Just a reminder that I’ll be heading to Mexico this Friday night. Any orders placed after Thursday will be posted on January 28th. Also if you are in Mexico and want any records from the Cloudberry catalog or any that we distribute let me know. I’ll be happy to meet or mail them to you from within Mexico and save you shipping.

About Cloudberry news, I should have a bunch upon my return. In the meantime, here are some great new finds you shouldn’t miss!

The Lousy Pop Group: the Indonesian band is preparing a new 7″ to be released on the German label Entes Anomicos. And that is great news for sure! The band led by Eko, Erlan, Andy and Addil, have released one of the songs that will be part of this release, “Days”! It is jangly, moody, and sweet. Also worth mentioning is that the artwork is being done by my friend David! He is also on a roll lately!

Selma: this Norwegian band from the town of Seljord has just released an album called “Sjøormpop”. 9 songs packed with cool folky sounds and very catchy melodies! Yes. I don’t usually get hooked by folky stuff, but when it is poppy, fun and quirky, I can buy it. The album seems to be available only in digital format for the time being.

Flying Fish Cove: the Seattle band have released a new digital single with two tracks, “Magic Wand” and a cover of Heavenly’s “Shallow”. Wow! That is a treat indeed. And that is not the only treat of course. “Magic Wand” has a promo video too. I really hope this West Coast band gets to play some East Coast gigs in the near future!

Plainbow: their “Super Super Super” EP is out now on tape on Hidden Bay Records, the terrific label from Toulouse. This tape has some very fine shoegaze in it, packed nicely in 4 songs. Something that caught my attention of course was their name, which looks very much like The Pains of Being Pure at Heart’s own label, Painbow. Was it a nod to them?

Honey Cutt: lastly there’s this new band for me that hails from Boston. There is a new album coming out called “Coasting” which will be released in vinyl and CD on March 13. Around that time they will be playing NYC. Maybe I should catch them there. Two (out of ten) of the songs of the album are available to preview, “Vacation” and “Suburban Dream”. If you like Alvvays and similar female-led jangly bands this is up your street for sure!

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Cinnamon Toast Crunch (known as Croque-Cannelle in French Canada, Curiously Cinnamon in the UK (previously Cinnamon Grahams), and as a different-tasting but similar-looking variant called Cini Minis in other European and Latin American countries where available), is a brand of breakfast cereal produced by General Mills and Nestlé. The cereal was first produced in 1984.

I was looking the other day into completing my Cinnamon Toast Crunch collection but I feel it will be quite hard. You see I own the “Charmless Harm” mini-album but I am missing the “Jumpers Survive” album and “Chelsea Wood” EP, but the thing is they seem a bit pricey for me!

At least I have one of the three releases. And I am playing it now. As it is so pretty. But in due honesty I know very little about this late 90s Japanese band. So maybe it is good time to find out more about them?

The band was formed by:
Sai – vocals, backing vocals and words
Kenji Imada – bass, guitar, xylophone and lyrics
Daichi Hamazaki – drums and percussion
Masaru Funaki – guitar

The first release by the band was in 1998. It was the album “Jumpers Survive” (SP-002) released by Smile Records and Sunshine Pop. I suppose it was a co-release though there is just the one catalog number. This album had just 8 songs on it, “Néron”, “Swing Parade 1964”, “Sharing Opportunity”, “Grassy”, “If I Dream in September”, “Candyfool”, “Lord, It’s Winter and Snowing Outside” and “Thrown Thrown”.

On this album we see that it included very nice arrangements as Takayuki Taneda played violin in “Grassy” and cello on “If I Dream in September”, Masayo Maeda played flute on “Sharing Opportunity”, Mizue Oikawa played accordion on “Swing Parade 1964” and “Grassy”, Yasuhiro Narita played mandolin on “Thrown Thrown”, Yuki Makita played piano accordion on “Candyfool” and “Lord, It’s Winter and Snowing Outside” and Susumucci Fujibayashi played harmonica on “Thrown Thrown”. Other credits include design by Tomonori Iwasaki, photography by Ani Hayashi and Aya Kawasaki. Kenji Imada produced the songs.

The band released in 1998 the “Chelsea Wood” EP (SP-006) on Smile Records and Sunshine Pop.  I read that this EP came with a free mini sticker. What was this sticker about? Would be fun to know. This EP was sweet and short, four songs were on it: “Chelsea Wood”, “Sandmill and Sandals”, “Passengers State” and “Slightly Funny”.

Other credits on this EP are for Mizue Oikawa who played accordion, Susumucci Fujibayashi  played harmonica, Daisuke Hara who art directed, Osamu Matsuo who took the photography.  Also it is worth mentioning that Kenji Imada produced the record.

Lastly the band moved to the very fine Under Flower Records/Pusbike Records. With them they released the “Charmless Harm” EP (UFPB 022). This is the one I have. The songs on this one were “Try Little Piece”, “Inverted Forest”, “Rain”, “Wave of Love”, “Misery-Bernard’s Case” and “Irish Testament”.

Aside from these releases we know the band appeared on a few compilations. In 1998 they had their song “Passengers State” on the Sunshine Pop comp “Sunshine Pop Show! Vol. 2” (SP-008). The year after, 1999, they had the song “Rain” on the Under Flower Records comp CD “Flowers are Go! Vol. 3” (FLOWER 026) and one year later, 2000, this same song was included in “Indies Magazine Vol. 32” compilation that was released by Rittor Music (ICB-032). This last one was a comp that came with the February 2000 issue of the Indies Magazine in Japan.

I look too if the members had been involved in any other bands. I can see that the drummer Daichi Hamazaki played in Chappie, Dream, Ayumi Hamasaki and more. Can’t find any info for the rest!

The problem, as it is quite obvious, is that the band’s name makes it very hard to find any information about them. I only get hits for the cereal! Tough. I wonder if there’s a way to track the band members down, as I’d love to interview them and find out more about this very curious Japanese band, who released fine records but it seems they are not remembered much!

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Listen
Cinnamon Toast Crunch – Inverted Forest