Great work with the drums, reminds me of Joy Division

Love this for the intro alone... So great!

nice song was waiting for the vocals, perfect :)

Inspired by post-punk fervor and the spiky pop of C86 and early Flying Nun / Creation label output, San Francisco’s Brilliant Colors stake out a unique spot in the indie music landscape. Their 2009 album, Introducing, is one of the finest debuts in recent memory, and they followed it with 7-inches on Slumberland and Make a Mess and a European tour with La La Vasquez that led to the release of another great single on Germs of Youth. Most recently, they teamed up with Belfast’s brilliant Girls Names to release a split 7-inch in Fall 2010. All of these singles were recorded with Oakland garage phenom Ty Segall, who spiked the ladies’ punk-pop swirl with his own special grit.

Now Brilliant Colors have teamed up again with The Pool's Alex Yusimov (who recorded their first album as well as Grass Widow and many of Portland's finest indie bands) to create "Again And Again," an album that represents a great next step for the band. The song-writing is still as infectious as ever, but the tunes are now more carefully arranged pushing the band far beyond their punk roots to something as elemental as pop gets. Songs like opener "Hey Dan," the sprightly "Value Lines" and "Hitting Traffic" combine guitarist/singer Jess' catchy-as-hell riffs with Diane's steady, rolling beats and Michelle's dense baselines to fashion songs that are deceptively simple -- straightforwardly rocking but also richly layered, revealing new twists on each listen.

The mood is confessional and late-night dreamy; Jess' unadorned vocals and eloquent lyrics are personal, direct and atmospherically deployed, mixed in with the songs like another instrument. They can be heard to great effect on tougher songs like "Back To The Tricks" and "Painting Truths," tempering those tunes' punchy punk dynamics with their melodic sensibility. Add in classic-sounding stormers like "Cult Face" and "How Much Younger" and you have all the makings of another great Brilliant Colors album, one that shows how finely they've honed their own unique brand punk-informed crash-pop.


Brilliant Colors - How Much Younger

Big Troubles were formed by a group of kids who had been friends since high school, playing in bands, listening to records and coming of musical age together. As children of the 00's they're lucky enough to have a vast history of pop and indie rock to draw upon. Like the best of their peers they're omnivorous musical consumers, as enamored of classic Brit Pop gems as they are of 90s slacker indie rock. Led by two very gifted singer/song-writers in Alex Craig and Ian Drennan, Big Troubles are that rare beast: a band with two distinctive musical voices that smoothly mesh to create one integrated personality.

Early recordings by the pair were of the lo-fi home recorded variety, but over time they've grown (with the addition of drummer Sam Franklin and bassist Luka Usmiani) into a full four piece band to more fully realize their tunes. Their first album Worry (2010) and its attendant singles were excellent fuzz pop records in their own right, but to make their new record the band has taken the step of bringing in help in the form of the legendary Mitch Easter, whose resume includes stone cold classics from the likes of REM, Pavement and his own Let's Active. With Mr. Easter's expert engineering help, Big Troubles' excellent new album "Romantic Comedy" is a masterpiece of modern pop; a perfect balance of grit and polish, gorgeous guitar sounds and angelic vocals, underpinned by a set of superb songs.

"Romantic Comedy" kicks off with "She Smiles For Pictures," a brilliant slice of jangle-pop marked by an ear-tugging guitar lead and gorgeous choirboy vocals. "Misery" is a perfect 2:23 of teen angst, fired by a huge bassline and echoed, chorused riffs that are as much 90s Brit Pop as they are 00s indie rock. First single "Sad Girls" is a lovely slice of updated power-pop based on a catchy stop-start verse that gives way to an indelible, spiraling chorus; this tune is as big and bright as they come. "You'll Be Laughing" gears down for a nuanced meditation on suburban ennui, showing that this band had more up its collective sleeve than just kicking out pop anthems.

And so the record continues, through sure-fire entries into the noise-pop canon like the Boo Radleys-esque "Minor Keys," the lovely rush of "Softer Than Science" and the glam-tinged feedback-fest that is "Time Bomb." "Romantic Comedy" wraps up with the dreamy "Engine" and the driving "Never Mine," adding two more gems to this excellent album. Big Troubles have that very rare combination of taste, skill and talent, and aided by Mr. Easter's recording acumen they've created a virtually perfect modern pop album -- one that tips its hat to choice bits of pop past and present, but at the same time creates something totally fresh.


Big Troubles - Misery

On their spellbinding sophomore album, "Whispers in the Speech Machine," the young Ohio siblings from The Laughing Chimes fully embrace their Southern Gothic influences, cannily balancing the light of their infectious pop with the shadow of their rust belt environs. While attending an afterschool music program at their local opera house, Evan and his brother Quinn began recording The Laughing Chimes' debut album "In This Town," released in 2020. A string of well-received digital singles and a cassette EP for Slumberland followed, dazzling savvy pop fans with their Paisley Underground-inflected jangle that owes as much to the Flying Nun sound as it does to 80s Athens, GA.

The eight assured songs of "Whispers in the Speech Machine" prove The Laughing Chimes deserve the attention and accolades, while their approaches to songwriting and sonic aesthetics continue to evolve. "Southeast Ohio is the foothills of Appalachia, so it has this indescribable mood and atmosphere to it," guitarist/vocalist Evan Seurkamp told The Big Takeover. "Sometimes there's a haunting weight of decay you want to escape, but at the same time there is some sort of strange romanticism surrounding ghost towns. We've tried to channel those moods to add more regional flavor into our sound."

Whispers In The Speech Machine

The Laughing Chimes - High Beams

Beacon

Sightseer

The second single from South / East London band Cloud Studies. It's the follow-up to their debut 2024 single ‘Ghosts’.

PRESS RELEASE
============

For Fans of: Dreampop, Shoegaze, Slowdive, Film School, My  Bloody Valentine, The Cure, Stereolab, Beach House, DIIV

Cloud Studies formed in 2024, as means for Adam Cresswell and Martin J Langthorne to explore the sonic possibilities offered by the large arsenal of effects pedals they had acquired.

‘Cloud Cartography’ was the first song written by Adam for the band as a means to set the tone for the direction of their sonic explorations. It was inspired by visits to the Derryveagh Mountains of Donegal in Ireland, and fighting off the elements as sheets of rain beat down upon the mountainous landscape.

The song is about trying to make sense of a constantly changing world and our efforts to document and understand it.  In a library, the protagonist meets someone attempting to map and catalogue the clouds. They find themselves standing together on a mountainside battling the elements, their undaunted optimism constantly challenged by the impossible nature of their undertaking. 

Sonically the song presents a panoramic, full-spectrum wall of sound; dreamy synths, layers of reverb-drenched guitars from Adrian Taylor and Martin J Langthorne, ethereal vocals from Adam Cresswell, underpinned by a tight insistent rhythm from drummer Nat Guest.

Cloud Studies:
Adam Cresswell, Vocals, bass; Nat Guest, Drums; Martin J Langthorne, Guitars; Adrian Taylor, Guitars

Produced by Adam Cresswell.
Mastered by Toby Campen Mastering.
Recorded at Nan's House Studios (Liverpool) and Bellasonic Sounds (London).

Cloud Cartography

CLOUD STUDIES: Cloud Cartography

Fawning

Reflections

Carrying on the long tradition of sentimental jangle pop songwriters, Lightheaded distill decades of lovelorn tunes into sounds for modern softies. They have the sunshine sparkle of The Left Banke and Margo Guryan, the C86 charm of Dolly Mixture and Would-Be-Goods, and the cinematic swell of Belle & Sebastian and Camera Obscura.

"Thinking, Dreaming, Scheming!" is their most collaborative and earnest release to date, and marks their first collaborative release with Slumberland and the UK's Skep Wax label. From Laurel Canyon folky jangle to elegant chamber pop to lovesick girl-group ballads, Lightheaded's tunes nod to the ‘60s without feeling antiquated and this new EP is their most perfectly bittersweet and fully-realized recording yet.

Thinking, Dreaming, Scheming!

pre-order

Lightheaded - Same Drop

Over the course of a decade playing together and making records as Jeanines, the duo of Alicia Jeanine and Jed Smith have charted a distinctive course through the history of pop, docking at ports of call as varied as the 60s folk of early Fairport Convention and Vashti Bunyan, the sunshine/soft pop of Margo Guryan and Laura Nyro, and of course indiepop touchstones like Dear Nora and the post-Black Tambourine projects of Pam Berry.

Their new album "How Long Can It Last" finds Jeanines grappling with serious themes of personal and professional upheaval, adding weight to their finest set of songs yet. With lyrics that look deeply at time and its reverberations, connections and ruptures, songs like "Coaxed A Storm," "What's Done Is Done" and "On and On" combine richly melodic tunes and crisp arrangements to stellar effect. While the themes might be heavy, the melodies and harmonies are simply heavenly, elevating these economical songs and giving each the feeling of a lost classic.

How Long Can It Last

Jeanines - On And On

"Tricky Questions" is the first new music from Allo Darlin' since 2014's "We Come From The Same Place" and it shows the Anglo-Australian indiepop quartet in fine form indeed. It's a jaunty bit of country-inflected folk that centers songwriter Elizabeth Morris Innset's warm vocals and highlights some nifty organ from drummer Mike Collins. The vibe is at once contemplative and joyous, reflecting a band that has lived a lot since they last made music together and has some great new stories to tell.

Allo Darlin' - Tricky Questions

Cityscape

After spending the bulk of the past year on the road in support of last November's excellent "Sports" LP on Slumberland Records, Weekend have also been hard at work on their followup record. Prior to their European tour in July, the band spent three weeks in the studio with producer Monte Vallier crafting their new EP, simply titled "Red." Prepare yourself for yet another gorgeous, violent sonic assault, because this EP packs a serious punch.

Opener "Sweet Sixteen" is mesmerizing grind, stately bass and drums underpinned by soaring vocals and echoed shards of guitar feedback and plucked notes. This leads directly into the noise-pop gem that is "Hazel" -- 3:50 of cascading bass chords, guitar clangor and a melody and chorus most pop bands would kill for. Amazing. "Your Own Nothing" is clattering piece of post-punk, spiked with layers of guitar noise and a dubbed-out atmosphere. 

"The One You Want" is a rather more straight-forward tune in the manner of "Hazel" and further proof that Weekend can craft melodies just as well as they can innovate with guitar textures and dazzle with sonic overload. The EP concludes with "Golfers," a song that downshifts into an extended minimal intro before building to a gorgeous crescendo of rumbling drums, chiming/fizzing guitars and as always that unerring sense of melody that Weekend always have in even the most noise-laden tunes.

"Red" is an excellent EP that packs more ideas into 5 songs than a lot of bands do into a whole record, and points the way forward towards Weekend's next long-player, due in 2012. Be sure to catch them on tour throughout September with Talk Normal.


Weekend - Hazel

Bruno FM - Sexy Barbie girl (Radio edit)

The Pains of Being Pure At Heart had quite a run over the last eighteen months. They released their self-titled debut last February to universal acclaim, racking up features in magazines like Spin, Rolling Stone and NME, earning Best New Music status from Pitchfork, and touring the US and Europe non-stop. They began 2010 with a month-long tour of Japan, New Zealand and Australia, and are wrapping it up with a series of west coast dates with labelmates Weekend and a sure-to-be-triumphant return to England.

All the while they've been working on new songs, releasing the excellent single Say No To Love in June and beginning work on their eagerly-anticipated second album. To help bring this new batch of tunes to life they've enlisted the help of producer Flood (Smashing Pumpkins, U2, PJ Harvey) and ace mixer Alan Moulder (My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus & Mary Chain, Arctic Monkeys). The result is a massive sounding album, sonically ambitious but still grounded in the peerless song-craft that The Pains are known for.

"Heart In Your Heartbreak" is the first preview from the new album, and it's a perfect snapshot of where the Pains are headed in 2011. An infectious slice of chunky power-pop with a great beat, sweeping synths and well-placed guitar jangle, it's immediately obvious that the new production team has brought out the best in the band. It's pure Pains all the way, but bolder, louder and more confident.


The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - Heart In Your Heartbreak

Slumberland began operations in 1989 as a collective effort consisting of members of DC area bands Velocity Girl, Big Jesus Trash Can/Whorl, Black Tambourine and Powderburns. We were inspired by such musical happenings as C86, early Creation, Postcard, K, Bus Stop, lower East Side noise, and also the renegade art aesthetics & methods of people like Cage, Burroughs and Duchamp. The explosion of punk had left behind a thriving network of 'zines, labels and distributors and we felt that there was room for our noise-loving, pop-obsessed aesthetic. While there were loads of US indie labels releasing a steady stream of 7"s, there wasn't much pop going on. Notable exceptions included Bus Stop, K and Picture Book, and we hoped to join that group and help chisel out some space for melodies amongst the noise.

Early releases from Velocity Girl, Whorl and Black Tambourine struck a note, and we found like-minded popsters getting in touch from all over the world. As we expanded the label roster and our own horizons, the goal was always to share great songs and interesting sounds from a range of styles. Our first burst of activity through the 1990s and early 2000s brought seminal records by legendary bands like Stereolab, Rocketship, The Ropers, Lorelei, The Aislers Set, Hood and Boyracer.

By the mid 2000s we were seeing 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.

2025 is our thirty-sixth (!) year we are still at it, ploughing our own furrow and bringing you unique, genre-defining (and genre-defying!) releases from bands like The Laughing Chimes, Humdrum, The Cords, Autocamper, Jeanines, The Umbrellas, Neutrals, Artsick, Kids On A Crime Spree, Papercuts, Lightheaded, Tony Jay, Chime School, Lunchbox and many, many more. Indie fashions come and go but we're still thrilled by great songs and the new ways that pop can be rejuvenated to fit the times.

Weekend - Hazel

Slumberland Records

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