Day 376

Remington Super 60: thee Norwegian band is now releasing a cassette with Z Tapes from Slovakia. The 7 songs included in the “Nouvelle Noveau” mini-album sound so good. You can check them out on Bandcamp. This sounds super good and wish that it was released on another format, you know I am not a fan of cassettes, but hey, if you are, you are in for a treat. Beautiful. Two thumbs up!

Nightjacket: lately I’ve been discovering many bands that are influenced by The Sundays. Not sure if that’s a trend or not, but definitely it is a nice thing. From Los Angeles comes this band that have released a 4 song EP called “Following the Curves”. It is available digitally and we can check out two of the songs, “Lonely Archer” and “Just a Little”, both of them sounding great!

Tangled Shoelaces: this is quite an interesting discovery. Hailing from Brisbane a group aged 10-14 when they started! These are recordings dating from 1981-1984 and are being put on an LP compilation called “Turn My Dial – The M Squared Recordings and More”. This is really cool. I really want this record. And I want it even if I could only preview the first track, “The Biggest Movie Ever Made” out of 22 tracks that the album has.

The Gabriels: here is a new video for the song “We”, the second single by the UK band The Gabriels! You can also find the song, and previous tracks from the Midlands group in their Bandcamp. The band is formed by Gudg on vocals, Fran on bass, Leon on guitar and Stuart on keys.

Beach Vacation: I previously recommended this Seattle band when they released their tape “I Fell Apart”. Now 5 months or so later they unveil a new song titled “Lost in Sight” which I am enjoying a lot. It is dreamy and hypnotic, with some great melodies and guitar lines. Good stuff.

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I want to thank Jörg and Joel for introducing me and helping me with this band!

I am not very knowledgeable about Portuguese indiepop bands. I have written about only a few on the blog. So after discovering the jangly Alliallatas I knew I had to recommend them on the blog! And hopefully we’ll find out more information about this great sounding band from Guimarães!

Guimarães is a city and municipality located in northern Portugal, in the district of Braga. Its historic town centre is listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2001, in recognition for being an “exceptionally well-preserved and authentic example of the evolution of a medieval settlement into a modern town” in Europe.

I’d love to visit some day…

The only appearance of the band on a “proper” release dates from 1994. This is the only thing that I see on Discogs by the band. It is a double tape compilation titled “Breeze 4” that came out in Germany. The label was Alphyen Viwit, the catalog number is 004. I should definitely explore this label as I haven’t covered many of the bands that are on their compilations. From the “Breeze 4” I’ve interviewed Les Autres of course and written about Sonic Flower Groove. So I need to make justice to many of these bands.

When it comes to Alliallatas we know that the appear on the first tape, on the B side with the 6th song out of 11 on that side. The song they contribute is the wonderful “Esqueleto” which means skeleton in English. They appear after The Fat Tulips and before Sonic Flower Groove. And then they contribute “Pintura Original” to the 2nd tape as the last song on the B side after the Greek band Sound Devise who have also been featured on the blog.

You’ll like both songs I’m sure. And if you want to give it some visuals, there is actually a video on Youtube of the band playing live “Esqueleto” song at the “Ao Vivo por Timor” gig at the S. Tiago square in Guimarães, Portugal. The date we don’t know, but it was on February 1992. I am also guessing this was a benefit concert for Timor Leste? Is that, right?

We see on the black and white images that the band is a four piece, vocals, guitar, bass and drums.

I look for more recordings by the band on the web. I find the song “A Névoa Da Manhã Nova (live)” on Bandcamp. It seems to be included in a compilation called “33 Years of Carrying it On” by Paulo Coimbra Martins. The Bandcamp owner is actually Anti-Demos-Cracia. So from what I am understanding, this song and all other in this compilation are different projects Paulo Coimbra Martins was involved in. There is a photo of a tape, so we learn it was released in a limited run of 22 cassettes in 2019. Of course it is sold out. The songs are actually different musical styles and the jangliest is of course the one of Alliallatas. But thanks to this we know that Paulo was in Anomeos, Restos Mortais de Isabel, Outubro Negro, As Flores da Náusea, Tenebre & Delirio, Dahilla Noire, The Death of Me, Oktober Black, Uzi, Träume, Archétypo, Brigada Revolucionária, Posto de Kommando, Manifestis Probatum, La Rue de Mars, Oktober Delusion and PCM.

Thanks to this information I find that Paulo was the drummer of Alliallatas. A little more digging and I find that Eduardo Silva was the name of another Alliallatas member. Eduardo was also involved in As Flores da Náusea and Blue Orange Juice. What instrument did he play in Alliallatas though?

One thing that is important to mention is that I know that Alliallatas recorded one demo tape at least. It was a self-titled tape from 1991 that included 4 songs. Here “Esqueleto” was the opening track. The other three songs were “Experiências”, “A Princesa de Neurónios” and “Pintura Original”.

Paulo Martins used to have a blog called Sons à Margem. On a post from May 8, 2006, he is doing a list of all Guimarães bands. Here he mentions that Alliallatas recorded another song, that wasn’t included in the 1991, demo. This song was to be included in a compilation on Underground Records.Not sure where this label was from, probably a Portuguese label, Sadly he says this song was never releases nor the compilation. What song was this? What was the name?

Sadly I couldn’t find any more information about this Portuguese band. It seems there was a fine scene in Guimarães and would like to discover more. From the list Paulo wrote on his blog he mentions at least another indiepop band called Quid Juris. He also mentions other bands that were pop-ish that we should check at some point like Clockwork, Fragments or Genuyn. But honestly I am right now very curious about Alliallatas, the 4 songs from their demo are amazing. Would love to hear any other recordings by them, find out who were the other band members. Anyone remember them?

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Listen
Alliallatas – Esqueleto