Day 34. Today is the official release date for the new Cloudberry fanzine! Super exciting times! I believe I will be going to the post office tomorrow to post all your orders. Thanks again very very much!

Now you were looking for new music, of course. I have looked for some good quarantunes for my dear readers.

Blush Response: the Adelaide, Australia, band is back with a collection of demos, outtakes, covers and more called “This Band Will Eat Itselt”. It is now available on Bandcamp and has 14 songs of their trademark shoegazey pop. All the proceeds from this release will be donated to Support Act.

Spring Winds: now another shoegaze band, but this time from Saint Petersburg, Russia. First time I listen to this band and I must say they sound amazing. Their latest track is called “Alpine Vic” and it is a winner!

The Short Story Picture Book: Liam James Marsh, with lyrics by Leah Short, has made a fun and interesting indiepop EP called “These Days”. The Nottingham based musician, which I am guessing will be invited to Indietracks it it takes place this year, makes some bouncy folky pop tracks that would be liked by indiepop lovers and the indie lovers that Indietracks have now as their target audience.

Suburban Living: this Philly band is releasing an album called “How to Be Human” on Egg Hunt Records on August 28th. There are 2 songs available to preview, “Main Street” and “Glow”, and they sound pretty neat. The album has 9 songs and will be available on vinyl!

City Flanker: lastly another shoegaze band, from Shaoxing in China. This is a first time for sure. Shaoxing! The band has an album online called “The Journey to City Flanker” that comes with 8 songs. It looks as if it is available only digitally  so I am hoping some of the cool new Chinese labels do release them in CD or vinyl, or something.

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Another band that caught my attention from the “What’s the Idea” compilation was Christopher.

I wrote a bit about this compilation, all the information I could find about, when I wrote about a band that appeared on it called More Perfect Watchers. I mentioned that this LP comp released by Idea Records was a record put together by bands around the area of St. Helens. With the help of their Community Arts Team they released this comp in 1990  and included bands from nearby places like Halton, Lancaster, Wigan and Bolton. Christopher hailed from Halton for example, and More Perfect Watchers from Wigan and Bolton.

Christopher appears on this compilation of 12 songs, with the track “Touch”. It is the last song on the A side.

When I was looking for more information about More Perfect Watchers I actually stumbled upon a blog post about Christopher. This was quite a surprise because with that name, I thought I wasn’t going to find any info about the band.

From what I understand Christopher was originally Ian Finney. In 1990 when the St. Helens Musicians Collective asked the best local bands he started working on it. Seems at that point the band was not ready, so he ended up recording the entire track on his own. He did so at the Pentagon Studios in Widnes. But that was not the only thing he did for this compilation, he would also produce Jennifer Fever’s track “Near” that also appears in it.

Then Ian tells us what inspired the song, a relationship that went sour with his then girlfriend. Then around October 1990 he got serious about the band and put together the band. They were Ian Finney, Jon Brown, Wayne Booth and Andy Starkey according to a photo I found. But, what did each of them play? Who’d know?

Now something interesting. Ian Finney had been part of a wonderful band before, The Tempest! Oh dear. I didn’t know this connection. I really like The Tempest and until today I don’t understand how there hasn’t been a retrospective compilation for them.

And thanks to that I find out that he has a Wikipedia entry! There it mentions that he continues making music with the band The Coralaines. Before that he had been in the Coal Porters.

This is great! I hope I get the chance to talk to Ian sometime, and find out more about this more obscure project of his, but also about The Tempest! Did anyone catch Christopher live? Did they have more songs? Any info will be appreciated!

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Listen
Christopher – Touch