Reviews

Cool in a Crisis: Sweater Girls + The History of Apple Pie

Posted on October 26, 2010 by Knut in Recommended Releases, Reviews | 1 Comment

Cool In A Crisis is a new London-based cassette tape label run by people who previously were involved in great clubnights like Baby Honey and Twee As F**k. The label-name comes from one of the DIY-signs The Pooh Sticks used on stage at their 2010 Indietracks-performance, and if I may add, – it really fits, because this is a really cool project, crisis or not.
Every release is a split EP, featuring a band on either side. There will only be 100 cassettes pressed with each release, complete with a silkscreened silver-coated sleeve and a mini-zine.

The first release on Cool In A Crisis features the bands SWEATER GIRLS (4 songs) and THE HISTORY OF APPLE PIE (3 songs), and it will be released on Monday, November 15th. You can order it from their website, and if you follow them on twitter, I’m sure you will get the latest updates on this and future releases.

So, is it any good? YES IT IS!!

Sweater Girls have been on high rotation in my player since they released their “Do the Sweater” EP earlier this year, and the new songs are even better. The Los Angeles quintet, which by the way also have two boys in their line-up, play super catchy indiepop full of charm, with rough, jangly guitars, “ba-ba-ba” choruses and glockenspiels, – and lots of sweaters in their lyrics and song-titles. All the four songs on their side of the cassette are really good, with the amazing “Return Address” as my favourite. Sweater Girls have been called a “full band Softies” by Indie Pages, and I can agree on that. They have much of the same songwriting-qualities as Rose Melberg and her The Softies. Highly recommended!

Sweater Girls – Return Address by eardrums

On side two of the cassette, we find 3 songs by London’s The History of Apple Pie, a band unknown to me before this. I was very pleasantly surprised when I heard this. Their part of the release includes 3 really good songs with beautiful vocal harmonies, lots of warmth and very good melodies. After hearing Sweater Girls fantastic A-side, I thought “the B-side can’t possibly match this”, but it is at least equally good. Their track “Mallory” is amazing!
The band was originally formed as a duo by sweethearts Jerome Watson (Hatcham Social) and Stephanie Min earlier this year, but it’s now a full 4-piece band. I have to say Highly recommended! on this one too…

The History of Apple Pie – Mallory by eardrums

The Felt Tips – Living and Growing

Posted on October 22, 2010 by Knut in Recommended Releases, Reviews | Comments Off

A lot of indiepop’ers have been waiting for a full-length release from The Felt Tips, and so have I. The Glasgow-band have shown signs of their greatness on a couple of singles and EPs before this, and soon we can put a full cd with the band in our players. The cd is called “Living and Growing” and includes 10 far above the average indiepop-songs. When I first got hooked on this band, it was their wonderful melodies and their honest lyrics that hit my heart. I still love them for that, but on their new album, they also have a wonderful warmth in their sound that hasn’t been as clear before. I love the sound of their songs…

I’ve got a lot of favourites on this album, but songs like “Garden of Roses”, “Not tonight” and “A Life More Ordinary” may rage above the others.
Their song “Dear Morrissey” is probably the one that has been mentioned in most blogs after the release, and it deserves the attention it has received. It’s great as a song, and the lyrics say a lot about how many of us old Smiths-fans feel about Morrissey today. A disappointed love-song.

The Felt Tips – Dear Morrissey by eardrums

Their wonderful storytelling and above all their honesty in their lyrics makes me feel that I know these guys. I like lots of different songs and bands, but I LIKE The Felt Tips.

“Living and Growing” is one of the indiepop-must-have’s of 2010. It will be available in the shops from November 15.

Check out the excellent blog A Layer Of Chips’ interview with the band, here.

Northern Portrait – Life returns to normal

Posted on October 22, 2010 by Knut in Nordic music, Recommended Releases, Reviews | Comments Off

Northern Portrait is back with a new single on Matinée Recordings, “Life Returns To Normal” with a cover of Cliff Richard‘s “Some People” on the b-side. The lead track is one of my favourites from their debut album, with those lovely, bubbling guitars underneath Stefan’s rich and powerful vocals. The lyrics are also outstanding, as usual, and the chorus gives me the wonderful warm feeling inside that only GREAT songs can.

Their cover of “Some People” is maybe the most interesting on the single for most listeners. I guess most people who buy this one already own the band’s debut-album, so the lead track is already in their music archives. “Some People” is definitively worth buying the single for on its own. It’s one of those covers who manage to show you the great songwriting that lies behind a dull original recording. It sounds far from the glossy 80s version of Cliff Richard, and the band has managed to make it their own. It sounds like Northern Portrait, not Cliff Richard. Their label-mates Cats on Fire did the same thing with White Town’s “Your Woman” earlier this year, on their brilliant “Dealing in Antiques”-album.

The single is limited to 1000 hand-numbered copies pressed on clear vinyl and comes with a free MP3 download code. You can order it now from the Matinée shop.

Here’s the lead track:

Northern Portrait – Life returns to normal

Maple Leaves – Golden Ether

Posted on October 15, 2010 by Knut in Recommended Releases, Reviews | Comments Off

Glasgow’a Maple Leaves have been one of my loved bands for some time now. They have released two wonderful singles, “”Kirsty/Easy Speak in 2009 and “Tapestry” in June 2010. Now they’re back with a full EP on Bubblegum Records. The EP is named after the opening track, “Golden Ether”, a lovely, folky indiepop song with piano and acoustic guitars as key elements. Another good one is “What a day”, with boy/girl vocals and guitars as powerful as acoustic guitars can be.

The EP does not offer something completely new to the world of pop, but it surfs well on waves from the 60s and 70s. I’m sure this EP will probably be listed as “indiepop” everywhere, but its folk and 70s pop influences are probably even closer. It’s a really nice listen. The EP is released on Bubblegum Records on October 20.

You can and should get both their previous singles too. They’re available from Bandcamp.
http://mapleleaves.bandcamp.com/

Here’s the video for the title track:

Tiny Fireflies – free digital single on EardrumsPop

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Knut in Recommended Releases, Songs | Comments Off

We’re extremely proud to present the first free digital single on our netlabel EardrumsPop: Tiny Fireflies.
This is Lisle and Kristine from Very Truly Yours‘ new side-project (- or Kristine from Tiny Microphone and Lisle from Fireflies). The single includes three lovely, dreamy indiepop songs (one of them a cover of Skeeter Davis’ 60s hit “The End Of The World”, inspired by Claudine Longet’s version of it). As usual, the cover art is outstanding, – this time made by the UK illustrator Minkee. The booklet is also a treat for the eyes, made by German illustrator Julia Pax.

You can download and stream the single from here (incl. cover art and booklet):
http://www.eardrumspop.com/2010/10/10/epop005-tiny-fireflies/

Read the interview with Minkee here:
http://www.eardrumspop.com/about-2/our-illustrators/minkee/

…and check out the booklet here:
http://www.eardrumspop.com/about-2/our-illustrators/minkee/

We have a collaboration with the photo-interview website A Negative Narrative, where they interview our single-artists. Here is their interview with Tiny Fireflies, – questions asked in words, answers made with photographs.

We hope you like it, and would love to hear your reactions!

The Maladies of Bellafontaine – “Black Biro”

Posted on October 10, 2010 by Knut in Recommended Releases | Comments Off

This song, “Black Biro” by The Maladies of Bellafontaine, has been on constant rotation recently, both on my home stereo and in my head when the stereo is off. It was released on Static Caravan in September, and should be available in most good digital shops now. The physical version of the 7″ (limited to 400 copies on purple wax) can be bought from the label’s website. Both songs on their single are really good, so this is highly recommended. If you have access to Spotify, check it out here.

Plastic Flowers with single on BEKO today

Posted on October 4, 2010 by Knut in Recommended Releases, Songs | Comments Off

Plastic Flowers have released a free single on BEKO DSL today. It’s really good, and one of my favourite BEKO singles so far. You can download the single from BEKO’s website, and if you want to know more about this artist, you can read a blog-post I wrote about him some weeks ago.
Enjoy!

Kiss Kiss Fantastic | Optimist Park

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Knut in Bandprofile, Recommended Releases, Songs | Comments Off

I’ve been enjoying the music of Kiss Kiss Fantastic for a while, and now I’m completely in love with the music of Optimist Park. Why do I mention these bands in the same post? Optimist Park is the solo-project of Jeremy from Kiss Kiss Fantastic, so I thought this was a great opportunity to finally write about both these bands on Eardrums.

Kiss Kiss Fantastic are Jeremy and Rachel, who live on separate ends of USA, and who according to their myspace have never met. Still, they manage to make wonderful, dreamy popsongs together. Their music is based on electronics, with lots of reverb and a psychedelic feeling all over it. They are currently working on their as yet untitled album, and I’m really looking forward to it!
Their EP “The Red/Blue Shift EP” is available for free download on their Bandcamp, – a real gem, so go and get it!
My favourite is the lovely “Violet”:

Jeremy also has his own solo-project, Optimist Park, which is a tiny bit more ambient than KKF, but equally great. It’s probably even more “my kind of music”. He has two releases for free download on Bandcamp, “More Is Less” EP from July 2010 and the new “The Werewolf” EP from September 2010. It’s more organic than Kiss Kiss Fantastic, with much use of acoustic guitars and non-electronic instruments. The electronics are still used, and his reverb-box is probably warm after a recording session with Optimist Park!

The reverbed guitars make me think of Cocteau Twins from the Victorialand era, and I sometimes just wait for Elizabeth Fraser’s vocals to appear. Jeremy’s vocals are definitely good enough, and it fits this music perfectly. Great stuff!
Both EPs are given away for free. Get it from here: http://optimistpark.bandcamp.com

New signing on Morr Music: Pascal Pinon

Posted on September 24, 2010 by Knut in Nordic music, Recommended Releases, Reviews | Comments Off

Morr Music seem to find great music to release from all over the world, but Iceland has been a country they have visited more often than many others on their releases. I can mention Benni Hemm Hemm, Borko, Múm, Seabear, Sóley, Sin Fang Bous… Have I forgotten someone? Wonderful artists, all of them. Their new signing is Pascal Pinon from Reykjavík, Iceland.
Pascal Pinon is not a man, but two girls, – the twins Jófríður and Ásthildur-, and together they make the loveliest songs.

Morr Music will release their debut-album early 2011, but already on October 15, you can get the duo’s first release on Morr’s sublabel A Number of Small Things. The single includes 3 really good lo-fi acoustic songs, recorded by the twins themselves in a house they borrowed in the small town of Vogar. All the songs on the single have a cute kind of bedroom feeling, with the twins’ lovely vocals as the key element, accompanied by acoustic guitars, glockenspiels and an occasional organ. If this single is representative for the sound and the quality of their debut album, I think we will have something to look forward to in 2011!

The cover art is by Julia Guther, who have done most Morr covers lately, and who also did a cover for our netlabel EardrumsPop a couple of years ago. Julia is also a part of the band Guther and the collaboration project Joel & Julia, who participated on the latest EardrumsPop compilation “Between Two Waves”.

Here’s a video of Pascal Pinon performing live:

Farewell 7″ single and upcoming DVD from The Lucksmiths

Posted on September 22, 2010 by Knut in Recommended Releases | Comments Off

They’re back!! Well, not for long, and only to say a proper goodbye.

The Lucksmiths have a new farewell 7″ single out later this month, with the tracks “Get-To-Bed Birds” and “The World of Professional Golf 1994″. It will be available for pre-order from the band’s labels Matinée Recordings and Lost and Lonesome in 1000 hand-numbered copies (with free mp3 download code).

The songs on the single are the two last songs the band wrote before they split a year ago, and they have both previously been available on compilations, but not on any of the band’s albums. The A-side was recorded for Matinée’s label compilation “Matinée Grand Prix”, while the B-side appeared on one edition of Australian literary journal The Lifted Brow’s collections.

Here is what songwriter Marty Donald says about the songs (from the band’s website):

“”Get-to-Bed Birds” was the last song I wrote for The Lucksmiths. Fittingly, I guess, it treads the familiar ground of treading familiar ground: the narrator wanders homeward through a suburb he once lived in at dawn on New Year’s Day. Maybe because it invites a degree of self-reflection, this seems to be an occasion that lends itself well to song — I’m thinking less of U2 here than of Matt Suggs, Dear Nora and Death Cab for Cutie — and it felt especially apt for our swansong in that it marks both the end of something, and a new beginning. The title phrase came from a remark made in the pub one night by Jeremy Cole (of our erstwhile labelmates The Zebras), which I promised at the time I would steal.

“The World of Professional Golf 1994″ was our contribution to the fourth issue of The Lifted Brow, a Melbourne-based literary journal. We were asked to be part of a “fake bookshelf” edition, where every piece took its title from a wall of painted books someone had stumbled across. Having chosen ours (for the challenge it presented, and for the fact I thought no-one else would already have taken it), a few minutes of internet research suggested that Arnold Palmer’s final appearance at the US Open was the most promising subject for the song.”

Matinée Recordings will also release a DVD, “Unfamiliar Stars”, with The Lucksmiths’ 2009 farewell shows in Australia. No release date is given, but Matinée promise an update on their website soon.

Here’s the title-track as a free download:

The Lucksmiths – Get-To-Bed Birds