What does it sound like to be in love?

Gold-Bears formed in 2010 when Jeremy Underwood recruited a few friends to play songs he’d stockpiled since the demise of his former band, Plastic Mastery (555 Recordings/Magic Marker Records). The band quickly released a smashing 7” on Magic Marker Records, recalling the immediacy and urgency of Boyracer or The Wedding Present melding with the pop sensibilities of Slumberland contemporaries like Summer Cats and The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. They expanded their sound a bit on their next release ( a 4-song 7” on Miami-based indie pop imprint Cloudberry Records) by stripping away some of the fuzz on one song and adding drone elements a la the Microphones to another while still maintaining their indie punk roots.

After hibernating in their home studio for the winter, Gold-Bears emerge with *Are You Falling In Love?*, an even further expansion of the band’s sound. This 11-song collection of frenzied crash pop, strummy ballads, and syncopated pop dirges is one of the most dynamic indie pop records of recent. In just over 33 minutes Gold-Bears funnels jangly noise pop soundscapes through the energy of Titus Andronicus’ punk anthems, and even manage to give us a few reprieves for slower tunesthat showcase Underwood's more sincere vocals.

The album kicks off with “Record Store,” a song so full of infectious spirit that it seems like the rhythm section can hardly keep up. “Record Store” segues seamlessly into “All Those Years,” one of the catchiest, poppiest songs in their repertoire. From the initial “ba ba bas” to the sugary sweet harmonies provided by Kristine Capua (Very Truly Yours) you instantly know that this song will never leave your head. Smack dab in the middle of the album is the shoegazey “Are You Falling in Love?,” which bowls you over with a thumping bass line, calculated drumming,  guitars that sound like airplanes and bees and lush violins. Toward the end of the album we hear “Xmas Song,” a song about the insecurities of love set to the tune of a crash pop classic, rife with feedback and fuzz that’ll fit nicely on your mixtape following This Poison! or Neutral Milk Hotel, depending on who you are trying to impress.

The 11 songs on this album are brimming with gentle majesty and fervent energy. Whether you follow the stories in the lyrics of the songs or bop around your room to the jangly guitars, this album will surely remain on your turntable for months. Because after all, you have, indeed, fallen in love… with Gold-Bears.


Gold-Bears - Totally Called It

Lemon Soft Perfection

Cake

New Jersey's Lightheaded are clearly students of pop in all of its variety, drawing as much from 60s Brill Building song writers as they do from later 60s folk/pop developments and 80s DIY pop. The striking thing is how seamlessly they're able to meld these influences, and the distinctive voice that they've crafted this early in their career. Their new album "Combustible Gems" follows-up their well-regarded "Good Good Great!" EP in fine fashion, striking all the right Phil Spector/Goffin & King chords while rooting the album firmly in the NOW. Singles like "Moments Notice" and "Bright Happy Girls" possess a timeless pop charm, brimming with jangle, drama and infectious energy.

Combustible Gems

Lightheaded - Dawn Hush Lullaby

Mon Argent

Parc de Beauvoir

Oakland, CA mainstays Lunchbox are back with Pop and Circumstance, an explosive new album draws on influences from both sides of the Atlantic. Besides its obvious debt to the hard end of the 1970s UK mod-revival and the jangle of 1980s British indiepop, the record proclaims Lunchbox’s continued allegiance to the 1960s/70s Southern California pop sensibility and love for the classic AM radio pop single.

Over the course of their almost thirty year career Lunchbox have always impressed with their ability to mine gold from the ore of pop history, and this terrific new record shows them at their best. From the bubblegum mod pop of "Dinner for Two" to the junkshop soul of "Love for Free," the Who-adjacent power pop of "Summer’s Calling" to the horn-driven grooves of "Is this Real?," "Pop and Circumstance" transposes Lunchbox’s unique blend of influences into a transcendent new key.

Pop And Circumstance

Pop and Circumstance

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Lunchbox - Dinner for Two

Big Swimmer

New York, Let's Do Nothing

Air Drumming Fix You

If I Could Make You Care

How It Starts

How It Starts (Single Version)

Parasol

Fade Out

Slumberland began operations in 1989, inspired by such musical happenings as C-86, early Creation, Sarah, Postcard, and the UK post-punk indie label scene. Since then we've covered a lot of territory, from punk to lofi noise to shoegaze and of course pop, releasing records from bands like The Aislers Set, Boyracer, Stereolab, Rocketship, Lorelei, The Ropers, The Saturday People and Black Tambourine.

By the mid 2000s we were starting to see a resurgence of interest in guitar pop and the start of the ongoing vinyl revival: the perfect environment for Slumberland! We launched into our latest phase of activity with as string of classic releases from The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, Crystal Stilts, Frankie Rose, Veronica Falls, Allo Darlin', Joanna Gruesome and so many more.

2018 is our twenty-ninth year we are still going strong, ploughing our own furrow and bringing you unique, genre-defining (and genre-defying!) releases from bands like Smokescreens, Tony Molina, Papercuts, Business of Dreams, Peel Dream Magazine, D.A. Stern, The Spook School, Frankie Rose, Young Guv, Terry Malts and many, many more. As always, we operate entirely outside of the echo chamber of trends, fashion and phoney hipness. Slumberland bands are independent in the best way possible -- making music devoid of bullshit and true to their own voices, regardless of current popular taste.

Gold-Bears - Totally Called It

Slumberland Records

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Josie de Beer

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