Starting a new week. I must admit that the last few days I have been out of it. You wouldn’t believe it but I’ve been really busy collecting stickers for the World Cup sticker album by Panini. I know, I know. But I’m enjoying it, feeling like a teenager again. And not just buying them, but trading them with people from all over the US. That is kind of strange though, my memories are of me trading stickers during recess when in school, face to face with someone else. Now everything through Facebook groups. And it seems these people do these with every single football album that comes out! A totally interesting community, with its own rules. In a way similar to indiepop collecting. Anyways, I did save a bunch of new links to share with you. Here they are:
The Catenary Wires: Amelia Fletcher’s band is releasing a new 7″ with WIAIWYA Records this June. You can listen to the first track, “Was That Love”, on the Bandcamp. It is a lovely slow song. No drums. Just Amelia’s classic vocals, an acoustic guitar, and some little sound effects that give the song a cozy atmosphere. And of course “du du du du” boy/girl choruses that are terribly catchy. It is a great song. Wonder how the B side, “What About the Rings” sounds like!
Azure Blue: Tobias Isaksson’s project Azure Blue is a favourite for many years. Even had the chance to see him play live once at NYC Popfest many years ago after sharing a cab ride. His electronic indiepop is quite unique, and his records are truly great. It has been a while since his last release “Beneath the Hill I Smell the Sea”, as it was released in 2015. Well, fear no more, there is a new song streaming on Nöjesguiden now called “My Final Candle”. And it is glorious.
Jonston: here’s some bedroom pop from Spain. I kept seeing ads for the latest album by Jonston on my Facebook as I am a fan of their label, Gramaciones Grabofonicas, and thought giving this a try. “Los Sentimientos” is the name of this 8 song album of eclectic songs. José Ignacio Martorell is the person behind the Jonston moniker and it seems this is his 4th record, but it is definitely the first one I’m listening to. At first listen, I think my favourite song might be “Podría Ser” or “Canción de Autoayuda”.
Distant Creatures: got an email the other day by this Washington D.C. band and I must say I was kind of skeptical at first. Don’t usually trust bands that email me. But as soon as I played the first song from their album “Snares in Safe Harbors”, I thought, “this is great!”. There are 13 songs in this album which is available as a CD through the band page (I need to get a copy!) of superb guitar pop with boy/girl vocals. Just listen to the opening song, “A Friend’s Halo”, and you’ll understand my excitement. Or the jangly “In Real Life” which the guitar bit sounds kind of like The Smiths (right?). The band is formed by Mina Karimi, Dane Di Pierro, Chris Matthews, Ben Silvernail and Mike Lewis.
Human Music: found out about this Winnipeg, Canada, band thanks to David. He had shared a brilliant song called “Mortis” so of course I needed to investigate, find out more about them. It turns out this song is part of a self-titled cassette album that you can stream on Bandcamp. It is an album of 15 songs, but it is not long by any means, only two songs are longer than 3 minutes. This tape is not that new, it was released back in December, and the band is not new either. Their oldest songs on Bandcamp date of June 2014. But well, I’m only discovering them now. They are formed by Mef, Cole and Jory. Good stuff!
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fallout: radioactive particles that are carried into the atmosphere after a nuclear explosion or accident and gradually fall back as dust or in precipitation.
Definitely Heinz’s Youtube channel is a trove of great indiepop music. Obscure and not. I have discovered so much music thanks to his cherry-picked uploads. It is not surprise then that many of these bands he has shared have found their way to be featured on the blog. Today’s Austrian band, Fallout, is one more to add to this list. A list I am sure will keep growing and growing especially if I keep posting 3 posts a week!
3 posts a week is quite a lot, but there is so much going right now, so much new music that if I don’t post this much a lot of music won’t be recommended. Or, if I post it later, it might be old news, maybe the records will be sold out. So I try to stay on top. I remember a year ago when there was so little going on, that even writing a post a week was a challenge. It is definitely a better time for indiepop.
I heard today for the first time the song “Sorry, Bird!” by Fallout thanks to Heinz as I mentioned earlier. I had never heard about this band. Who were they? I loved the chiming guitars. I noticed that he had uploaded the art for what looks like a compilation tape titled “Two By Art 2”. This detail definitely will help me track them down.
Indeed, I could find a Discogs page for them where the band is listed with three compilation appearances. Sadly no proper releases are listed for the band. That is bad news of course. I would have loved to track an album, or a single. But there’s nothing like that. But we do get to know that the band was formed by Chris “das tal” Gissing on drums, Gunther Aigmüller on guitars and Heimo Mitterer on bass. And they hailed from Graz, in Austria.
Graz is the capital of Styria and the second-largest city in Austria after Vienna. On 1 January 2018, it had a population of 325,021. In 2015, the population of the Graz larger urban zone who had principal residence status stood at 633,168. Graz has a long tradition as seat of universities: its six universities have almost 60,000 students. Its historic centre is one of the best-preserved city centres in Central Europe.[4] For centuries, Graz (Slovene: Gradec) was more important to Slovenes, both politically and culturally, than the capital of Slovenia, Ljubljana, and it remains influential to this day. In 1999, Graz was added to the UNESCO list of World Cultural Heritage Sites, and the site was extended in 2010 with Eggenberg Palace. Graz was sole Cultural Capital of Europe for 2003 and got the title of a City of Culinary Delights in 2008.
I don’t know many Austrian bands I must say. This comes as a surprise. Of course when I was doing last year my round of guitar pop bands from around the world I featured the Austrian band Bicycle Thieves. Fallout will be the second one. I can think of one more, Die Brüder, that Uwe Firestation recommended me once. But my knowledge really ends there.
The band as around just for 3 years, from 1985 to 1987, and as I said they appeared on three compilations. The first one seems to have been on the “Zebra Graz U.T.T. Compilation”. This was an LP comp released by the label Ursprung Tonträger (IQ 0185002) in 1985. The first two songs on this record belong to Fallout. They were “Jungs Über Der Stadt” and “Sorry, Bird!”. Interestingly the first song lyrics are credited to a Bogdan Roscic who had been on a band called A Red Flag Souvenir with Gunter Aigmüller.
The Augsburg label Two By Art was to release a bunch of tape compilations in the late 80s. In two of them Fallout was to appear. On the tape “Running Out! Austria Sampler 1” the band contributes 5 songs! These being “The Tue”, “Sonnenstrahl”, “Jungs Über Der Stadt”, “Stang” and “Boy About Town”. The other bands in this compilation were A Red Flag For a Souvenir, The Sleam, The Passengers and Pete Pram & the Perambulators.
The second appearance is on the “Two By Art 2” tape (Two by Art 2) released in 1987. This is the tape were Heinz took the “Sorry, Bird!” song. I recognize the artwork. This is also the only song the band contributes to this tape which has so many unknown bands. I wonder how did they sound? If they were also jangly or not? I do know that the tape was compiled by a Thomas Wieland who might have been the person behind the label.
When looking if the band members had been involved in other bands I notice that aside from A Red Flag for a Souvenir, Gunter had been also in Pete Pram & the Perambulators and High ‘N’ Mighty. It seems the last thing he had been involved with is with jazz music. Would be nice to find some tracks to have a listen to these bands. Heimo, in the other hand, had also been involved with a band called Portnoy who released an album in 2007. I find a website for this band where there is even a small biography for Heimo, but it is a mystery to me why Fallout is not mentioned at all. I also notice he has done producing work for bands like the Trainleaders and has contributed to Binder & Krieglstein. For Chris I could find that he had guested in a band called Rosi Lebt.
I can’t find anything else really by Fallout. I thought it was going to be hard as there are only 3 comp appearances and 7 songs total. I would definitely would love to know more. Like why they didn’t release anything? What sort of music were they into at the time? Did they gig all Austria? Maybe even Germany? Who knows, there’s very little on the web about them, so I count on you for learning any details about the band!
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Listen
Fallout – Sorry, Bird!
