My post got deleted and I wrote it again! And I hope I did it better because I am very excited. You see yesterday I announced a new 7″ release on Cloudberry, our 47th! It is by Leicester band Dayflower and it includes two songs! The A side is called “Sweet Georgia Gazes” and is really really good. You can check it out on Soundcloud at the moment. The B side is called “Daisy Age” and I like it as much! The art was created by Japanese illustrator Risa Konishi. In the following weeks I will be announcing pre-order button and also adding it to our Bandcamp. Just keep an eye here on the blog, our Facebook or our new instagram for news. The 7″ should be out sometime this fall!
Play People: our Derby friends are finally releasing their debut album “What a Life”! It includes 13 poppy tracks that no one should miss. The album is only available digitally so far, though I am crossing fingers it gets a proper release. Also just heads up that I still have copies of their 7″ that Cloudberry released some years ago.
Cariño: I really wanted to catch the Madrid band last weekend when I was there. But there was no luck. They were touring the north, Bilbao I think. I really like their music you see. And their latest video is not exception. Do check it out, it is for the superb “:(“!
Ether Feels: The Japanese shoegaze band also has a new video. It is for their newest song titled “Kowloon Sunset” which I believe is not part of any releases yet. Sounds good!
Spool: Don’t know anything about them, but found their video for the song “Blooming in the Morning” that is part of their self-titled album on the Twee Lovers Club facebook group. It sounds nice. The album is being released by the Japanese label Testcard Records.
The Pooh Sticks: Optic Nerve is releasing a boxset of 5 7″s for 50 pounds plus shipping. I have ordered it but I must say it is very pricey. I know their releases are great, very nicely packaged. But hey, I do nice packaging too I think, and I sell mine for 7 dollars plus shipping. I should reconsider the prices maybe? In any case this is a great release I think and it will be available November 22nd.
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And it has also been a while since a Greek band was featured. So let me fix that today.
I was introduced to the band Sound Devise thanks to the wonderful and now legendary compilation “Try a Little Sunshine” (pop-99) that Pop Art Records released in 1999. This compilation was for many an introduction to Greek indiepop as it showed us the beauty of One Night Suzan, Next Time Passions, The Crooner and more. On this CD we would find Sound Devise and their song “This Micro”.
The second time I came face to face with the band was two years ago, thanks to the Make Me Happy label and their labour of love in bringing back Greek indiepop. Their first release was a compilation featuring many of the bands from the halcyon days and it was called “A Sparkle from the Past” (MMH001). On this compilation the band appeared with the track “Come Together”.
So far two songs. This is not enough I think. Well today I discovered a third song on Youtube which I thought sounded great, “Flowers in Your Mouth”. This song was included in three compilations in the 90s. The first was the 1994 double cassette comp “Breeze 4” that Alphyen Viwit label from Germany. The other one dates from 1997 and was a Greek compilation released by DRG Records (DRG 001) that was called “Sub Collection No 2”. The last one was also from 1997 and was called “Girls Re-Write Rock” (Voice 002) that the Voice magazine released with their second issue.
The band would appear as I am now discovering in many more compilations. The bulk of their releases were appearances on compilations I must say. The first ones seems to date from 1992. They would contribute the song “It’s Not True” to the compilation LP “Random Relations Part 2” that was released by the Greek label Elfish (elf004). Their cover of “All Cats are Gray” would appear on the “second part” of these compilations, “Random Relations Part 2” (elf009), that same year.
Then in 1993 they appeared on the compilation “Weapons of Happiness” that was released on tape by the Greek fanzine The World of Suzie Wong. They contributed the song “Come Together”.
In 1995 they would appear on Bliss Aquamarine’s tape “Magenta” (BLISS 019) with two songs, “Utopia” and “This Micro”.
Lastly in 1996 the band contributed the song “Manifesto” to the CD and LP compilation “Act Up – …Εν Τούτω Νίκα” released by FM Records (FM 396). It sees though that for this compilation the band had changed the spelling of their name to Sound Device. Device with a C?
Discogs has two compilations where the band appeared as well but they don’thave a release date. The first is that their song “Peace in Mind” was included in the French tape compilation “Plouf” that came along Les Tartines fanzine. And the other one was the “A Glittering Christmas” tape that had two of their songs, “All Cats are Grey” (which is a cover of The Cure) and “Follow”. This tape was released by the Italian label Shiny Sunset which I tried to interview in the past with no luck. Wish I knew more about both of these to be honest as they used to be involved with great bands.
The interesting thing though is that Discogs does have one proper release listed for the band, so it wasn’t all just compilations. A self-titled and self-released tape was put out in 1991. It included 5 songs. The A side had “It’s Not True”, “Follow” and “Come Together” while the B side had “A Falling Drop” and “All Cats are Grey”. Now was there perhaps another tape later on by the band with the other songs I’ve mentioned?
It doesn’t look like it so far. We do know though who the band members were. George Kapolas was on bass, Chris Tsarmadas on guitar, Thanos Prunarus on keyboards and Polina Toll on vocals. I do believe though on some songs Goergia Gounari was the vocalist. Perhaps there was a change of vocalists? Sometimes I do find in credits the name of Andreas Papadopoulos on drums and Lambros Papageorgiou on backing vocals too.
Looking then at any other projects they might have been involved I find that Thanos Prunarus had been in the band Area. And the only other person that had connections with Sound Devise that seems to be listed in another band is Labros Papageorgiou who was also on the band Inner Wish.
I keep looking and I see some comments on a blogspot mentioning that the band was actually formed by George Christopoulos on guitar. Why was his name not listed on Discogs? I wonder. Chris and George would later be on the band Dr. Vodkatini which I heard about before when I interviewed Kissamatic Lovebubbles. Another comment in this post mentions that Polina is an editor of “Tatiana” which I asume is a magazine?
Something curious that I find on the web is that Thanos is behind the Baba Au Rhum bar in Athens and he has hosted also the inaugural Athens Rum Festival. You can read about it and other details about his life on this article by Mixology.
So that’s about all I could find about the band. I am sure I have a few Greek readers so I am hoping they can help me out find out more about the band. I think they were quite distinct as they had female vocals while most of their Greek peers didn’t. I wonder if it they only released that tape. There must have been something else, right? And also I wonder what are they up to these days? Who remembers them?
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