Another week goes by. Not many news on my front but I hope this weekend I can work on the two Cloudberry Cake Kitchen retrospective projects I’m working on. At the moment I have a couple of 7″s in the pipeline but they are just projects. I hope they start happening soon, receiving the songs and start planning some artwork. As soon as any of these become more tangible, I’ll be announcing them on the blog. In any case please remember that we have released this year The County Fathers CD  and the Salt Lake Alley and Okama Flannel Boy 7″s. And you can pre-order the BV’s 7″ as well! So quite a good year I’d say!

So what’s new in indiepop land?

The Natvral: I’m sure if I say Kip Berman you would know who I am talking about. Kip was the vocalist, songwriter, for The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. A band that is dear to Cloudberry as we had the chance to release the first three songs by the band back in 2007. So, with that pedigree, you’d be interested in what Kip is up to these days. He has a new solo project called The Natvral and he is playing a few gigs around the area. And even better he will be releasing a 4 song 7″ on October 5th. One of these songs, “Know Me More”, is available to stream.

Maxillary: Dea, Paw, Ical and Belle form this brilliant sounding band from Jakarta, Indonesia. As soon as you get to their Bandcamp they greet you with their latest song “Inside and Out”, but ther are two more from around the same period, August 2018, called “Poster Boy” and “Beauty’s in the Rage” which are great too. Ther is not much information about them though they do have the lyrics for the songs and they list Heavenpunks as their label. Will be see their songs on a release soon? I hope so!

Pablo Prisma y Las Pirámides: I must say I have mixed feelings with this Madrid band. In their new album “Grandes Felinos Fantasmas”, which is released by the top Discos Walden, I found superb songs and others that are not so much. I guess I like the pop songs the best, the ones that are a bit experimental, playful, they are not really for me. But in any case, the songs that I like, for example “Gato Fantasma” or “Criptozoología” are really good.

Lavender Blush: “My Pal K” is the only song you can stream from their four track EP that will be released on November 14th. These four songs were recorded as a session on Part Time Punks and I’m really surprised by how great this song sounds. I am sure the rest are as good! The San Francisco band have actually more songs on Bandcamp and it is worth exploring. They are formed by Ana Ramundo on synths, Chris Howard on drums, Jérémie Rüest on guitar, Ryan Lescure on vocals, guitar and Sam Hewatt on bass. The EP is coming out as a 10″ vinyl.

Bleak: a two song tape by this Belgian band came out last March on the Gazer Tapes label from Turnhout, in Belgium too. The songs on it are “Left” and “Twenty One”. On Bandcamp you can only stream the first. And from what I gather, there are only 4 tapes left right now. Check them out.

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I don’t know if you’ve noticed but I’ve been checking bands in the UK from the period that comes before c86. What I like to call proto-indiepop. Bands whose stories are not written on the web, whose records are not very well known, whose music is not easily available digitally. Today I’m curious about the Scottish band Secondary Modern.

There is just one release by them. One dating from 1983 in the form of a 7″ with two songs. It was probably self-released by the label Northern Sounds (DJG 1) that year and they included two songs, “Lucinda Dream” on the A side and “Boys Cry Too” on the B side. I’ve only been able to listen to the A side, with it’s wistful folky indiepop.

The record sleeve shows us three people on the cover. They are David Cormack (vocals), Jackie McMaster (guitar & vocals) and Gillian McLean (vocals). If you pay attention you’ll notice that is an odd lineup, no bassist, no drummer? Well, the band got the help from some friends. Ruby Bain played lead guitar, Johnnie Gunn played bass, Alan Hendry acoustic guitars, Andrew Webster drums and percussion and Douglas T. Miller percussion.

The two songs were recorded between April and May in 1983 at the Sailing Shoes studios and were engineered by Tommy Robertson. They were mastered at Abbey Road studios. And then we see an address. Thanks to that we know the band hailed from Wick, in the north of Scotland.

Wick is a town and royal burgh in Caithness, in the far north of Scotland. The town straddles the River Wick and extends along both sides of Wick Bay. Wick Locality had a population of 6,954 at the time of the 2011 census, a decrease of 3.8% from 2001. The Far North railway line links Wick railway station with southern Scotland and with Thurso, the other burgh of Caithness. Wick Airport is on Wick’s northern outskirts. The airport has two usable runways.

Would love to go there someday.

On 45cat I find some other details. So, “Lucinda Dream” was written by David Cormack and someone called A. Aitken. Who could that be? The B side, “Boys Cry Too”, is credited to Jackie McMaster.

I can’t find much about them, but I do find an interesting connection with the band members names and the people that helped on the record. David Cormack and Alan Hendry had been in a band before. One called The Naturals, who released also just one 7″ in 1980 with the songs “Strange Days”, “My Only Friend” and “Maybe Someday”.

There is not much more about the band on the web. It is for sure the very first band I feature to hail from that far north in Scotland. I would love to hear the B side which I saw it being described as a classic indiepop song with female vocals. Sounds like the kind of song I love. Would also love to find out if they recorded any other songs. And definitely curious about The Naturals too. Did they sound similar to Secondary Modern? I wonder if anyone knows any more details about them? What happened to the band members?

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Listen
Secondary Modern – Lucinda Dream