don't sound as good as their name. There again they have been around for years so I doubt they will notice me missing. I have heard some good things previously regarding London's The Argonauts. The music was 1960's tinged but the songs I listened to dulled the senses. Maybe they are better live.

Things picked up bit with a couple of good songs from Seattle's Patience Please who play what could be described as power pop which is influenced by an electric organ which is an instrument most American bands I have seen recently have used in their set. Whilst I am tempted to say that makes them all sound alike the vocals and harmonies give some distinction to Patience Please which makes them worthy of investigation in the future.

They have a record available from Jigsaw Records.

Patience Please - Little Mouthfuls
Patience Please - Unpublished

[My Space link}

Cause Co-Motion remind me of the old new wave records I have in my collection. That is the British definition of term which refers to bands that quickly followed punk in search of a quick buck (pound?) or two rather than the synth driven bands which those across the pond generally refer to as new wave. Back to the music and it's pretty frantic stuff but whilst not absolutely necessary in my life left me with a smile on my face anyway.

Cause Co-Motion - Which Way Is Up

[My Space link]

I couldn't find anything regarding the final band in this round up, Moscow Olympics who were obviously named after an Orange Juice song. It is not often I want to listen to a band because of their name so if anyone knows any web presence of them where I can listen to a song or two please let me know!

I have been making my way through the internet searching out some of the bands that were new to me as a result of the Twee Net 2006 Poll. One such band was Baby Calendar who were voted the best new band of 2006.

The band hail from Miami and thankfully don't sound like a beat machine. They have released three albums to date with the first two being self released. The latest one was Gingerbread Dog and was released last year on Happy Birthday To Me Records. I am not sure where to place the band. On listening to the tracks that they have made available they are certainly on the rockier side of indie pop. They have a fuzzy guitar sound with shared boy/girl vocals although I have to admit I prefer the songs where Jackie takes the lead. More admirably, whilst reading about them on their website, the band seem to possess a punky/DIY ethos to their approach which sits fine with me.

I prefer the songs from their last effort which seem to be a bit poppier to me especially Lemon Snaps which is the best of the songs they have on offer. One band worth checking out but I am not sure they are worthy of being called the best new band of 2006 based on the listening evidence available.

Baby Calendar - Lemon Snaps

[My Space link]

If you are in London Town on Saturday 10th February 2007 come along to the 10 Year Plan. It's at the Enterprise in Chalk Farm and it is free entry. I will be spinning some tunes alongside Chimes and Billy Reeves. Should be a good one!

It seems that it's The Electric Pop group weekend here on indie mp3! Magnus posted his thoughts yesterday and my review of the album follows.

Taking their inspiration from "C86" and the early releases on Subway and Creation, Gothenburg's The Electric Pop Group sound like they could have come from Bristol 20 years ago. Indeed they hark back to this age in a manner that their nearest contemporaries like Sambassadeur fail to do. The music is not that far off from the likes of The Field Mice, Another Sunny Day or The Clouds and singer Martin sounds uncannily like Gregory Webster (The Razorcuts) during many parts of the album.

However the band are far removed from being copyist and they have more than enough characteristics of their own to make a distintive impression on the listener. From the opening track Popgirly to the gentle closer Alone the album is full of delicate and thoughtfully crafted indie pop gems that, because of their infectious nature, you will want to play time and time again.

It's listening to records like this that give me an enthusiasm for music! An album that will impress those who were around in the mid to late eighties during jangle pop's golden age to those discovering it for the first time today.

The band have made the whole album available for streaming on Last FM. It's not licensed in the UK as of yet and your best bet is to pick it up via Swedens Fractions Disc.

[My Space link]

Well .... not surprisingly, the latest infectious pop songs to catch my (magnusk) attention come from Gothenburg, Sweden. I've been seeing this band's name here and there, usually along with some favorable adjectives, but never bothered to look into it, until now. The songs are laden with catchy guitars and with lyrics that pretty much sum up the whole of my love life ("I smiled when I saw that you liked the Smiths, how could I not like a girl like this..."), and the lack of one for the most part of adolescence ("I only want to be friends with you, I just don't think that I'm in love with you"). The music admittedly sounds like a whole bunch of other indie-pop bands, and likely influenced in part by Jesus and Mary Chain's lighter ballads, but the haunting adolescent lyrics are pretty well in the foreground and deservedly so. They make me seventeen again, and it's all darn catchy, cute and melancholic.

The band released their debut album last year, which can be bought from a few mail order distributors detailed on their news page.

The Electric Pop Group - Popgirly
The Electric Pop Group - Why can't you
The Electric Pop Group - She's playing with your heart

The Sexual Objects are the new band formed by Davy Henderson formerly of The Fire Engines, Win and Nectarine No 9. They have just released their début single as a digital download (from the Rough Trade Digital Store) and it is also going to be released as a 7" single on The Creeping Bent label on February 12th 2007. It's a double a-side with the tracks being Full Penetration and Midnight Boycow.

I have just played the single just the once and on first impressions it's typical of Henderson's previous work and is near to The Fire Engines sound that any of his subsequent bands have come. That's to say it's pretty good!

Available for a bargain £1.75 (320 k/bits mp3) from Rough Trade.

I know very little about The Jennifers apart from what I have read online today. Their debut LP - "Nine Days Wonder" was released back in 1994. The band broke up in the middle of recording their 2nd LP - "Book Of Bad Advice" in 1997. The LP eventually surfaced in 2002. Also in 2002 a new version of The Jennifers was born - and they have a 3rd LP due for release on Beef Platter Records on the 16th January. There ends todays brief history lesson.

So what are The Jennifers like? I have been listening to the 2002 release - "Book Of Bad Advice" and the new LP which is titled "Colors From The Future" and I have been most impressed with the guitar pop on show. A little more ballsy than the twee bands and a little more twee than indie rock bands, The Jennifers pull off intelligent guitar pop. But don't take my word for it - download these MP3s.

The Jennifers - Lazy Stalker from the new LP - "Colors From The Future"
The Jennifers - Sleeping Weather (my space link) from the 2002 LP - "Book Of Bad Advice"

The band also have some tracks for streaming on their My Space page.

EDIT - The 'Sleeping Weather' link doesn't seem to be working now. It worked for me earlier - so i'll leave the download link there - just in case it comes back to life. Oh the joys of My Space.

Scottish seven piece Butcher Boy follow up their appearance on the Kids At The Club Compilation with another two releases on the How Does It Feel To Be Loved record label.

They will release their debut album Profit In Your Poetry on March 5th 2007. It will be however be preceded by a digital single titled Girls Make Me Sick which will be appropriately released on Valentines Day on i-tunes and the HDIFTBL indie store in high quality digital formats.

There have already been some great words said about the album and based on the single and the compilation track I cannot agree more. I can hear aspects of some of my favourite artists here (Orange Juice, The Smiths, Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, Camera Obscura etc) but at the end of the day the only identity is their own and that is helped in no small part by John Hunt's vocal performance which go well against the lush, orchestral sounding music.

As a treat here is a preview of the single:

Butcher Boy - Girls Make Me Sick

John Hunt fronts the band and he runs The Cult National Pop League in Glasgow. They will be playing their début London show on February 9th. Tickets for the gig, which is at the Brixton Windmill can be purchased here. You can pre-order the album here.

[My Space link]