Are you ready for the weekend? Here are some cool finds for all of you to enjoy!
Tvärtom: the Finnish band is definitely one of my favourite new bands. Everything I’ve heard by them is ace. Their latest is a video for their track “Iltariennot” which is also superb. It made me go back 10 years, when indiepop felt this fresh back then! With dancing, indiepop outfits, glasses, haircutes, all the things that I grew to love then! I really really hope there’s a release by the band. I was thinking it’d be cool to see a 7″, an A side in English, a B side in Finnish, wouldn’t that be something?
Collapse: a new video too by this Japanese band that makes some really good shoegaze! The song, “Ritual”, is actually part of a 3 song single called “Endogenic Rebirthday” that includes “Bleed” and “Oblivion” too. I just found out about them so I wasn’t aware either that “Oblivion” also had a video!
Dead Little Penny: some time ago I recommended this Auckland, New Zealand, project. At that time they had released a digital single called “Dead Together”. Well it seems that URL doesn’t work anymore. BUT, they have now an album where this single is included. The album is called “Urge Surfing” and includes that song plus 8 more. Very good stuff!
Bathe: another band that have been featured on the blog is the Atlanta based project Bathe. This is just a one-person band, Bailey Crone, a multi-instrumentalist, and that is really cool. On her latest track she gets the help of Damon Moon on synth and production to create a hazy and beautiful song called “Tarot Cards”.
So Many Lines: and now we travel all the way to Grenoble, France, for a a four track EP called “Greatest Travel Memory”. Included here are four songs, recorded between 2018 and 2019, that seem to be influenced by The Field Mice, The Wake, and other indiepop bands with electronic beats. It is a bit lo-fi, but that adds to the charm.
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Some time ago, exploring the 1991 tape “A Prospect of the Sea” (Smile 003) that Cloud Production released, I was quite curious about The Throwaways. They had a great name for an indiepop band. In the end I didn’t write about them and wrote about the lovely Kindergarten. You see, I couldn’t find any songs by them. Today I gave it another try and was able to find the song “Trainstation Friend”, that was included in this tape. And what a find it was!
I love that the theme of the song is a train station. There is this thing about trains and indiepop. I love it. I wish here in the US train travel was more common, more normal. Also the track is proper, classic, indiepop. Influenced by The Sea Urchins maybe.
The band didn’t release any records, but I believe they appeared on other compilations. I know there was an early 90s tape called “Seaside Train – A Swirl Compilation” were the band contributed the song “Apple”.
Then I find some interesting bits of information on Youtube, on a private video. Yes, I had to do some digging! The person commenting is Richard Hughes who was actually the vocalist and drummer of the band. The other band members were Paul Bradford on guitar and Nick Bray on bass. Sean Willmott was their original drummer and he was around during most of the band’s life. Richard mentions that the “Trainstation Friend” recording included in the compilation tape is actually a very early version of this song, dating from 1990 and recorded at the school studio’s in Newton Abbot. I would love to listen to later versions of course!
He says he has lost touch with Paul and Nick. Sean wasn’t on the recording of this track. He also mentions that Sean gigged for their first couple of shows supporting The Haywains, and then left. He would return eventually.
Richard was 19 when the band was formed, the rest were around 16. They lasted a few years and played gigs with great bands like The Popguns, Secret Shine and more. Their first gig was at the Le Cav in Bristol. When dance music came in they got a bit influenced by them it seems. That’s when they recorded the tracks “Apple’ and “Haversack”.
Sadly it seems Richard has lost all recordings from that time.
Sean is now an art teacher in London. Richard in the other hands seems to continue making music solo, also in London.
What about the other two? And did they really lose all their recordings? None of the other members have copies? I would really like to listen to their other songs. “Trainstation Friend” is pretty, so I would definitely love to know what happened to them. Why didn’t they release anything?! Who’d know!? Maybe some of my Bristol friends?
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