The Happy Balloon, another musical dilemma? Let's use the time machine by courtesy of H.G. Wellls. Terra incognita. Twentieth century. What is true is that this record is a delightful collection of contagious 60's style flower pop, sunshine pop, acoustic soft pop, bossa nova and memorable spiritual obscurities. The Happy Balloon -in the daring and singular romanticism of the true mavericks- allow you to discover less well-known works of the past. All of them are real anthems for freedom of all kinds. The world is open! Be free and fly like a happy balloon!
The fine art of ballooning pays respects to the fresh songwriting of the 60's era but in true 80'.s pop idiom. Simple and pop are a potent mix so this is a quintessential collection of obscure 60's soft pop covers (The Harmony Grass, Philamore Lincoln, Gentle touch, Charles Fox, Chamaeleon Church, Armageddon Experience, The Sunshine Company, Liz Diamond's Orient Express, The Sunshine Trolley, Sundowners or Orange Colored Sky) but with a treatment close to the style of Aztec Camera, The Legendary Jim Ruiz, Prefab Sprout, Orange Juice or The Crooner. Puzzled? Certainly this record defies times and ages. Like a diamond this record is for ever.
This easy eternal sounds of yesteryear were introduced to the public in our compilation "Sombrero".... Z., is an eccentric spiritual inheritor of the creative muse of Paul Williams, Roger Nichols, Jim Webb or Chris Dedrick. Some years ago Z. was obsessed by a meticulous striving for perfection and found his universe too rigurously structured. He moved to a Greek island and started cultural activities with natives. The Happy Balloon was the axis of his new world. The master music plan was to start an adventurous quest of tuneful pop "as refreshing as a spring breeze".
Not surprisingly, the Happy Balloon seem to have a great time rediscovering old pop songs. They take their hobbies very seriously. Of course they run the risk of being accused of elitism, or anachronism for having revived past pleasures. Who cares? We can not ignore the past and its gifts. Balloons and music for ever!

Siesta Records

The Happy Balloon - You Didn't Have To Be So Nice

On Romantico, Japan's 800 Cherries debuted their blissful style of indie pop to an American audience. The disc begins with the organ-based "Painty Paint Pots," which also includes a stylish xylophone. The duo of Manami Marufuji and Masayuki Takahashi create an innocent and simple blend of pop sounds throughout the disc. On the title track, a soulful and short instrumental, the duo collaborates to solidify their pop sound, after having appeared on various indie pop compilations before this full-length disc. On "Planc-tone," the synthesizer and keyboards take on a more ambient sound. That song is followed by the subdued pop-electronica of "Through." "La Pa Ti Ta" follows next. It's possibly the most carefree and blatantly poppy song on the album. "Honeydew Blue" continues with a moderately upbeat tempo, while things return to a minimalist and downbeat ballad with "Frozen." The disc ends with a cover of the Velvet Underground's "Here She Comes Now." Takahashi's controlled high vocals are a certain highlight, while Marufuji performs most of the instruments on the disc. Stereolab and the Free Design are obvious influences. March records released Romantico in 1999. ~ Stephen Cramer, Rovi

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800 Cherries - Here She Comes Now

From the album Pop Romantique : French Pop Classics

Minneapolis, United States (1990 – present)
The Hang Ups are an indie pop rock band from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, formed in 1990 and fronted by vocalist and guitarist Brian Tighe. Other members include Jeff Kearns (bass, vocals), Stephen Ittner (drums), and John Crozier (guitar). Producer and band friend Bryan Hanna replaced Ittner on the drums while the band toured. The Hang Ups released their debut EP He’s Comin’ Through in 1993, and have since released four studio albums. The band’s efforts have been met with warm local and national critical response and gained more national attention when their track “Jump Start” appeared in the film Chasing Amy.

Frontman Brian Tighe originally pursued a career in the visual arts. While working as an artist’s assistant in New York City, Tighe began writing music, and eventually abandoned visual arts in favor of music, returning home to Minneapolis to attend the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. There, in 1987, he met Jeff Kearns and Stephen Ittner, and the three later formed the original Hang Ups. Soon after, guitarist John Crozier joined them, after criticizing the band’s sound. The band was later signed to the local Minneapolis label Clean Records, which the band would stay with for the release of the debut EP He’s Comin’ Through as well as their first full studio album, He’s After Me.

Studio Albums:
* He’s After Me (1993)
* So We Go (1996)
* Second Story (1999)
* Hang Ups (2003)

EPs
* Comin’ Through (1993)

The Hang-Ups - Pardon

 Worthing, England
Self-described “acoustical power trio” Brighter was founded in Worthing, England by singer/guitarist Keris Howard, his keyboardist girlfriend Alison and bassist Alex Sharkey.

Signing to the now-legendary Sarah Records, the group issued its debut single “Around the World in Eighty Days” in August 1989, followed in February by “Noah’s Ark”. Absent a flexi-disc release, “Next Summer”, Brighter wasn’t heard from again until late 1991, when they issued the full-length Laurel; the EP Disney followed in October 1992, and was the trio’s swan song.

Howard and Sharkey later reunited in the short-lived electro-pop project Hal before going their separate ways; Howard then went on to lead Harper Lee and play bass with the Trembling Blue Stars, while Sharkey co-founded Fosca in addition to pursuing a solo project, Pinkie. Alison, meanwhile, went on to teach media studies at a sixth-form college in Hove.

They broke our hearts from 1989 to 1993 while quietly attaining the “best band on Sarah Records” award.

Brighter - Just Can't Get Enough (Depeche Mode cover)

Twinlights is a 1995 EP by the Cocteau Twins. It was released along with the EP Otherness as a teaser for the album Milk and Kisses. It is a mainly instrumental affair with allmusic referring to it as "being as close to an "unplugged" effort as the Twins ever got." The EP was originally released on CD as well as a 2x7" vinyl set.

The EP has four tracks, two of which were reimagined for Milk and Kisses ("Rilkean Heart" and "Half-Gifts"). "Pink Orange Red", which was released on the 1985 EP Tiny Dynamine, is a stripped down version of the original with a piano playing the melody and opening. "Golden-Vein" is the only track on the EP not to appear on any other release.

Elizabeth Fraser describes this EP as being about a man she fell in love with during the 1994 Four-Calendar Cafe tour. The mystery man has been speculated to be Jeff Buckley by Fraser's biographer but she has never confirmed or denied this. [1]

The song "Rilkean Heart" is a homage to Jeff Buckley who was a lifelong lover of Rainer Maria Rilke's work.

Cocteau Twins - Rilkean Heart

Bruno Coulais is a French composer, born in Paris on 13 January 1954. He has a father from Vendée and his mother is an Iraqi Jew. He is most widely known for his music on film soundtracks.

Coulais began his musical education on the violin and piano, aiming to become a composer of contemporary classical music. However, a series of acquaintances gradually re-oriented him towards film music. Coulais was particularly influenced by director François Reichenbach, who asked him in 1977 to write the soundtrack to his new documentary Mexico Magico. The first full-length production he composed the score for was the 1986 film La femme secrète by Sébastien Grall. Until the end of the 1990s, he remained low-profile, composing mainly for television. His name can often be found from TV films by Gérard Marx and Laurent Heynemann. He also composed the soundtracks for Christine Pascal’s 1992 film Le petit prince a dit, and Agnès Merlet’s Le fils du requin in 1993.

In 1994, he met the television producer Josée Dayan, who let him write a theme for the TV series La rivière Esperance, aired on the France 2 network in autumn 1995. He worked with Dayan again with other major productions such as Le comte de Monte-Cristo, Balzac, and Les nuiteux.

The largest turning point of his career came in 1996, when he worked with directors Claude Nuridsany and Marie Pérennou of the documentary Microcosmos. This single film, which gave a great significance to the music in it, was a great success and made Coulais one of the most wanted composers of French film music. In 1997, he won the César award for the best musical score in a film, as well as a Victoire de la Musique. His reputation was confirmed by the soundtracks to Himalaya (1999) and Les rivières pourpres (2000), and after that Bruno Coulais’s name was to be found on most new French blockbusters, such as Belphégor and Vidocq.

After producing the soundtrack to Winged Migration in 2001, Coulais announced that he wanted to significantly reduce his contributions to film music, and instead concentrate on other projects, such as the creation of an opera for children, and collaborations with Akhenaton, Akhenaton’s group IAM and the Corsican group A Filetta, with whom he had worked since he had made the soundtrack for Jacques Weber’s film Don Juan in 1998.

In 2002, his name was found on the ending credits of the animation L’enfant qui voulait être un ours, and in 2004, on Frédéric Schoendoerffer’s Agents secrets. The same year, he wrote the soundtrack to the film Les choristes by Christophe Baratier, which subsequently became an international hit. The music for this film received as great praise as the film itself, and it won Coulais his third César award. Since then, Coulais’s collaborations in cinema seem to be limited to works by directors with whom he already shares some history, in particular Jacques Perrin, Frédéric Schoendoerffer, and James Huth.

Bruno Coulais’s musical style may vary significantly between different projects, but there are some constant factors visible: his taste for opera and for human voice (in particular that of children), for a search for original sonority, for world music and mixing different musical cultures, and finally, a certain tendency to give preference to the ambience created by lighting rather than the film’s narration.

Coraline Soundtrack Song  Exploration

Friends and Lovers: The Songs of Bread was released in 2005 (actually, two years ago to the day as luck would have it) and in addition to Rouse also features Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer of The Posies, Cake, Erlend Oye (of Kings of Convenience), Oranger, Rachel Goswell (of Mojave 3), and Bart Davenport (of Honeycut).

Call and Response - Baby I'm A Want You (Bread cover)

Acid House Kings - Their Lives Are As Sad As Mine

Barcelona - Pop Goes The World

Northern Picture Library was composed of Bob Wratten, Annemari Davies, and Mark Dobson in the gap years between Wratten and Davies' involvement in the aforementioned bands. The sound that NPL cultivated relied much more heavily on electronic instrumentation than any of Wratten's projects past or present. On tracks like "Insecure" and "Dreams and Stars and Sleep" the combination of ambient swelling soundscapes and Davies' twee influenced vocals is moving and bittersweet. In fact, for most of the album the accompanying instrumentation, beyond the easily discernible twee-pop sensibility for melody, reminds me more of artists like Harold Budd and Vangelis.

Northern Picture Library - Truly Madly Deeply

Blueboy - Chelsea Guitar (Live)

I just found this cover version of OMD’s Souvenir, by ‘The Weedy Pigeons‘. Not sure how many years have gone past since it was recorded, but apparently it was recorded when they were at high school and they do look a bit young. This song always gets me a bit sad – maybe I pine for the days when I only had to worry about where my next bag of sweets was coming from and nothing else. It just has that feel to it and this version is no exception. The keyboard tune has a few extra notes added, but that gives it a bit of an extra interesting twist. It’s interesting to see that there’s not much difference between the Weedy Pigeon’s vocals and Paul Humphrey’s. Really nice version, guys/girls.

jaysilverio

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