Alright! weekend is here! And here are 5 good finds for you to listen this weekend. I hope too that I will have time to start planning the new fanzine I want to put out next year. At least get an outline done and then contact the bands I want to interview.

Salt Lake Alley: our friends from Stockholm are back after releasing a 7″ on Cloudberry! And that is good news! I know they have recorded enough songs for an album, and only now I am trying to catch up after being out for holidays. But they have put out one of these songs, “Chop Away!” as a digital single and what a track this is! It is definitely one of the best they have recorded. It starts with an 80s sort of vibe and then carries on with some great melody, a bit JAMC, a bit The Prayers, a bit great Scottish pop then. This definitely tells everyone they are up to great things. Can only wait for more. If you haven’t heard them yet, this is a good place to discover the wonderful music Gustav and Mikael are making!

Las Perdón: I featured this duo from Madrid some time ago. Back then they didn’t have the EP “Melón y Sandía” out yet, but two songs were on their Bandcamp. Well, since last week there are 4 songs, 2 more. So we find “Asco Total”, “El Chico Más Tonto de Madrid”, “Toc, Toc” and “El Secuestro” now, four songs of  catchy indiepop with fun singalong lyrics, boy/girl vocals, and infectious choruses. I can’t wait for a Spanish label to pick them up. A 7″ would be nice!

Brunch Club: the Edmonton, Canada, band became quickly a favourite of mine. Definitely one of the most exciting bands in the last few years. Terrific indiepop with classic influences. Surprising though their latest album is only available digitally. The 8 song album “Another Wasted Summer” is jangly and wonderful. I really hope I can play it at home on a CD player, or on the turntable someday. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this on many year-end lists.

Sugar World: the San Diego band has also been featured in the past. But hey, they do have a brand new song “We Fell in Love” that I have been playing on repeat. It has that feeling of the late 90s indiepop, early 2000s. Kind of a sweeter Marine Time Keepers, sort of? It is dreamy, evocative of good past places and times. This is another band that needs to put out some records!

Goodbye Idiots III: this is the name of the new compilation put together by the Mexico netlabel Stupid Decisions. There are a bunch of great tracks by mostly unknown bands (at least they are not known to me) on it waiting to be discovered.

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I was reading a post on Blaskoteket, a post that is actually grabbed from a Sound Affects article I believe. It was about the Kristiansand, Sweden, band Leslies. A superb pop combo that released a bunch of records in the 90s in many labels like H. Lime, Labrador, La Belle Pop and more. The part that caught my attention about the article was that it said that the band was born from the ashes of two pop bands, Shelleys and Shoplifters.

So what did I do? I went to look for music and information about these two bands. So far I haven’t been able to find anything about Shelleys but I did find a post on a Japanese blog about Shoplifters. There I could even listen to two tracks, “I Don’t Like to Think” and “Kneedancing”, and I thought they were really great.

Sadly the songs are not complete, they are kind of cut at the end. Shame, I would love to listen to the whole thing. In any case it seems these two songs come from a demo tape called “Shoplifting the Moon”. Happily the blog mentions some details about this tape. It was released in 1993 and included six songs in total, “I Don’t Like to Think”, “Getting High in a Paperbag”, “Kneedance”, “Dizzy Reflections”, “Miss Place” and “Ode to Friends”. It mentions too that the vocalist and guitarist from the Leslies were in Shoplifters. Does this mean that Tony Ivarsson and Martin Berndtsson (or Martin Engvall) were in Shoplifters? I would love to confirm this!

I keep searching for any other details about them but I can’t find really anything. Were these the only songs they ever recorded? The two I’ve heard, even incomplete, sound fabulous, that’s why I am sharing them like that. I would really love to listen to the rest. And of course find out any details and sounds by Shelleys! Any help will be appreciated!

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Listen
Shoplifters – I Don’t Like to Think