Really cool to hear your authentic original accent 🌻 VEGAN VOCALIST

www.speedywunderground.com | @SpeedyWunder

Speedy Wunderground release their fourth single, ‘Keep Your Eyes Open 

Boy’ by Scotti Brains on 2nd September

Scotti Brains is label chief and producer Dan Carey, best friend and fellow producer / 

recording artist Oli Bayston & Beth Buxton.

Taking their name from a shared love of San Franciscan psych band Bunny Brains and Dan’s 

cat Scotti (who coincidentally is prone to close his eyes and ‘dance’ upon hearing Bunny 

Brains), Scotti Brains was initially a project born out of early morning recording sessions 

following parties at Dan’s South London studio. Tradition dictated that the insane / furious / 

psych / punk / noise results featured Beth screaming over the tracks - major labels seemed 

unimpressed so a Speedy Wunderground release beckoned.

Having a full day rather than a few snatched hours to record, Scott Brains’ debut single for 

Speedy Wunderground is slightly more accessible than their previous late-night-output. A 

perfect summer-song, in the great Speedy Wunderground tradition ‘Keep Your Eyes Wide 

Open Boy’ again features the Swarmatron but this time a lunch-break was allowed – the boss’ 

prerogative.

Recording Beth’s ‘vocal’ over the phone due to ‘relationship-problems’ (Oli & Beth are 

partners who split up during the recording of the single but now happily back together), 

the track also features an ominous and anonymous ‘keep your eyes wide open boy’ vocal 

snatch taken from a tape Dan had bought along with a vintage 1950’s tape recorder in the 

Oxfam shop on Streatham High Road. The tapes featured recordings of the owner and his 

friends ‘chatting’ and at one point a woman repeating ‘keep your eyes wide open boy’, a 

phrase that was to provide the title for the single.

‘Keep Your Eyes Open Boy’ is a summer warning to all who think it’s all OK (it might not be).

SW004: Scotti Brains - Keep Your Eyes Open Boy (Full Version)

Hailing from Pity Me near Durham, vegan straight-edge pop group MARTHA have just signed to Fortuna POP! and will be releasing their new album ‘Courting Strong’ at the end of May. Providing energetic, impassioned pop punk, Martha are informed by 90s indie rock and Scandinavian anarcho noir. The album, produced by MJ from Hookworms, is laden with harmonies and interchangeable vocals whilst still retaining the energy and excitement of the band’s live shows. 

Formed in 2011 by siblings Naomi (bass, vocals) and Nathan Griffin (drums, vocals) with J. Cairns (guitar, vocals) and Daniel Ellis (guitar, vocals), Martha have fast become a staple of the UK DIY pop scene. There are many competing stories as to the origin of their band name but it’s a fact that the very last passenger pigeon on earth was called Martha. When she died, the whole species became extinct.

Decamping from the North East to record the album at Suburban Home Studios, Leeds, the band enjoyed the freedom of being in the studio and experimenting with MJ’s equipment to produce unexpected sounds. The process saw them opening up to new ideas and, feeling more confident in their own abilities, allowing a wider range of dynamics.

Taken from a line in the song Gin and Listerine, the album title “Courting Strong” is an expression that was used to describe couples who were getting really serious. There’s the old cliché that when you’re young you think you’re invincible and that everything will last forever - the album is about looking back and reflecting on past moments in your life, past friendships and relationships, accepting the uncertainty and fragility of those things and moving forward positively.

The overarching theme of the album is ‘growing up weird’. It’s a semi-autobiographical story about growing up in a small town, with a sense of not fitting in but on the way finding people who share that feeling and forming really strong bonds. It’s about clinging to a sense of belonging and about being proud of who you are and where you are from, as well as the community of which you are a part. It’s an album for the people who stayed in their hometown, and for the people who still go back and visit.

Martha’s melodic punk pop celebrates being an outsider whilst being part of a community. The album touches on uncertainty, fear and loneliness whilst exuding an effervescent sense of excitement and joy. There’s darkness beneath the pop surface - but there are also songs about teenage antics, drinking, courting and having your heart broken – everything a good indie record should have.

 “Martha have mastered that neat Buzzcocks trick of riding those gloriously glowing guitars with sweet, comfortingly-fey voices singing in irresistible harmony. In short, they’re pretty darn great” Clash Magazine 

“Top notch buzzsaw indiepop with enough melodic punk in their DNA to make them stand out. Definitely worth keeping an eye on” Narc Magazine

Martha - 1997, Passing In The Hallway

Mountain

SW046 // Tummyache - Circling the Drain

The Death Of Pop - Only Now

Peter J. Brant - I Heard You Were Down

Shelflife presents the new album Blue Field from The Luxembourg Signal available October 13th on limited edition LP vinyl, CD and digital formats on Shelflife and Kleine Untergrund Schallplatten (for Europe). 

With the release of their first single and debut album on Shelflife in 2014, The Luxembourg Signal quickly found a loyal following among fans of dream pop/indie pop music, and received enthusiastic reviews for their pop sensibilities, angelic vocals and lush soundscapes. Since the debut release, the band's lineup of Beth Arzy & Betsy Moyer (vocals), Johnny Joyner (guitars), Brian Espinosa (drums) and Ginny Pitchford (keyboards) has been expanded with the addition of Kelly Davis (guitars) and Daniel Kumiega (bass). 

The seven-piece played a handful of shows in the UK and Europe in the summer of 2015 to promote their debut album, including a Sunday evening performance at Indietracks that many cited as one of the highlights of the weekend. 2015 also saw the release of a split 7" single with Soft Science (Test Pattern Records), which featured a remix of Dying Star by Robert Hampson (Loop/Main). 

For their follow-up LP, Blue Field, The Luxembourg Signal returned to the studio with engineer Mark Rains and produced an album that reveals a bolder, more developed sound with a darker undertone. The album's first single "Laura Palmer," released on 7" in June, earned immediate admiration from fans across the globe. The new LP also features special guest vocals from Bobby Wratten (Field Mice, Trembling Blue Stars) on the reflective track "Fall Feeling." 

The Luxembourg Signal will be playing various dates in Germany (TBA) in September 2017 as well as The Paris Pop Fest on Friday September 22, 2017.

http://www.shelflife.com/catalogue/LIFE154.html

Blue Field

The Luxembourg Signal - Blue Field

ANNA ST. LOUIS
FIRST SONGS
woodsist092 / mare002
release date: November 3, 2017

Despite her last name, Anna St. Louis was born and raised in Kansas City. She grew up a painter and singing in punk bands, eventually leaving her hometown to attend art school in Philadelphia. After graduating she made the move to Los Angeles where she began teaching herself guitar, writing songs and recording them on her own in her bedroom. First Songs is the sound of someone discovering their talent in real time - a peak into the collage of a wonderful mind that is absorbing their new surroundings and using new tools to put them into the room. Listening to this collection you can feel the sun coming in through the window - Anna on the foot of the bed with a guitar on her knee, finding her voice. St. Louis wears her influences well - think Patsy Cline singing over John Fahey - but has a style all her own. And while you can take the artist out of the midwest, you can't take the midwest out of the artist - so let this be known; this is Midwestern music ran through a California filter. I believe Anna will have many more releases in her lifetime, but let it all begin here - First Songs.

ANNA ST. LOUIS - Fire (Mare Records)

'Sister Sadness' is the new single from Kidsmoke, released 5th Feb 2018.

Written and performed by Kidsmoke. Recorded with Russ Hayes at Orange Studios, Penmaenmawr and mastered by Gethin John at Hafod Mastering, South Wales.

Artwork by Mike Payne and Andy Garside

"Delightfully melancholy" - Steve Lamacq, BBC6 Music

Sister Sadness

Originally a solo project recorded in a wardrobe under the moniker Smooth Dad, Buffet Lunch is the brain burps of Perry O’Bray, embellished by a northerner, a Kiwi and 2 Scots. Namely Luke Moran (Bouviér), Neil Robinson (Mazes), John Muir (Jack Lee Band, DTHPDL) and David MacDonald (Jack Lee Band, DTHPDL). They all met in sunny Edinburgh when Perry moved up from London and put some adverts out for band members on gumtree. Please will you join my band (be my friend), please please please. Perry likes writing songs about slimy snails, moths and other nightly creatures, sometimes in new trousers and trainers. Angular guitars on a bed of seaweed and rhythmic percussion. ‘The Snail EP' will be available as a digital download on Permanent Slump 25/1/19 and on cassette direct from Perry whenever you fancy. Expect a video for 'We All Have Hobbies'.

1. The Snail And The King
2.We All Have Hobbies
3.Do You Like My Trousers?

Catch them live:

Henry’s Cellar Bar, Edinburgh on Thursday 24th January - 

https://www.facebook.com/events/349081528978041

Nice N Sleazy, Glasgow on Friday 25th January - 

https://www.facebook.com/events/352695228614522

Perry and Neil also promote diy gigs in Edinburgh under the name Good Grief, be sure to keep up if you’re in the area and fancy a decent hassle free show.

https://www.facebook.com/goodgriefedinburgh

https://soundcloud.com/buffetlunch
https://twitter.com/smoothdadatc

Artwork by Perry O’Bray

The Snail EP

The Snail And The King

Buffet Lunch - The Snail And The King

Peel Dream Magazine is the musical vehicle for NYC's Joe Stevens, who launched the band in 2018 with the critically acclaimed album "Modern Meta Physic." With it Stevens created a mysterious, liminal tribute to the hazy end of ‘90s dream-pop – a masterful mix of first-class songwriting precision and train-window sonic impressionism that duly found its place on numerous "Best of 2018" lists.

After 18 months of writing and live shows with a shifting cast of band members, Peel Dream are back with "Agitprop Alterna," an album that pushes the group's dreamy, motorik-heavy sound to a deeply melodic and beautifully discordant place. The album pays homage to a strain of mod-ish U.K. pop that spans early My Bloody Valentine and Talulah Gosh, up through early Stereolab, Belle & Sebastian, and even Broadcast. It's also indebted to stateside pop bands that were cut from a similar cloth -- Rocketship, Lilys, Yo La Tengo, and even "Nevermind"-era Nirvana.

Where the creation of "Modern Meta Physic" was a solitary pursuit, "Agitprop Alterna" found Stevens channeling the collaborative spirit of the band's ever-rotating live incarnation in the studio. The album is ultimately defined by the tension of difference: between itself and its predecessor; intertwined male-female vocals; the music's languid dreaminess and concrete sonic immediacy.

Deeply rooted in the Brechtian ideas of art as a tool to spur action, "Agitprop Alterna" deepens the connection between the existential and the interpretive first explored on "Modern Meta Physic," giving the listener space to find their own meaning in shimmering guitars, fuzzed-out synths, and buzzing organ drones. It is a rejection of manipulation in all its forms and a buzzsaw against complacency – soft-focus pop whose clear-cut message is that you get to decide the message. It's a rare trick to agitate without being obvious: perhaps that makes "Agitprop Alterna" the most Peel Dream Magazine-like statement yet.

Martha - 1997, Passing In The Hallway

Fortuna POP!

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