An Italian label, My Honey Records, has just released a compilation CD featuring f.e. Luisa Mandou um Beijo, The Smittens, Celestial, Mutt Ramon, Mocca, The Shermans, Watoo Watoo, Locas in Love and lots of other bands, all in all 20 bands from all over the world. The songs all have a common theme, namely bees and/or honey.



Should you fancy a copy, contact Paolo at info@myhoney.it.

Complete tracklisting

Letterbox Records have made freely available two digital download singles to promote up and coming album releases.

The first single is by California Snow Story the band formed by David Skirving who was a founder member of Camera Obsura. Since their only single release, 2002's One Good Summer EP the band has undergone line up changes and David was joined by Sandra who was previously a member of Spanish band Superété.

It's titled Suddenly Everything Happens and is a taster for the forthcoming album Close to The Ocean. It's a lovely little track and if the album maintains the quality of this download single then we are in for a treat indeed.

California Snow Story - Suddenly Everything Happens

Two ex members of the band formed The Hermit Crabs who I wrote about here.

The second single is from Morning Bride who are based in my home borough of Hackney. The line up includes two American girls and three English musicians who apparently come from English seaside towns beginning with B. This isn't indie pop at all but is a mix of folk , blues and Alt-Americana that is quite popular with bands on labels such as Track & Field and Truck Records at the moment.

Time Delay is taken from the forthcoming Lea Valley Delta Blues album that is due for release on February 12th 2007. It's country music for the inner city.

Morning Bride - Time Delay

[My Space link]

The results of Scatterbrains Royal Court Of Twee are now in and you can view them here complete with an mp3 of each band that made the top 10.

Here's a blast from the Icelandic underground past. I recently dug this CD out of my collection and realizing I had not listened to it in many years, I gave it a well deserved proper listening to, and it's a darn fun CD, so I wanted to share it with someone. Realizing I knew virtually nothing about the band I got the singer to answer a few questions, and without furter ado I present you with PPPönk (PPPunk).

The Kid hail from Gothenburg, Sweden and unlike the majority of other Swedish bands featured on this site they are not inspired by C86 or jangle pop taking their cue from Joy Division and New Order instead.

Their later stuff is more influenced by the latter although with the female vocalist it is more reminiscent of The Other Two. Whilst this sort of music has gone around at least twice for an old 'un like me it may be well a breath of fresh air for the generation of today discovering 1980's influenced music for the first time.

Of the three tracks on offer I prefer the Joy Division inspired Kit Club Hotel.

The Kid - Kit Club Hotel
The Kid - Portion Control
The Kid - The Noble Art Of Jealousy

[My Space link]

Last August I ran a series of posting demos and live shows from a number of Sarah bands. I picked these up from a range of sources so thanks to whoever they originated from. The links on the original posts have since expired and following a number of requests here they are again:

Another Sunny Day - Demos (20mb)

When I first posted these demos Harvey Williams left a comment on the original post about the demos.

Haven't heard these demos for a while; some of them sound pretty uninspired. I guess that's why they never came out. Anyway, here's some recording dates... Eternal recorded august 1986; Her Friend & Who's To Blame (not the real title, can't remember what the real title is) recorded september 1988; I Want You recorded june 1986; It's OK If You Don't Love Me & The Boy From St Ives (a cover of a song by Penzance legends The Choughs) recorded feb 1987; What's Wrong...gosh, I'm not sure I remember... spring 1987, probably. All recorded on a Fostex x15; this is about as good as they ever sounded.

Brighter - Demos (23mb)
Brighter - Live 1991 (23mb)
Field Mice - Demos (54mb)
Field Mice - Live (78mb)
Field Mice - Radio Shows & Demos (104mb)

Anglo Svensk Promotions has been set up by Cath English who was one of the promoters of the Sweden Made Me club night. Like the club it's operations centre around Brighton and it's aim is to bring Swedish artists over the UK to play.

The next night is Sunday 4th February 2007 with Lisa Li-Lund (Herman Dune) playing. If you live in Brighton I'm not sure what excuse you have for not going! Details of future events can be found here.

Säkert! is the band put together by Annika Norlin aka Hello Saferide. Joining her are members of Vapnet, Laakso and Isolation Years. Whilst I am not that great a fan of Hello Saferide based on this exclusive track from Swedes Please I can say I can say I am well taken with her new project which sees the band singing in their native Swedish.

The Popguns were a Brighton based band who were described, rather unfairly I thought, as The Wedding present with a female vocalist. It didn't help that ex Weddoes drummer Shaun Charmen was a member of the band alongside vocalist Wendy Morgan, guitarists Simon Pickles and Greg Dixon and Pat Walkington on bass.

The band emerged in 1988 making the festive 50 with their debut single Landslide. This was followed by two more singles and their debut album Eugenie which was arguably their best effort in 1990. Charmen left after 1991's Snog album which saw the band leaving for the 3rd Stone label where they released two more albums but by this point interest in the band had waned. They called it quits after their final single Harley Davidson was released in 1996.

There were rumours of a reunion a few years ago but nothing materialised but new interest in the band was generated when Waiting For The Winter was included on the Rough Trade indie pop compilation.

The tracks here is an official live recording (on cassette) which was given away to fans at one of the bands gigs.

The Popguns - Official Live Tape (62mb) Download here.

For an introduction to the band, which rounds up the earlier (and better!) part of their career you should pick up the Another Year, Another Address compilation which is available on Cherry Red. You can pick up their 3rd Stone Recordings here.

My indie mp3 colleague Magnus wrote about about Brazilian band Luisa Mandou um Beijo in October 2005 and I must admit that I did not pay that much attention at the time. However whilst reading through some of the posts on Think Small I found out that the band have released their 2005 debut self titled album as a free release on the Aregueifa net label and, as I had nothing to lose, downloaded the album. And I am glad that I did!

This is indie pop at the top of it's game. It features wonderful vocals provided by female vocalist Flávia Muniz complete with a horn section that makes most, if not all of these songs infectious listening. This is one enjoyable album. Don't worry about the band singing it their native Portuguese as indie pop as high quality as this surpasses any language constraints.

Luisa Mandou um Beijo - Amarelinha
Luisa Mandou um Beijo - Bauhaus Today

Head here to download the rest of the album.

[My Space link]

Hello, i'm Russ. I'm new round here. I got to know Tom through him buying releases from my label, Freedom Road Records. He's asked me to return the favour and review some CDs for him, so here we are.

Field Music – A House Is Not A Home (Memphis Industries)

Field Music are a band I’d always written off in the past as the Futureheads annoying little cousins. Turns out I was way wrong, as the evidence in the single proves. There’s still an element of wonkyness to the single, as you might expect from a band that had spent so much time with the Futureheads (and indeed shared band members), but they’ve taken this one step further and turned into something far more intriguing than their counterparts. There’s a very seventies soft rock feel to it, but with twists and turns, and even elements of prog but with the knowledge of when to hold back and stick in a melody. Field Music have done an incredible thing and come up with something that sounds like nothing else around, an intricate pop single with a difference.

Piskie Sits – The Secret Sickliness (Wrath Records)

The debut Piskie Sits album wears its alt. American rock influences on its sleeve loud and proud. It starts off in fine fashion with the Pavement aping ‘No Hidden Chord’ complete with big multi vocalled chorus and ‘Big Fat Mouth’, all fuzzy melodies and a hint of the deranged mess that was the Vines. The problem is, like so many albums nowadays there’s little of substance in that which follows. Not that it’s bad, if consistent deranged slacker pop is your bag you’ll be happy, its just that nothing else stands out particularly.

Starflower – Moment In The Sun (Music Is My Girlfriend)

The debut from Starflower, a Finnish four piece, is a delightful album that slipped under the radar last summer. It’s at turns ramshackle and naïve, then accomplished and far-reaching. There’s echoes of Suburban Kids With Biblical Names and fey eighties disco pop, but it can also be lush and pastoral. The vocalist has that lovely light murmur that David Gedge employs to such great effect and this compliments the music perfectly. While not quite in the league of Field Music, this is another great example of how pop doesn’t always have to be simple, it can be a great multi-layered joy too.

Crayola at xPQwRtz has put together another couple of compilations featuring the singles and album tracks he cannot live without. There are plenty of songs here and it makes me even more determined to get my turntable fixed.

You may think xPQwRtz - what type of name is that? Well head here and download the peel session version of the track by Big Flame that gave it's name to the blog. By the way explore this site as there are plenty of other Peel sessions and tracks from bands from the C86 era. And not the so called twee ones either!

One Two Twee An Indiepop Retrospective was apparently a bootlegged compilation from 2004. Never heard of it? Funny enough neither have I. You can download it in it's three disc entirety. Part one can be found here and part two and three can be found here.

Pop Will Eat My Blog is a new fantastically named blog on me which sorts of does what the old indie mp3 site used to. Plenty to download here including The Mighty Lemon Drops Like An Angel 12" as well as dance mixes of Altered Images Pinky Blue.

The world's tiniest record label, Hugpatch, has just released two "7 singles with The Besties and Nosoträsh. You can listen to the songs on Hugpatch's Myspace page to begin with. After initial listening I particularily like "Rod 'n Reel" by The Besties, who have aquired a drummer since last release. I've never heard Nosoträsh before, but they sound pretty cool and have hitherto also released a copious amount of stuff on Elefant Records.

I wrote about Trucker Cleavage way back in November 2005 where I described their music as a of a bit mix and match. By their own admission things have been pretty quiet since then but the band have recently come back on the horizon with the news that they have been nominated as best unsigned act at the Swedish indie grammy awards.

To celebrate this fact the band have made available as a download what they call their signature song titled Imaginary Friend . It is not that bad a song with the vocals of Jonas Jakobsson being a highlight. Actually on second thoughts (and listens)it's pretty catchy and reminds me of Idlewild's You Held The World In Your Arms for some strange reason.

Trucker Cleavage - Imaginary Friend

[My Space link]

I will try to write more about this when I have gathered some more information, but it looks great doesn´t it?

Check out this link to read more about it: www.myspace.com/indietracks

A Smile And A Ribbon have been picked up by one or two blogs recently so I thought I had better keep up with the Jones'!

They are a Swedish (Malmo & Lund) duo consisting of Rebecca Mehlman & Martin Lindqvist. They also get friends to play with them on live dates.

Although I was tempted not to use the word twee to describe them I am afraid I didn't try hard enough and that's exactly what the band sound like. Rebecca's vocals have more than a touch of the Amelia Fletchers about them and their sound does lean to that of Talulah Gosh for the most part although The Softies also spring to mind. The songs deal with relationships & the troubles they bring.

A Smile And A Ribbon - Book Cover
A Smile And A Ribbon - Pebbles

Another track One Night Wonder is available for streaming from the Shelflife My Space page. Shelflife will be releasing the debut record by the band later this year.

[My Space link]