Still suffering the pains of allergy here. How are you all enjoying this year’s spring? Hope that much better than me!
Last weekend I finished recording the May edition of the Cloudberry podcast and the files are already in Toni’s magic hands for them to be equalized and all those things that sound people know how to do. So it sounds better, and so all these files are pasted together. This month’s podcast is a celebration of NYC Popfest. That’s the theme for the month. On top of it all, I interview Masami from the Japanese band Wallflower who will be playing their first show in the U.S. during the festival.
On other news, I want to point you all to pre-order the reissue of Easter & the Totem’s “The Sum is Greater Than Its Parts” on Sol Re Sol Records. It’s on LP and it includes the artwork and the songs from this classic album! I don’t want you to miss this. I was lucky to score the original one when in Toronto many years ago thanks to the awesome friend that is Jessel! But those who don’t own it, or just want an extra copy, you can just grab it for a very good price, $13 plus shipping here. If you remember, the band has also been featured on the blog when I interviewed Mike Berry, one of the members.
The other good news is that last week Pale Spectres sent me some mixes for the 4 songs that will appear on the awaited 7″. They sound fabulous really, and these were not even the finished mixes! So it seems that pretty soon the songs will be ready and finally we’ll be releasing them. The songs are: “Bicycles”, “D(r)iving”, “Didn’t Know Where To Go” and “Goodbye”. I think a lot of people have been waiting for such news!
Also I would keep your eyes peeled on Pale Spectres’ Thomas’ new solo project, “Tomiji”. It sounds super!
In the meantime, here I am waiting for the Fibi Frap CDs, waiting for NYC Popfest, and taking it easy. Nevertheless I do have a question for all of you, are there any great new releases that you’d recommend me? I kind of feel I’ve been buying too many records, but all of them from many years ago! And second question, are there any cool indiepop bands in Sweden these days? It feels it’s all so quiet there! Which is quite a surprise!
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This week I’ll recommend you a very nice record that you should be able to track down easily. It’s obscure yes, but it doesn’t seem that rare online. Discogs at the moment has copies at very reasonable prices.
The year was 1986. The band was called After This and the label Operation Afterglow. This label was actually a sub-label of Les Disques du Crépuscule. A sub-label that the Belgian label had set up in the UK after the demise of Operation Twilight (yet another sub-label). It was short-lived but released not only this record. Anna Domino, Paul Haig, Winston Tong and Front 242 were part of it as well.
After This released only one record during their career and it was this one. On the A side the song was the precious and timeless “Fields” whereas on the B side we find “Hollow Hills”. On the cover artwork we see a photo of some zebras. The catalog number was OPA 012.
The record was released both as a 12″ and a 7″. The songs are the same really, though there’s an extended version of Fields on the 12″.
We know that both songs were written by a Richard Lowe. I don’t know much about him aside from a comment on Youtube saying that he used to manage the band Catatonia.
On the back cover, among photos of a llama, a red panda, some flamingos, and two other animals I’m not sure what their names are (one is a sort of horned antilope and the other one looks like a spotted dear) we find some more info. The design of the record was done by P. Moore, it was produced by Alan Rankine and the photos were taken by M. Baker for mugshots.
Well, well… Alan Rankine was the same Alan Rankine of the Associates. Would it be a good guess to say that After This hailed from Scotland then!?
Oh! and the back cover also has the lyrics for the A side. I can sing along then 🙂
That’s really all there is to this record. How did I discover this band? Well, I got the record from Uwe some years ago. But I knew about the songs thanks to some MP3s that used to be shared on Soulseek inside a folder called “Future Leamington Spa”. There were a bunch of bands there that I had never heard. I don’t know who compiled them. But I was always curious about them. One of them was After This.
Now, do you know anything else about them? Are there any more recordings? Would be cool to learn more what happened to them!
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Listen
After This – Fields
