Happy weekend! Let me go straight to some good recommendations today!

Whimsical: last post I mentioned I was going to go check what I had missed from Shelflife Records. Well, I certainly missed Whimsical’s “Melt”. This album was released on April 1st with 9 superb shoegaze tracks. In the past I had recommended them, mentioning that the band from Indiana was active from 1999 to 2005 and later reformed in 2015. This is a very fine record and it is available in CD and vinyl (different colors too)

FOG: this one is also on Shelflife but looks sold out on both color and black vinyl versions. I am not familiar with this Seoul four-piece so listening to their album “Fogesque” even if it is on Bandcamp is good. The 9 track album is also a fine shoegaze record. Little by little I feel Shelflife is becoming a go-to label for dreampop sounds!

Cristina Quesada: now time to also check what I may have missed from Elefant Records. Surprisingly I missed listening to Cristi’s “Primavera”, a digital single that was released in March! Our favourite singer from Canary Islands has three songs here, “Primavera”, “Be My Baby” (a cover of Vanessa Paradis) and “Italia (English version)”. Also announced is that there will be an album coming out soon to be titled “Dentro Al Tuo Sogno”.

Lisasinsón: another favourite band of mine on Elefant is the great Valencia punky pop band Lisasinsón. After their 10″ release the duo is back with a digital single called “No Sé Muy Bien”. Fun!

Lightning in a Twilight Hour: and lastly an essential record. “Overwintering” is the latest release by Bobby Wratten’s band. 11 songs where he collaborate with Ian Catt, ex-Field Mice colleagues like Anne Mari Davies and Michael Hiscock and Beth Arzy from Trembling Blue Stars. A superb 11 track record that is available now on vinyl and CD. This is one that I can’t miss. And neither should you.

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Once again through stoneeyedkiller’s Youtube channel I end up on Soundcloud discovering an obscure band and their wonderful sounds.

This time from the US. From Anaheim, California. Close to Los Angeles. The account owner is Oliver Zavala. His band’s name was Sandbox. And there are four songs from a 1991 demo tape.

The song names are “Chester”, “I Don’t Mind”, “Unforgettable” and “Don’t Mind Me”.

As soon as you listen to them you can tell they loved The Smiths. The guitars are very Johnny Marr-esque. That’s good in my book. I suppose in yours too!

The band was formed by Oliver Zavala on vocals, Ryan Steele on guitars, James Scoggins on bass and Phil Hanson on drums.

The tape artwork is very of the time. Black and white. A hug. The name of the band.

Other than this there is no other information. Oliver has some songs of his own also uploaded. They sound quite different to Soundbox of course.

Then after a little googling I find that there’s a Sandbox Facebook page.

What do we find there? That there was the intention of reunion gig in 2009. It seems it never happened. There are also many photos from the 90s. From there we can figure out some more details.

First that the band played at Goodies with The Pure and Praise Folly. Another venue we know they played was Lindy’s Cafe in Anaheim. At Quality Ballroom they played alongside with Whiskey Biscuit, Suburban Rhythm, Barney’s Bicycle and Nuckle Brothers. Another gig they played was at Anti-Club in Hollywood with True to Life, Full Moon and Standard Fruit.

This is all I could find. Really cool sounds and you wonder what happened to them. If they were in bands afterwards and if they sounded as good as Soundbox! Any West Coast friends remember them?

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Listen
Sandbox – Chester