This weekend I noticed I don’t have any more copies of the Parcel Post 7″. This is good and bad news of course. Good that all the records found a good home and bad because many people probably would miss this great 7″.
I have started working on new projects, new releases. It is still early days but I’ve been emailing here and there to get the ball rolling. I hope I will have news in the coming months. As you know, now with a baby, things are a bit slower for me. But I want to continue putting records out. At least a few more.
Also take advantage of the mixed bag offer we have. Those who are not familiar with the label, give it a try. I need space at home and I am selling all these great records for a very small price.
Anyhow, here are my weekend finds.
Un Día Soleado: here’s a fine compilation by the Argentinean one-man band of Enzo Raffler. It is titled “Y Todo Sigue Igual…” and you can find on it 13 songs of lovely and jangly pop songs. 6 of them are original tracks by the band, the rest are covers, including an “Anorak City” cover! and live tracks. This is a good way to discover this band.
Jim Shepherd: Spinout Nuggets will release on March 25 the album “The Circle” by Jim Shephard, the lead singer of the legendary band The Jasmine Minks! The album will be available on vinyl and CD and includes 12 songs. We can preview one of them, “Coming Alive”, which is great! The record has contributions from many great indie people like Beth from Aberdeen, Arash from The Distractions, Frank Sweeney of The June Brides, Dave Morgan from The Loft, and so on!
Salt Lake Alley: “It Takes Two” is the name of the album the duo formed by Gustav and Mikael will be reeleasing on June 20 with Shelflife Records. I remember the days when we released a 7″ (copies still available) and seeing them now releasing a 2nd album, is quite amazing. Time goes fast!! The album has 11 songs, including a coveer of Twig’s “Now I’ve Realized”. This is truly good. The band’s orthodox indie pop shines bright here. This is one of the records I look forward the most this year!
Astragal: the Houston band, a favourite of the blog, is releasing their album “Cashmere” on April 1st. It will be a 9 song vinyl LP and two of their songs are available to preview right now, “Mirrored Writing” and “Ponte Vedra”. The songs are superb as usual. I can’t wait to listen the rest of the album. Great job by Jimmy Bent, David Sosa and Sam Enkelmann.
David Christian: “Your Pinecone Companion” is a homemade companion to the album “For Those Wee Met on the Way” that the Comet Gain leader released last year. On this digital only release we find demos of the songs that were properly released. Demos with different words, chords and moods as David mentions. As always essential listening.
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Not sure why I left a draft, two years ago, saying that I should write about the Japanese band Jenny on the Planet. I should have written about them immediately. Or at least some weeks later…
I guess I forgot, but now that I am going through all my drafts, and checking bands that never answered my interviews and writing about them, I also find drafts like this where I have collected a bunch of links, where I have saved my research.
Jenny on the Planet started releasing music in 1997 and their last release dates of 2008. Let’s see what we find about them.
Let’s do this chronologically. So in 1997, as Momoiro Jenny the band released two songs on a tape called “Space Tape Vol.8” that came with a fanzine of the same name. At this point we see the band using this other name, Momoiro Jenny, but we are sure it is the same band. The songs were on the B side and they were “Short Story” and “Surf Cycle”. The other band on this tape were The Cartoon Characters. I have never heard them!
In 1998 the band releases a self-titled tape on the Onion label (ONICT-006). This tape had 6 songs, 3 on each side. The A side had “Space Ship”, “Sleeping Cherry Tree” and “Go Away”. The B side included “Little Orange”, “Pastel Summer” and “I’ll Be Your Mirror”.
That same year the band signs to the fine K.O.G.A. Records and releases a self-titled debut album (K.O.G.A. 054). This album comes out on CD and includes 10 songs, “Talk Away, Baby”, “Short Story”, “Sail Seven Seas”, “Cowcadden”, “Canned Air”, “Lost Satellite”, “Surf Cycle”, “Sleeping Cherry Tree”, “White as Snow” and “Andy”. This album was produced by Keizo Suhara, Nobuhiko Kurose, Noriyuki Morimoto and the band at Studio Puzzle in Osaka in the spring of that year. The engineer was Noriyuki Morimoto. The mastering was done by Hikari Mitsufuji at AST Mastering Studio. All the photos on the CD were taken by the band while the illustration is credited to Michael from Glasgow. Sadly the credits don’t tell us the band members’ names.
Lastly, in 1998, the band contributed a song to the CD compilation that came along the Indies Magazine number 18. The song the band gave away was “Short Story”.
In 1999 the band continues to release music. A split 7″ with Chain Letter (interviewed with them!) where Jenny on the Planet appear on the B side with the song “Overground”. This 7″ appeared on Chain Letter’s own label Tulip House with catalog number TULIP 007. I’d like to get a copy of this record! The credits do tell us that the artwork was created by Masafumi Hiramatsu who had played drums for Chain Letter. We also get first names for the band members of Jenny on the Planet but no last names, Hiroyoshi, Miori and Sachiko. We know too now that the band hailed from Osaka.
A cassette and CD compilation titled “Tribute to Nippon” or “トリビュート・トゥ・ニッポン” on Ummo Records (UOCA-1007) includes their track Comlate. This came out in 2000. In 2001, the band contributes “Still Water Run Deepp”, “Sylla Bub” and “Cul-Ce-Suc” to the compilation “Chaan! Ban! Thank You Ben.” released by Monarch Records (MNRC-001). This limited CD compilation of 500 copies included other indiepop bands like Soda-Pop, Maple Drive, Soft Parade, Cry Baby, The Beauties and The Cartoon Characters.
In 2003 the band have their song “Sleeping Cherry Tree”, which is perhaps my favourite of theirs, on “Good Girls Don’t! (K.O.G.A. Records 10th Anniversary Compilation Album Vol.1) released of course by K.O.G.A. (KOGA-159). This same year the band releases their second album “Jenny on the Planet”. Yes, yet again another self-titled release though it seems this CD album is also known as “II”. This one was released by two labels, Gyuune Cassette (CSCD-15) and Childish Soup (CSCD-15). The Gyuune label was based in Osaka and was owned by Keizo Suhara who had produced the band’s first album. I believe Childish Soup was also his label! Anyhow, 10 songs were on this album, “Let Me Know Where I Belong”, “Harmony”, “Cloud”, “I Feel Out of Place”, “Closed Door Are Like Bad Secrets”, “Pause”, “Promenade”, “Dive into the Sea”, “Live in the Past” and “El Gato”. And here we finally find the band members names!
Hiroyoshi Yamato was on guitar and vocals, Miori Matsuzawa was on bass and vocals and Sachiko One was on drums and vocals. This album was produced again by Keizo Suhara. He also engineered and mixed it at Studio Puzzle. The master was done at Studio You by Katsunori Owa. The assistant engineeer was Koji Atsuzawa. The art direction and design for the album is credited to Shota Matsuo, the cover art photo to Fumitaka Amada and the band member’s photo to Ken Tanaka.
It will be 5 more years, 2008, for the band to release their third album, “For”. This one was released on CD by Gyuune Cassette (CD95-39) and includeed 12 songs: “Summer Rain”, “まどあかり”, “The Moment”, “葡萄”, “Weekend Boots”, “Moralistic Telephone”, “Still”, “Monochrome”, “キリンと月”, “日々の陽, “遠路航海士, and “袋の底”. This album was again recorded, engineered and mixed by Keizo Suhara at Studio Puzzle. The master again done by Katsunori Owa at Studio You in Osaka.
For the art credits, Miori from the band took the cover photo and did the drawings. The live photo was by Yukako Inooka. The design and band member’s photo was taken by Shota Matsuo.
On Youtube there is some stuff by them. There is live footage of the band playing “Summer Rain” on October 2nd, 2008. There is a 2009 video of the band playing at a small place it seems. Cozy and cute. Then there is a full gig from February 28, 2013 at the Bears venue. 50 plus minutes of the band playing. Cool!
And that is all I could find on the web. No info about if the band members ended up in any other bands. No clue when exactly did they stop making music. I wonder what are they up to these days. Would be great to know more about this ace Japanese indiepop band!
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