Day 183.
The Apartments: new video by Peter Walsh’s band! It is for the song “What’s Beauty to Do?” that will be included in the album “In and Out of the Light” that is coming out on September 18th on Riley Records! Such a good song!
Fred Fredburger: the Spanish band is back with three new songs, “15 Minutos”, “La Merienda” and “Acústica”. They are only available in digital form which is a bit of a shame.
The Reds, Pinks & Purples: another band that is back (actually never stops releasing music) is this California project by Glenn Donaldson. The latest are two songs, “Upside Down in an Empty Room” and “Mountain Lake Park”.
Jetstream Pony: A new 7″ coming out by one of our favourite bands. Two new songs, “If Not Now, When?” and “Yellow Pills” are to be released by Spinout Productions on September 25th! Sadly it seems it is already sold out. No copy for me.
The Age of Colored Lizards: the Oslo shoegaze band is of course back too! Everyone is back in this review. No new bands! Anyways, the Norwegians come back with a CD release of their 8 song album “Messed Up”! Check it out!
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A song called “June” in their only proper release, the album “Electric Songs” from 1999. Okay, I can cross out this month in this silly challenge of mine.
Aquadays, the superb Gothenburg, Sweden, band. The band that formed in 1993. A band whose members who at the beginning had been living in Alingsås and were in Somersault. And then in the 2000s some of these same members were going to be in The Electric Pop Group.
And yes, I did catch The Electric Pop Group play live. Here in NYC of all places. I met with Martin Aamot then. Shortly. But it was great. We had been in touch since they released their first self-titled album. At that time, maybe around 2006 I didn’t know of the Aquadays connection. I would find out about it some years after. And today I found that he was in a band called Rain who released a 7″ that I had no clue! I really want to listen to it! And have this record!
So, yes, Aquadays was Lisa Sandström on farfisa organ, Martin Aamot on the Fender guitar, Roland synthesizer, rhythm machines and vocals and Klara Albinsson on vocals. I don’t know when they changed their name from Somersault to Aquadays. Maybe it was in 1996. That was the year when Klara left the band. That was also the year the rest of the band members moved to Gothenburg. And it was in Gothenburg that Sarah Assbring would join as vocalist.
Then in 1998, Sarah would leave the band. That was in March. Two months after, in May, Klara, the original vocalist, decided to get back in the band and release an album. By that point the band had already recorded twelve songs. In 1997 they had put together a demo tape called “Spring” with eight of them. These songs had previously appeared on other demo tapes like “Ultramarine” and “Spacious”, but there were some new ones like “Casablanca”, Senseless” and “Daydreamer”.
Finally in 1998 the band would record the album in their own home studio. It seemed at that point that Roger Gunnarsson’s label Dorian Records was to put out the album but in the end was the German label Apricot Records (APRICD 006) that would put them out in 1999.
This album was released on CD and had 10 songs: “Senseless”, “Daydreamer”, “Casablanca”, “June”, “Spacious”, “Sunshine Girl”, “Mother of Pearl”, “Gem”, “Lustre” and “Autumn Swirl”.
What happened to Sarah? She went to sing in the band Sadovaja and of course afterwards would be way more known as El Perro del Mar.
There is actually an old website for the band that you can still access which is great. Here there is a “demography”. The first two tapes are for Somersault, so maybe they would be for a different post. But there are 2 tapes for Aquadays. There is the self-titled 1996 tape that had 7 songs, “June”, “Spacious”, “Lachrymose”, “Mother-of-Pearl”, “Gem”, “Lustre” and “Autumn Swirl”, and the 1997 tape called “Spring” that had 8 songs, “Senseless”, “Daydreamer”, “Casablanca”, “June”, “Spacious”, “Mother of Pearl”, “Lustre” and “Autumn Swirl”. Were the songs that appear twice re-recordings? And what about the ones that didn’t appear on the album? Would be nice to hear them of course. Also it is worth noting that many of these songs were already recorded by Somersault. So the question that is obvious is if the songs sounded much different?
About gigs, I found out on the website that the band played with The Wellmeant at Tre Backar in Stockholm on May 23rd 1997. What about gigs in Gothenburg?
But this was not all of course, the band did appear on a bunch of compilations in the late 90s and in the 2000s.
The earliest one is with the song “June” in 1996. This one came on “A Chance to Shine. A Dorian Records Compilation” (DORIAN 002). I guess this is where the friendship between Aquadays and Dorian started. So why was the album not released by them? Would be good to find out!
Then in 1998 they contributed the song “Casablanca” to “Yearbook 98″, a 12” compilation on Clair de Leon! (CDL! 001), a label that would later become the more known Clairerecords. That same year they would appear on Earwax Records’ “Wax001 – An International Indie Compilation” (WAX001) with the track “Daydreamer” and also on the US compilation “Pure Spun Sugar” (CF-017, AmPop 201), a co-release between Candy Floss and the American Pop Project, with the track “Gem”.
In 2000 the band contributed “Sunshine Girl” to the Japanese label Trolley Bus Music Tour’s compilation CD “Trolley Bus Music Tour” (TB-001). Then Apricot Records, who had released their album, would include their song “Sunshine Girl” to “Small But Sweet” (APRICD010) compilation. This compilation would be re-released in Japan by Quattro Disc that same year.
The US compilation “Just for a Day” (DAY01) released by the label of the same name would have them with their song “Senseless” also in the year 2000.
In 2002 the band had their song “Casablanca” on “Working Titles” a compilation CD by Factory Girl Records (QTY:008) and then on the classic Serbian compilation CD “A View of Our Dreams” (OaBCD001) released by Nikola’s On a Balcony label they would appear with the track “Sunshine Girl”.
The only other appearance that I know is on the “Airpop” CD and LP compilation released by Apricot (APRICD002). There they would contribute the songs “Senseless” and “June”.
Digging the website I find reviews of their album. One that mentions them being a mix of Savage Garden (?) and Orange Cake Mix. Then an interview with Pennyblackmusic. This one is good. Here Martin mentions he discovered indiepop in 1992. Before that he had been in a band called Divine that were more inspired by Depeche Mode or Ultravox. After discovering indiepop he would form Rain. Now I want to listen to this band more!
So that’s where I lose the trail. There is not much written about them. Other than the few reviews and their own website. I have many questions as you might have notice. Maybe it is good time to reconnect with Martin. Find out whatever happened to Aquadays. I’d be very interested. What about you?
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Listen
Aquadays – Sunshine Girl
