Time to end the week. A lovely Friday and a good week in general. I announced the Okama Flannel Boy 7″ and now just waiting for the Salt Lake Alley 7″ to arrive soon. Also talking to some bands about the chance to do a retrospective compilation as part of the Cloudberry Cake Kitchen. So, I’m quite busy with the label and soon should be able to announce another 7″! So please keep an eye on this blog, where you get indiepop news, sometimes late, but at least I try to cover them all!
Candybomber: our friends Stewart who used to be in The Kensingtons has just released a new EP with his latest band, Candybomber. Now based in Australia and not in the UK, his new project is not canonical indiepop but a very cool and catchy powerpop record. There are 4 songs on it, “Not Completely Sure”, “Everybody Knows”, “Industrial Strength” and “Naive” and is out now in digital and CD formats by Jigsaw Records.
Talulah Gosh: last Wednesday many of my friends started sharing this live footage of the legendary Talulah Gosh from a gig at Bay 63 in November 27th 1986. Even Amelia Fletcher shared it surprised! Where did this come from?! I, who wasn’t around that time, was transported to the heyday of indiepop. It gave me goosebumps even if the quality is not the best. There is no way to escape falling under the spell of Talulah Gosh, it is bewitching! I love one of the comments on the video mentioning that he spoke to the guitarist after the gig to see if they’d play at his university and he said he would only charge 50 pounds.
Megrim: another release on Jigsaw Records is the debut album titled “Megrim” by this French band that is fronted by Olivier Doreille from the classic 90s band Les Autres. There are 10 songs and as it is usual with Jigsaw releases it is available digitally and CD. The label compares the music with Lorelei and Hood and I can definitely see that. It is within the rockier side of indiepop and very 90s sounding if I may say that.
Cozy Slippers: continuing with this good review of the latest by Jigsaw Records now a Seattle trio with dual-lead female vocals. When I read that description, it caught my attention immediately. I wanted to listen to them. So I checked out their “Postcards EP” on Bandcamp. There are 5 songs on it, “Not Hard to Say Goodbye”, “En Francais”, “Cozy Love Song”, “Back and Forth” and “You Started This”, and I must say that this is great! It seems the band had self-released an EP in 2017, so I should try to track that down. This one is a winner.
Adrian Teacher and the Subs: discovered this Vancouver, Canada, band thanks to a recommendation by my friend David from Madrid. He is always discovering great music, one has to keep an eye on his Facebook shares. In this case he shared the song “Pop Medicine” and I thought that it was pretty good! It seems the album is only available digitally and that is a surprise as the band was touring the US and I would have supposed they would have some merch! But who knows! The album where this song is included is called “Anxious Love” and was released on May 9th. It is a 9 song record and the band is formed by Adrian Teacher, Amanda P and Robbie N.
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What is Peat Moss? Sphagnum is a genus of approximately 380 accepted species of mosses, commonly known as peat moss. Accumulations of Sphagnum can store water, since both living and dead plants can hold large quantities of water inside their cells; plants may hold 16–26 times as much water as their dry weight, depending on the species. The empty cells help retain water in drier conditions. Hence, as sphagnum moss grows, it can slowly spread into drier conditions, forming larger mires, both raised bogs and blanket bogs.These peat accumulations then provide habitat for a wide array of peatland plants, including sedges and ericaceous shrubs, as well as orchids and carnivorous plants. Sphagnum and the peat formed from it do not decay readily because of the phenolic compounds embedded in the moss’s cell walls. In addition, bogs, like all wetlands, develop anaerobic soil conditions, which produces slower anaerobic decay rather than aerobic microbial action. Peat moss can also acidify its surroundings by taking up cations, such as calcium and magnesium, and releasing hydrogen ions. Under the right conditions, peat can accumulate to a depth of many meters. Different species of Sphagnum have different tolerance limits for flooding and pH, so any one peatland may have a number of different Sphagnum species.
A band that named themselves after a species of moss? Sure thing. And it happened in Japan in the mid 90s. I was looking the other day for their records, see if they were available to buy here in the US as I wasn’t in the mood of paying much for shipping. Sadly there was no luck. Bu in doing so I found three songs on Youtube and some information about this obscure Japanese band that I will happily share with you all.
The band had two proper releases, both in 1996. The one that seems to be easier to find is a 7″ released by Sonorama Records (Sonorama 002). This was a Los Angeles, USA, based indie label and that’s why I’m surprised there were no copies by American sellers. I do own one of the releases from their catalog, The Jordans superb album “Katydid” from 1996. The 7″ that had a cute photo of a Japanese kid falling asleep on the cover had four songs. On the A side there was “Earl Grey Tea” and “Many Suns” while on the B side we find “To My Little Friends” and “Mad Cow Disease”. Indeed, those were the years when that disease was all over the news. Maybe the younger readers of the blog aren’t aware of it but Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly known as mad cow disease, is a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy and fatal neurodegenerative disease in cattle that may be passed to humans who have eaten infected flesh. BSE causes a spongiform degeneration of the brain and spinal cord. BSE has a long incubation period, of 2.5 to 5 years, usually affecting adult cattle at a peak age onset of four to five years. BSE is caused by a misfolded protein—a prion. In the United Kingdom, more than 180,000 cattle were infected and 4.4 million slaughtered during the eradication program. According to statistical estimates made in the 2006, 44,800 French cattle were infected by BSE between 1987 and 1997.
The 7″ is said to have come with an insert. I should track a copy and find out what it said. Maybe there were credits too on the back cover.
The other release listed by them on Discogs is a 4 song tape that was released in 1996 by Clover Records (C-034). Clover was a superb Japanese label by the way who had release tons of great records, from 800 Cherries to Red Go Cart. This tape came with artwork on green tracing paper and it was numbered. I’m not sure how limited this release was though. The songs on it were on the A side “Mess” and “Picnic” while on the B side there’s “D’yer Wanna Dance With Kids?” and “Out of the Room”.
There are three compilation appearances. The first, the 1997 CD comp “Pop Jingu Vol 1 – A Japanese Compilation”, was my introduction to the band. I remember I had MP3s for this CD back in the Soulseek days and used to play it a lot. Thanks to this compilation I also discovered Red Go Cart, one of my favourite Japanese bands! The compilation was actually a co-release by Sonorama (Sonorama 004) and Clover (CLCD 11101), the two labels that had previously put out stuff by the band. The songs the band contributed were the last two from the tape,”D’yer Wanna Dance With Kids?” and “Out of the Room”. The CD was compiled by Dan Goldwag, Masato Saito and Rich Stephens. The last two were involved in the band Kactus and I suppose Dan Goldwag was running Sonorama Records.
On the inner sleeve of the compilation we find the names of the band members:
Manami Kurusu: vocals
Masato Saito: guitar
Julia Mitsuyama: melodion
Kotaro Sugino: guitar
Chikako Nakata: percussion
So, Masato Saito’s name appears again. Now we know he was also part of the band. He compiled the CD. He was also part of the band Maples and Pervenche. Things start to make some sense. Also I notice that the Kactus connection wasn’t only of Masato. Julia and Kotaro were also part of that band.
The second compilation listed dates from 1998. It was called “Splash Dive – Cream Cone Compilation Vol.0” which was released by Cream Cone Records (CCCC-2000), another Japanese label. I don’t know much about this label to be honest. On this record the band appears with a song that wasn’t previously released, “Blue Painting”.
Lastly their song “Mess” appeared on the 2001 CD compilation that accompanied the music mag Indies Magazine Vol.47 from Japan. Was the band still around in 2001 then?
I keep looking on the web and there are more compilations, for example, one called “Analogue Master”, that was released in 1996 by Clover (C-020). This was a tape too with a bunch of obscure bands that I’ve never heard before like Boosted Goners, Cherry Straw or Gum Gum Punch. On this tape the band Peatmos appears with “Earl Grey Tea”.
Also there is “Feelie Pop!” that was released in 1995 by Clover and it seems it was the first ever release as it has the catalog C-000. On this tape the band Peatmos appears with the song “Many Suns”.
But then a big surprise. The band actually had another proper release. The band released on Clover (C-003) a tape a year before the “Mess” cassette. The “Rich Time For You” tape came out in 1995 and included 5 songs. There is “Long Good Bye” and “Hey!” on the A side and “Happy Town”, “Many Suns” and “How Do You Do” on the flip.
I keep digging and find out something that was starting to become quite obvious. Masato Saito was the owner of the label Clover Records. There is even a cool chronology of the history of the label on the Clover website. Now it makes even more sense that many of his bands were being released by Clover. He was a very active indiepop fan! Being in so many bands and also running a label.
I have actually mentioned Peatmos before on the blog, on the Flower Bellcow post. I said: This one is for Galaxy Train events. Flower Bellcow played many of them it seems. The first one they played was the 2nd event where they shared the bill with Peatmos and Smiley at the West Dart Club.
I keep digging and actually find a Bandcamp by an Ohio band by the same name that released a tape in 1990. It is quite different to the Japanese Peatmoss.
And finally, perhaps the best find in all of this indiepop digging, a new song, one I’ve never heard before and that sounds pretty pretty. If I was wondering if the band was still around in 2001, now I know that at least they were still going until mid 2003. That’s what it says on the name of the song, that “Play the Wind” was recorded on July 13th of 2003. And I go crazy because it sounds lovely and I am sure there must be more songs from this recording session! Where are they? And how come they weren’t released?
So many questions, and not many answers. As usual it is not easy to find the proper story of Japanese bands because of the language, it makes it very hard for me to search on Google. But I found important details, and I hope that some of the Japanese readers of the blog will fill in the blanks. Where are the band members now? Had they been in other bands other than Peatmos? When did the band split? Are there more unreleased recordings? Did they hail from Tokyo? Did they play many gigs? What do you remember about them?
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