There’s no football today, but it is also a holiday here in the US. The famous 4th of July. So not many news but a few finds from the previous days and of course our obscure band of the day.
The BV’s: two new demos by one of our favourite bands!! That is terrific news, isn’t it? Check out “Mould” and “Reflection” on the band’s Bandcamp. The band is at the moment recording their 2nd album and to show they are not forgetting about their fans they are sharing these two beauties!
Hater: there are two songs available to stream from the new album by Hater. The brilliant Malmö, Sweden, band are releasing “Siesta” on September 15th and you can preview their pretty Scandipop by listening to “It’s So Easy” and “I Wish I Gave You More Time Because I Love You”. The album will be released on vinyl LP and CD by Fire Records.
Dan Dan Dero: the Lima, Peru, band has been recommended many times on the blog, so they are not new by any means to the readers. They have a new song called “Las Antorchas” that sounds really pretty, so thought pointing it out to you all? Why not?
Marble Gods: this is yet another band that have appeared on the blog time and time again as they are really good! So if the trend continues, if they continue being this good, I will keep recommending any new song I find on the web. The Glasgow based band have a new tape on Marry Me Records. Yes, again a tape. I so wish it was a different format, but at least they are releasing stuff. The bad thing for many of you that do buy tapes is that it is already sold out. But then, do know that this release was actually a compilation of their previous tapes releases. So if you have those already, then you are good. In any case it is always a good reminder to listen to this top jangly fun songs!
Gentle Ivanhoe Death Skulls: what an odd name for this Stockholm band. This is another band that I discover by stalking my friend David on Bandcamp. The band’s releases are not that new. Their latest dates from November 15th last year. They are all digital releases. This last one has two songs, as if it was a digital single, with “Green Hang Ten” and “Beaches”. It is a bit shoegazy, a bit noisy, and dreamy too. Upbeat as well. They are really good songs! How come they fly under everyone’s radar? Perhaps because they haven’t tagged their music and that might prove hard to find them? Who knows, but this is really good and would love to hear more by them!
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The first of the Kittenish CD series was put together by Ceilidh Productions in Sweden. These mid-90s series were sort of a sampler of what the label was into at the time, and not necessarily showcasing only the label’s releases as it was the case of this first CD. These CDs were put together by the labels but they were actually released by a music magazine called Ultra Magazine. That’s what I’ve understood by a quick search on the web.
I don’t own any of these Kittenish CDs but would love to have the first one. I should make an effort and just get it through Discogs. The next one, the 2nd one, was released by the Beat That! label, while the 3rd one by MNW Dance and the 4th doesn’t seem to have a label as far as I know. Not sure if there were more releases in the series.
Anyhow, was just checking out some of the bands on the first Kittenish CD (CEI 037) released by Ultra Magazine and Ceilidh Productions, checking out a bunch of unknown bands for me and discovered a few that are worth featuring on the blog. See if we can find more information about them. I decided, for no special reason, other than I liked the song on the compilation, to start with the band Soapflakes. All right, I also thought the band name was kind of cool for a pop band.
On this compilation, that also includes important bands like The Cardigans or the super Stevepops, the Soapflakes appear almost at the end, on the 17th track out of 18th with the song “Impossible”. There is a small credit on the back cover for this song, it is credited to someone named L. Björn. Perhaps this will help me dig info on Google?
Discogs also has another song listed for the band on a 2013 triple CD compilation called “Håll Käft! The Gräjtest Rock’N Roll Swindle Vol. 1, 2 & 3” released by Position Förlag (POS005). It does look like these compilation are a mixed bag of styles, not just guitar pop but also some synth pop, hardcore, goth, and even metal. Everything thrown in together. Must be hard to listen I think!
This compilation wasn’t really sold on its own. But it actually came along a book called “Håll Käft! Den Nakna, Analoga, Uppkäftiga Och Nästan Kompletta Sanningen Om Musiklivet I Västerviks Kommun” that is an anthology of the local scene of Västervik in Sweden, between the years 1974 and 1992.
Västervik is a city and the seat of Västervik Municipality, Kalmar County, Sweden with 21,140 inhabitants in 2010. Västervik is one of three coastal towns with a notable population size in the province of Småland, with Kalmar County being the only coastal county in the province. Every year since 1966 there is a folk music festival in Västervik, at the ruins of the Stegeholm castle. Being a summer town popular with yachtspeople, campers, daytrippers, and returning former residents, Västervik experiences an annual revival in July. Västervik offers an outdoor life of climbing, canoeing and sailing or islands to visit and stay at. Björn Ulvaeus, a band member of international ABBA who grew up in Västervik is building a complex consisting of hotel, restaurant, and apartments in the bay near Stegeholm castle, which will be a tourist attraction for Västervik.
So we can place the band in time, the early to mid 90s. We know they hailed from Västervik, which means west bay, in Sweden. And we know there was someone in the band called L. Björn. We don’t know of any proper releases though. We do know two songs.
Through the Scandinavian Indie email list I could find that the L stands for Lasse. So It was Lasse Björn. With that information in hand I could find that a band called Dung mentions Lasse on a post back in June 2007. So this band Dung was recording their 3rd album and they were to give the recordings for Lasse to mix them. Here they mention a few interesting things, Lasse had also been in a band called Seventh Wave and at the time, 2007, he was in a band called The Anhyzers. The curious thing then, is that there is an old myspace for this band, and it is listed as a band based in Studio City, California. Is that right?
Then I stumble upon the blog Mr. Zaines Kosertarkiv, a gig archive obviously, and here there is one Soapflakes gig listed, with poster and all. This gig happened at the Kalmar Nation, in Uppsala on September 10th of 1993.
What about Seventh Wave? It seems this was the band he was involved afterwards, a surf band, that released a record called “Always Offshore” in an Australian label called Corduroy Records, in 1995. I wonder if any of the bandmates in Seventh Wave were in Soapflakes as well? Later on, in 2009, this band was to release a mini CD too. Another band that is listed under Lasse’s name is Tamburmajoren who put out a few records on the label Drop Out Records. Then it seems he was involved with Sounds of Distortion as a producer and Weaselface as a technician.
Something interesting for sure is that there is a famous retired hockey player with the same name that keeps popping up. But in the end I stumble upon some interesting details, that Lasse works these days for the Sveriges Ljudmigreingscentrum (SLC) in Västervik. I believe that is a Sound Studio of some sort, Sound Migration Center.
Then I make a connection. I’ve seen SLC mentioned alongside the name Drop Out Studios a couple of times. I believe then that Drop Out Records, that released the Tamburmajoren CDs, is actually Lasse’s own label.
That’s quite some info about him. But I can’t find out who the other members were. Or how come there were no releases by Soapflakes. Maybe there were tapes. Or how come he hasn’t re-released with Drop Out some of the Soapflakes material. I’m curious. But it seems this early 90s band is kind of forgotten. At least I’ve heard one of their songs. Maybe with luck I could track the one included in the triple CD compilation. It is interesting though, that this must be the first time I feature a band from Västervik on the blog.
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Listen
Soapflakes – Impossible
