Day 321.
Motorama: the most well-known Russian pop band is back with a new video for their song “Pole Star”. It is a gorgeous song, beautiful and haunting. The video’s vibe accompanies it perfectly. I dream of one day seeing them live. I doubt they’ll come to the US, so who knows…
The Young Untold: nice to stumble upon Baltimore’s The Young Untold on Bandcamp. Yeah, these recordings are not new, they date from 2008-2011. It is great crash-pop in the same being as The Faintest Ideas (who they toured with). Would be cool to do an interview sometime I think! Discover them if you don’t know them yet!
Still Dreams: two new songs by this Japanese duo are now a digital single on Elefant Records. The songs are “Live with Excuse” and “Telepathy”, both streaming on the label’s Bandcamp. Very lovely upbeat dreampop here by the duo formed by Ryuta and Maaya!
Axolotes Mexicanos: and there’s more from Elefant Records with a new song from this favourite band of mine. The song is called “Que te Pires” and there’s even a fun video for it! This song should be included in the upcoming album that will be released this year!
Aiko el Grupo: And lastly, on this quick review of Elefant Records we find the song “Amigos para Nunca (Confía y te la Lían)” by Aiko el Grupo. The song is only available digitally and has a cool video as well. Good start for the Madrid label this year.
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Time to fly to Sweden and check a very underrated band from the second part of the noughties, the Utah Rangers.
I was looking into my CD collection, especially those that came in a plastic sleeve, as those are harder to look at, as there is no spine. And of course, you guessed right, a Utah Rangers CD showed up. The only one of theirs that I own actually. Also the only one that came out on a label, their other releases were self-released. But I want to go in chronological order through their discography. So let’s do that.
The band was part of the explosion of CDr bands. Also of the explosion of Myspace bands. It was a great time for indiepop. Sweden was providing us amazing bedroom pop, lo-fi, upbeat songs. Utah Rangers was no exception.
They were a duo formed by Emil and Kristoffer. They play all the instruments in their songs including guitar, drums and synths. I am not sure where from Sweden they hailed from, but hopefully by the end of the post I’ll find out. One thing that is problematic is that there seems to be a soccer team from Utah called Utah Rangers FC. It was established back in 1982. I wonder if the band named after this club. Googling the band and filtering it not to show the soccer club is quite tricky.
Anyhow, one thing I do know is that the band started recording songs in 2006. But on Discogs the first release dates from 2007. It was a CDr called “The Golden Winter Tape” and included the songs “Far Side Galaxy”, “When the Snow Closed Down the Parks”, “Theme Song” and “You Will Be There, Outside My Window”. That same year the band released another CDr EP called “Breaking Your Heart Takes Training” which included the songs “Bad Day for a Bad Hair Day”, “March”, “Winter Suits” and “Let’s Sleep Now”. Both of these releases seem hard to track down now. I do hope to find these songs to listen.
In 2008 the band released another CDr EP. Again, all of these three releases I’ve mentioned were self-released. This one from 2008 was also self-titled and had 6 songs, “And You Will Know Us by the Eagle Slope”, “Bandit in a Box”, “Aquarium Bike Tour”, “Minor Estate”, “Sally” and “Pnts”.
The CDr I own was called “Old Statistics” and was released by the French label Anorak Records (anorakcd8). This EP actually was sort of a compilation of previously recorded songs. It included 5 of them and on the back of the sleeve it mentions who wrote the song and what year it was recorded. So, “Cracking up My Heart” was written by Emil and recorded in 2006, “Theme Song” was written by Kristoffer and recorded in 2007, “March” was written by Emil and recorded in 2007, “You and Me in a Rented Car, Two Small Bags and a Plastic Guitar” was written by Emil and recorded in 2006 and “Far Side Gallery” which was written by Emil and recorded in 2007.
Another cool thing is that they give song scores to each of the songs, ranging from Cool! all the way to Awesome!
The band also contributed songs to three compilations. The first one dates from 2007 and it was on the compilation “Club King Kong: Med Musiken i Mitten Vol. 2 Säsongen 06-07” released by Donkeyboys Records (DNKYBYS002). This CDR compiled by Mikael Andersson of course was put together for the Stockholm indie pop club night Club King Kong. The song the band contributed was called “Nick Krill”. That same year the band would contribute the song “You and Me in a Rented Car, Two Small Bags and a Plastic Guitar” to the CD comp “Souvenir Desde Umea” that was put together by the Spanish label Fikasound (FIKA001).
Lastly in 2009 there was a compilation called “SvenneCompilation #01” which included their song “Theme Song”. It is the first time I hear about this compilation, but looking at the playlist it looks great! This was put together in Vienna, Austria, fro the indiepop night Svennedisko. I had no clue there had been an indiepop night in Vienna!
The band also had a Myspace of course and there we see there was at least another song that wasn’t included in the releases, it was called “Manor Estate”.
What else can we find about them on the web? Well we know the band played the legendary Emmaboda Festival in 2007. They also played the New England Popfest in 2008 in Northampton, Massachusetts. Other gigs I found were at the Kafé De Luxe on November 9th, 2005, and on September 27, 2006, alongside the Salty Pirates. The Kafé de Luxe is a venue in Växjö. Did the band hail from there?
Not much more info on the web. I wonder if either Emil or Kristoffer were involved in any other bands. If there are more songs. It’d be great to know. What I’ve heard sounds great. But yeah, very little info. We need more info!
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