Okay my friends! Pre-orders are now available on the Cloudberry website for the upcoming Baby Lemonade retrospective that should be out this spring, so in a few months max! I am very excited about this release as I’ve been working on it for a long time! But this is not all, tomorrow on Facebook and Twitter (and Wednesday on the blog) I’ll be announcing the next 7″ to be released by the label! So please keep and eye and support by getting a copy if you can!
Now, here are some finds from the weekend!
The Blue Herons: I really like this project but it feels they don’t release as often as they should! Their previous release on Bandcamp dates from a year ago almost! “Another Chance” is their new song and features Thierry Haliniak from My Raining Stars on vocals…. and it is gorgeous! What a song! I really would like to hear more by them as it is very very good!
Cristina Quesada: our friend from Canarias is releasing an album later this month on the 26th! So it is no surprise that she has made a lovely video for the song “Estar a Tu Lado”! The song I believe was written by another hero of us, La Bien Querida. So everything is great here! Can’t wait to get the album!
Ta To Boy: the Greek band from Thessaloniki has been featured in the past when they released their terrific album “This Town”. Now I need to showcase them again as they have a wonderful new song on their Bandcamp titled “Goodbye”. Go check that out! I hope it appears on a proper release soon!
The Raft: I have also featured this band many times and I have to do it again because finally they are releasing their music in physical format. Out now is “Abloom” the CD album by The Raft on Shore Dive Records from Brighton. Terrific shoegazey indiepop on 10 songs!
Corasandel: from Lincoln in England comes this ambient-shoegaze band who has a few previous releases. This is the first time I’m listening to them, through their 5-track EP “All the Hours are One”. Only the first song of the EP is available to preview on Bandcamp, “Unison Mix”, but if the rest is as good, then this is a very fine record. It is available on CD too.
COCO: time for a Mexican band, from Culiacán! Their latest song, “Anemoia” is a lovely shoegaze/dreampop track which makes me wonder why they call themselves post-rock (I never liked post-rock). I will keep an eye on these “cuates”.
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In 1999 the fine San Francisco label Radio Khartoum released a mini CD by Essiar. “Summer in Minsk”, an evocative name, was the title of this EP with catalog number khz199.
The name Essiar actually comes from the last name of Cyrille Essiar, the main person behind this project. He wrote the songs. And he performed in all of them. 6 songs appear in this EP that mentions Belarus’ capital, “Le Pied Des Arbres”, “Aller Voter”, “Un Cottage Ecossais”, “Romance”, “Madrigal” and “N’en Parlons Plus”.
Something that surprised me from the credits is that Alicia Vanden Heuvel from The Aislers Set (and other bands like Magic Trick, Poundsign, Still Flyin’ and Uni) played on this record. Did she travel to France to record her parts? Also Eugéne Adelle is listed as a performer on this record.
There is not much more information on the sleeve sadly. Not sure what instruments or what each of them played. I do know that the band appeared in a few comps. On the Radio Khartoum mini CD comp “The Flight of Everson K (18fps Vol.1)” (khz198) the band contributed the song “Tempo” as Cyrille Essiar.Then in 1999 on the French label Dif Pif’s tape compilation “Pif Parade” (Dif001) the band contributed “L’amour Est Amer S’il N’est Mûr”, “My Love For You” and “L’Amour”. I believe this last song was a cover of Serge Gainsbourg. Other known bands on this comp are Watoo Watoo and Gypsophile.
Lastly, in 2006, the band contributes the song “Cellui” to the “Not’ CD2″compilation. Sadly Discogs doesn’t have much information about this comp, not even the label that put it out.
According to the Radio Khartoum website the mini CD was quite popular in Sweden as the label received quite a lot of fan mail from that Scandinavian country. Sadly it seems that even for the label Essiar is a big mystery.
It does look as if Cyrille Essiar vanished after this release. I can’t seem to find any other music he might have been involved with afterwards (or before!). But I’m curious. The mini CD is great, suave and haunting. But many questions are unanswered. Did he even play live?
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Listen
Essiar – Romance
