Seems it will have to wait until Monday hopefully our next 7″ announcement! There was a wee delay with the art and with the mastering but I’m crossing my fingers this weekend everything will be ready.

It is now just a week until I head to Madrid. You can’t imagine my excitement to be at a Popfest again, and with the great Spanish crowd! It is going to be fantastic. I will do some daytrips already, everything has been planned. I should be visiting aside of Madrid, the towns of Cuenca, Consuegra and Aranjuez, the city of Salamanca, and the castle of Manzanares el Real. That’s the plan for now! I’ll let you know how that went when I come back.

I must say I have already received so many requests to bring records to Spain! My bag is going to be heavy! I’m always very happy and surprised with the Spanish indiepop fans love for this music and for physical records. They got their ideas right!

Anyways, now onto what you came here for, for new music and old:

Night Flowers: one new video and one new song from the wonderful English band Night Flowers! It was just a few weeks ago that I was sharing the song/video for “Losing the Light” and now they share with us another beauty, “Cruel Wind”. The band is set to release their new album “Wild Notion” on April 13th on Dirty Bingo Records, and I can’t wait to have it! It does sound great. How nice would it be to have them on a 7″ someday… unlikely of course.

The Wild Kindness: who are these Californians? It is the first time I hear them after finding them on Bandcamp a few minutes ago. They have a bunch of releases it seems, the oldest dating from 2012. But I’m checking out their latest, their debut full length titled “Happy Now” released by 20 Sided Records. It has 9 songs (I notice more and more albums that don’t reach the 10 songs, why is that?!) and was recorded at Wherehouse Studios in San Francisco, CA. The band hails from the SF Bay area indeed. They are formed by Mike Alexis, Ross Murray, Ben Montesano, Jim Rivera and Doug Saenz.

Impossible Songs: 4 songs recorded in Southern Germany back in October by this Edinburgh band. That’s what their Bandcamp EP “In Another World: is about. The band formed is by Ali Graham on vocals and John Barclay on guitar/vocals.  They got help from Martin Freitag on bass, drums and synths and Siggi Richter on keyboards. I have a good listen and I must say the first song, “No Law Against Love”, is all right but then when “Another Day” starts, well, everything changes! Now I’m enjoying it. Then again a song I’m not a big fan of, “Analog Mann”, and the last one I like again, which is titled “Look Up the Stars”. So two songs out of four for me, 50%. What about for you?

Shardz: 6 demo songs dating from 2016 by Ulli, Olli, Peter from Dr. König Arthus and Jens from Kristallin, have appeared on Bandcamp. I don’t know much about this Hamburg band but I did interview The Legandary Bang, who predated Kristallin many years and years ago! So if you are into that sort of fast style guitar pop these songs are really great!! Check out “Sunglasses”, “Two-Leaf Clover”, “Moonlight”, “Fool”, “Noisebleeding” and “Pointless” all which are good fun. They are definitely a bit lofi, but you can see that these songs would have sounded brilliant if produced properly!

The Boys with the Perpetual Nervousness: one of the best finds in a long time I believe. Who are they? Who knows. Only one song on Soundcloud titled “Nervous Man” and not much more. We know some make up names like Joe B.Nervous on lead vocals and bass, Sweet Beet on drums, Langoustine Nervous on guitars, Goujon Nervous on guitars, and Scampi Nervous and Jelly Bean Nervous on backing vocals. The only other thing we do know is that this song will appear on a 7″ during spring 2018. Who will release it? Where are they from? Those details are unavailable as of yet.

————————————————-

The Singing Ringing Tree was a children’s film made by East German studio DEFA in 1957 and shown in the form of a television series by the BBC. It was a story written by Anne Geelhaar based on a variation of “Hurleburlebutz” by the Brothers Grimm, directed by Francesco Stefani.

The Singing Ringing Tree is a wind powered sound sculpture resembling a tree set in the landscape of the Pennine hill range overlooking Burnley, in Lancashire, England. Completed in 2006, it is part of the series of four sculptures within the Panopticons arts and regeneration project created by the East Lancashire Environmental Arts Network (ELEAN). The project was set up to erect a series of 21st-century landmarks, or Panopticons (structures providing a comprehensive view), across East Lancashire as symbols of the renaissance of the area

Here is another record I’m missing and I hope to find a copy for myself some day: The Singing Ringing Tree’s “The Hanging Tree” 7″.

Because of the dates, I think the band name comes from the German children film. But what else do I know about this band whose two songs I heard for the first time on the Shelflife blog many, many years ago, when Ed used to update it and present us with fab obscure bands!

On his blog Ed actually asked me if I knew about this band, if I knew anything about them, but I didn’t. At the time it was the first time I was hearing their two fantastic songs. And I learned a little bit about them thanks to the blurb Ed wrote. He mentioned that they were Scottish and the band was formed by Colin Fullerton on vocals, Jack Hamilton on guitars and David Mulholland on keyboards and percussion. That they only released this 7″ on their own Singing Ringing Records in 1986 (catalog SRT1) and that the record came with 3 inserts and 2 stickers. Ed believes one of the members worked at a print shop at the time.

He then makes the distinction with Discogs. That is because Discogs lists 2 other 7″s by The Singing Ringing Tree. The thing is these two records are by a different Ringing Singing Tree. The funny thing is, that this is also another guitar pop band.

But let’s get back to the record. As mentioned it came with three inserts. Luckily the images Ed scanned are still available and I get to know a few more details. For example, the songs were recorded at Palladium Studios in Edinburgh in October 1985. They were engineered by Keith. Who is Keith? Then the artwork is credited to Kretin. Then it says “Printed for the Singing Ringing Tree by the Singing Ringing Tree Limited”. I guess it is because of that line that Ed was guessing someone in the band worked for a print shop.  The other two inserts included are actually lyrics sheets for each of the songs.

There seems to be no more information on websites or blogs about the band. My few hints to keep digging are the names of the members and that they probably hailed from Edinburgh. But those details don’t help me at all. I can’t find anything related to them. Nothing at all. It is all dead ends. Perhaps the only possibility is that of David Mulholland being a drummer in 1980 in Edinburgh on the first formation of Aztec Camera. Could that be the same David? I wonder . And I wonder if they didn’t make music again. That it was only this record and then they called it a day, weren’t involved with music ever again. Who knows. Since the time Ed wrote his post, asking for more information, there hasn’t even been one reply shedding some light. For years. Maybe I’ll run the same luck. But I want to be hopeful. I hope I get to know a little bit more about this obscure Scottish band sooner than later!

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Listen
The Singing Ringing Tree – The Hanging Tree