The most exciting part of running a label, at least for me, is discovering a new band and offering them a release. Sadly, I don’t do that much these days. It was much easier when I was putting out the 3″ CDs as they were homemade mostly and it wasn’t an expensive ordeal. It was also much easier 4 years ago when people were spending more on records and it was a bit more steady the way I recovered the costs of the vinyl records I was putting out. Though this doesn’t mean that I’m not discovering new and exciting bands every so often, it does mean I can’t offer the release. So it’s only half of the excitement I was talking about, and actually the least exciting part of the two if you were to compare it.

And that’s because when offering a release you start a new plan. From the basic ‘which songs are going to be released’, to deciding the RPM of the record by acknowledging how many songs we’ll be including. From then on it’s a get to know the band phase, exchanging emails, knowing their hopes and expectations. At some point I may even interview them for my fanzine. We decide about the artwork for the record. We talk about setting a release date. We work as a team in every little detail. And that’s what I enjoy the most. Getting the product done. I read once on an interview to Roger Gunnarsson on how was his experience running a label and he mentioned that the fun part for him was exactly what I’m telling you. Then the records would arrive home and that was like the best moment. Piles and piles of boxes of vinyl, with beautiful color jackets. A success. He then said that after the records arrived home the excitement started to die out. And that is true for me too, it is not fun the next piece in the process of releasing a record, it’s not exciting at all to promote, or send them to distributors, writing press sheets, etc. Having to deal with that bureaucratic sort of system can’t be any fun. It’s not a creative experience, it’s not even rewarding. A lot of times it even ends up as nerve-wracking!

During the past 6 years I’ve been running the label I’ve released a lot of records. A LOT. And most especially I’ve worked with with so many bands. But the fact is, there’s been a bunch of other bands that I’ve contacted and for a reason or another I never got to work with them. I would have loved to have put something out by them, a CD, a record, but due to them or myself, it never happened. One of the bands I was interested in putting out at some point was The Arctic Circle.

Truth is I only contacted them once as far as I remember. It was on Myspace. Those days when it was the preferred platform for finding new music and being in touch with your favourite band. If I remember correctly I had just started releasing vinyl. Myspace with it’s new upgrade and faulty behavior won’t allow me to pull up the email exchange with the band. What I do remember is asking them if they had any interest in releasing a record with me. Their answer I believe was a yes. Thing is, I never heard again from them after that. I may or may not asked them again to see what was going on. But I never heard from them, years passed, I lost track of the band and only recently I have been rediscovering them.

Okay, that’s not completely true. There was a compilation called “Piece of Cake!” that included them. This compilation was released in 2009 as the first release ever by Big Pink Cake. As many of you might know, Big Pink Cake was originally  a club, an indiepop club, that booked bands and had disco nights in Bristol. The good readers of the blog would know that I have interviewed Matthew, half of Big Pink Cake. The other half is of course Heather. With Big Pink Cake I have a very nice relationship for many years now. They were one of the few clubs that gave away the Cloudberry 3″ CD compilation “Where are the Supremes Tonight?”. After that I’ve joined Matthew a couple of times on the decks, DJing music for some cool crowds. And it has to be the first time I met him, in Hamburg 2009, when he gave me the CD compilation “Piece of Cake!”. In this compilation that includes many favorites of mine like Horowitz, The Hi-Life Companion, The Parallelograms and more, the Arctic Circle contributed the song “Meanwhile Gardens”.

So yes, I was reminded of their existence. Why didn’t I try again to contact them? Probably I assumed they were no more. Or that they didn’t have any interest. I didn’t know much about them. I remember seeing some gig listings and their name on there. I’m pretty sure they played How Does it Feel? and many classic London venues. But as I said I lost track. I don’t remember even which songs I might have asked them to release with me. A good guess would be “Loofah Mitt” and “Prancing Pearl”. Though who knows, maybe “Mothers Ruin”? The title of the song makes me grin. The Mothers Ruin of course is the pub where Big Pink Cake used to happen at. I only visited once. I think in early 2010 after London Popfest. What a fun night that was!

On Discogs The Arctic Circle has another compilation appearance. With the song “Trawler” they appeared on the 2005 comp ” Oh Sew & Tell: A Stitch-Stitch Compilation” on the Stitch-Stitch label. My only knowledge about this label was thanks to Ray Rumours. But it seems I need to dig a little bit deeper with their releases. Maybe there’s a surprise or two. In the meantime I ordered the one and only release that is listed on Discogs, directly from the label. A 7″ with “Prancing Pearl” on the A side and “Mothers Ruin” on the B side. This was released on October 2008 and has the catalog stitch013.

There’s a small bio about the band in the label page, but I found a much better one on Last.fm:

Beginning in Edinburgh in 1999, Arctic Circle, now based in Bristol, were formed by Matthew Cheney, a singer/songwriter steeped in psychedelic folk and early 90s electronic sounds. With a fluctuating line-up, a sideline in social politics and establishing The Forest Cafe in Edinburgh, Cheney turned down label offers and set about managing the band himself, bringing in visual and collaborative art components. The songs remained acute observations about urban planning, social dynamics, instrumentals about natural Arctic phenomena and communication in relationships.
Once in Bristol, Cheney brought in an all-new lineup which currently includes Nicole Artingsall, Rozi Plain, Kaspar Lurcock, Francois Victor, Ladybird, George MacKenzie, Nina Wylie, Rose Clark, Hog, and Liam Kirby. The band completed a tour of Canada and the US in 2006 and became regular fixtures at the Green Man Festival. Arctic Circle are currently working on their third album. Previous releases Volume 1 (2004) and Volume 2 (2006) were released through Forest Arts Publishing. The first single Prancing Pearl/Mother’s Ruin were released on the Stitch-Stitch label based in Bristol and showed a far more band-oriented approach to songwriting.

I’m not sure if they are still going. As you see, they’ve been around for such a long time, and I didn’t have a clue. I thought back in 2008 they were kind of newish. But that wasn’t the case clearly. If you head to their bandcamp you’ll notice that there are recordings from 2003 all the way to 2011. All of the songs seem to be available for free download.

Something to check out is that they made some videos too. Seems they made two, “Meanwhile Gardens” and “True to the Trail”, though sadly the links seem to point to the same video, the “Meanwhile Gardens” one.

Also there are a bunch of links to live gigs.

For me the recordings that you can’t miss are the ones called 2009 EP. These are their best songs for me. They are top! This is the sound I remember loving, the songs I wanted to release. I’m happy that eventually someone put their songs out. Shame it wasn’t the whole EP, there 7″ could have easily have included “Shipping Forecast” and “Loofah Mitt”, as they are just fantastic!

I read a comment around saying that Stuart Murdoch was a fan. I can see that. There’s some sort of Belle & Sebastian influence, sure. But I think the band that reminds me more to them is another band I used to love back in 2004 like Tales of Jenny (who probably deserve a post in this blog), or even the later Zoey Van Goey, with their boy-girl vocals. You know, beautifully crafted melodies, crispy guitars, sort of folkish and literate lyrics, subtle keyboard arrangements, and sing-a-long choruses. Just beautiful!

But back to their biography, it says that they released two albums already and were working on a third. So the question is, where can one get the first two albums? And was their third album ever released? I wonder whatever happened to them. It’s surprising they didn’t become a well known name in indiepop, that they never played Indietracks or any Popfest. The songwriting quality was just brilliant. It’s a shame most of my friends don’t know it. Hopefully this little blog post makes them some justice.