Now we are all working from home. I wonder if we’ll see more music showing up with people staying in, staying put. It is a strange situation indeed. But let’s be positive that it will be over soon.
In the meantime, some new music I found this past weekend!
Phosphene: here’s a good band from Portland that I just discovered. They play some fine shoegazy indiepop on their latest track “Spiral”. They seem to be a duo, boy/girl, and from what I understand, this song is their 2nd single from their upcoming album “Lotus Eaters”!
Bdrmm: the Hull band is back with a new single called “Happy”. Again their trademark indiepop with shades of postpunk and shoegaze is present. The band is sounding great and it looks they have a few gigs coming up. That scares me a bit these days seeing many friends getting their gigs canceled and losing money. Hope it is not bad for them!
Fantastic June: what a lovely album the one-man bedroom project of Ridwan Yuniardhika from Jakarta has just put up on Bandcamp! The album called “Dancing with the Flowers” comes with lovely artwork and 10 songs of sweet indiepop tunes. I really hope this gets a proper release because it is terrific!
Uniforms: the Spanish band formed by Pan on drums, Will on bass and vocals, Spingel on guitars and vocals and Annie on synths and lead vocals, has just shared their first single from their forthcoming second album. This single is called “Casi Famosas” and it does sound very good! The album will be released by the label Oso Polita soon I hope!
Sustains: our friends from Toulouse, Hidden Bay Records, have found another pop gem to release them on a cassette. The band is called Sustains from California and they are putting out an EP called “Sick Ones” on March 20th. It will have 4 songs and we can already preview one of them, “Game”.
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Multisofá. From Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Summer of 2002, two friends decide to for a band. Gustavo Gusmão and Mauricio Palhano love Belle and Sebastian, The Mendoza Line, Slowdive, The Field Mice. Why not. Let’s make pop music.
Not sure if the band found a Brazilian home to release them. That is a good question. It is strange that they wouldn’t. As far as I know their music was released in Italy and Japan. Maybe there was more interest there?
They only put out a self-titled album with 7 tracks. First on tape on the Italian label Best Kept Secret (LIE 055). At this point the band had grown. Juliano Rosa had joined to play guitar, keyboards and piano. Diego Carlos also joined to sing. Gustavo Gusmão would play acoustic guitar, electric guitar, keyboards and backing vocals. Mauricio Palhano the drums, harmonica and backing vocals.
The record would have some guest musicians like Dennis Martins who played bass, Marina Gomes (from the band Valv) who played piano, Emerson Galvao played slide guitar, Livia Segurado the violin and Maya Mitre who sang. All 7 songs were to be recorded at The 1501 studios in their hometown between April and October of 2001. They were mixed there as well.
The songs were “Suffering and Smiling”, “Vanishing”, “Special Indoor Offer”, “Rachel”, “Odd Chord”, “Car Noises and Sleeping Pills” and “Blame it on Home”. All in English. No songs in Portuguese.
The Japanese version was released on CD by Little Pad Records (LPAD004) on September 2002. The record would include the same 7 songs plus 3 songs put together as a single track with the name “A Single Japanese”. These were “Place in Space”, “Suffering and Smiling” and “Untitled”. Tulio H. Panzera would play acoustic guitar on “Place in the Space” and “Untitled”.
Discogs has no info for the band members. But it does tell us that they appeared on two compilations, both in Japan. The first was in 2002 on the CD comp “This is Radio Cookie Scene 10/2002” (RCS-0008) that came for free with the Cookie Scene magazine number 27. They contributed the song “Rachel”. Then in 2004 they appeared on the 3CD compilation “Pop Renaissance” released by Excellent Records (EXCD 014). I remember this compilation when I wrote about Wake Up Africa. Right? Now revisiting it I ntoice that Multisofá contributed the track “Car Noises and Sleeping Pills”.
Not sure how long the band lasted. Or if there were lineup changes. I do find a song called “Into the Ocean” on Soundcloud that dates from 2011. Does that mean the band continued playing at least until that year?
Another interesting thing I find on Soundcloud is that some of the band members played in the band Deedees around 2014. Though looking into the lineup I only see Emerson Galvao and Juliano Rosa.
And then quite the trove! A Bandcamp! Here are 10 songs by the band, an album called “MTSF”. These were released in 2017! Cool! It seems it was only released digitally but still, here we find the following tracks: “Change of Pace”, “For a While”, “Still in Town”, “Misleading Achievements”, “Forefront’s Reaction”, “Exit Lines”, “Major Damage Control”, “Limited Access”, “Recovery Routine” and “Transition Ahead”. We also notice some lineup changes. Gustavo Afonseca plays bass and Alexandro Augusto plays lead vocals. These songs were recorded by Gustavo Gusmão, were mixed by George Shilling and mastered by TW Walsh. “Change of Pace” actually got a video made.
Thanks to this album I find a podcast by Fleeting Media about the band and their “MTSF” album. And then an article on the newspaper O Tempo. Here I find that the band split in 2005 because Gustavo Gusmão had moved to Rio de Janeiro. It mentions too that the band set up their own label Bay King Music. Does this mean they self-released themselves in Brazil? Who’d know? And for those who understand Portuguese there is an interview on the Alto Falante channel with the band dating from May of 2018, talking about their comeback. They also mention a release in Canada. I can’t seem to find who released them there. Any help would be great!
And that’s it. Really. Would be interesting to find more about them, definitely one of the finest indiepop bands that came from Brazil, and perhaps the best from the state of Minas Gerais!
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