Day 314.
Submotile: based in Dublin, we find this shoegaze Italian-Irish duo. Their latest song is the cracking “Exit Cracks” which was released a few days ago as a digital single. The band has more songs in their Bandcamp and I look forward to discover them.
Spunsugar: the Malmö band is back with a new song called “(You Never) Turn Around”. And guess what…. once again they deliver a superb track. One would wonder when they will release a record? An album, an EP, a 7″ single would be nice. Great stuff.
Rupe: now we head to Ruston, Louisiana, to discover a 22 songwriter that goes under the name Rupe. His latest song is a classic indiepop slice called “Box Fan”, sounding very mid-2000s. Very enjoyable.
Jilted Jonas: now we find a band that hails from Berlin and Stockhom, but I think based in Berlin, right? Formed by Jonas Markbäck, Nick Petricevic, Fredd Jakobsen and Gabi Otero, we are listening to their first ever track, “Born to be Bla Bla Bla Bla”, an infectious, catchy, fun pop song. Can’t wait for any new songs they’ll publish. I’ll keep an eye on them!
Eng.Kanalen: and back to Malmö, to investigate this Soundcloud that seems to have all sorts of recordings. I especially paid attention to one song called “I Never Knew in Words” that my friend David from Barcelona shared. It is very good and reminds me of the heyday of Swedish bedroom pop of the early, mid-2000s.
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Ah! the CDR days of the 2000s, between 2001 and 2009 so many bands released their music on CDR. Self-released or by labels, like Cloudberry for example. It was a good time where DIY reigned supreme. One of the places where we saw an explosion of lo-fi, bedroom, CDR, bands was Sweden. That’s why I did that compilation once, The Sound of Starke Adolf and have always wanted to release a second volume. Maybe one day I’ll get back to that project.
Now, one of the bands that made a splash then and was quite known at the time, though probably forgotten these days, were the duo Bare Knees.
The duo was formed by Kasper Lurcock and Kathrin Jarosch in Gothenburg. They released three CDRs during their time and they also appeared on a handful of compilations. So let’s check them out!
The first release was self-released and was a CDR EP titled “Bit My Daughter!”. It was recorded in July 2005 in Gothenburg and included 5 songs, “Led Astray”, “Skinny! Baby”, “Coming Slash Going”, “Goosebumps” and “Making Up with You”. This last song is a cover of “Sleeping in My Car” by Roxette.
The next year, 2006, the band would sign to Dig Your Own Grave Records, a small Swedish label. With them they would release the album “Pump Up the Lump” (DIG005) on CDR. The release was limited to 100 copies and it came with a lyrics sheet and liner notes. The songs on this release were “Kazoo Song”, “Do What I Want to Do”, “Always on your Side”, “Sex and Communism”, “Brighton Slash Bristol”, “Kanadia”, “People Like Us”, “Fidelity” and “Bob & Jim”.
That same year, on the same label, Dig Your Own Grave Records, the band would contribute a cover of Haddaway’s classic “What is Love” to the compilation “This is Love” (DIG003). On this compilation 12 bands covered this classic song, including The Mexicos (who had been featured on the blog), Komon (who had a 3″ CD on Cloudberry) and other cool bands like My Enemy or All of My Brother’s Girlfriends.
In 2006 the band also contributed “Fidelity” and “Led Astray” to the CDR compilation “Sjung! Med I’m From Bräkne-Hoby” released by Cosy Recordings (COSY 002) and the song “People Like Us” appeared on “Exhibit L – Nomocrime”, a mini CDR compilation released by Homocrime Singles Club (EXHIBIT L) in the UK.
2007 would see the band contribute the song “Greedy Fat Old Men” to the 10″ compilation “Points.//.Lines” release6). d in Germany by IRRK (IRKSOME 006).
In 2008 the band released a split CDR on Cosy Recordings. This CDR was called “Songs to Play at Sleep-Overs” (COSY 10) and it was a split CDR with the band Ray Rumours. Each band contributed 7 songs. Bare Knees had these ones, “Wine Stains”, “Love in Stereo”, “Oslo Girls”, “Second Hand Ebay Underwear”, “Fidelity (Less Lo-Fi Version)”, “Sleep in your Bed Tonight” and “Secret Hideout”. This last one was a cover of the Ray Rumours original. On the other hand Ray Rumours covered the Bare Knees song “Rose + Tim”.
Lastly in 2010 the song “People Like Us” was to be included in the 3xCDR compilation “The Complete Homocrime Singles Club” released by Everard Records.
What else do we know about the band? We know that Kasper had been in the Arctic Circle (I interviewed the band, and it mentions that Kasper joined the British band as a keyboardist) and was part of The No-Eyed Deers. Kathrin on the other hand contributed her vocals to the song “No Love” of Let’s Be Honeys (you can listen to it here).
One thing I find about them on the web is that the band was multilingual, that they could speak German, English, Swedish and Finnish. Wow! And I believe too that at some point they moved to Brighton.
There was this podcast called Phoning it In during those years. The MP3 at their site, when the band were featured on February 6th of 2006, is still working. There they played these songs, “Fidelity”, “Always On your Side”, “Coming Slash Going”, “Do What I Want to Do”, “People Like Us”, “Kanadia”, “The Prettiest Girl in Picton Street” and “All that she Wants”. This last one a cover of Ace of Base!
I also found a live video of the duo playing at the “I’m From Bräkne-Hoby” on August 8th of 2006.
And that’s it. Of course the question is, where are they now? Are they still making music? Had they been involved in any other projects? Who remembers them?
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Listen
Bare Knees – Kanadia
