Long Long Long

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

Crystalizing the tragic self-celebrating kingdoms of fortunate failures, false heroes, music press deities of limitless deceit, hometown dive gods and humanity in the grips of all its romanticized wonder and woe — DIY pop titans The Reds, Pinks & Purples take aim at the threads of hope with untethered abandon on their new album "Unwishing Well." Spanning 10 gem-like tunes, it's yet another exhibition of Glenn Donaldson's flawless mastery of intimate - yet expansive - downcast pop.

Over the course of the last five years The Reds, Pinks & Purples have released six albums, several EPs and countless singles, all dedicated to breathing fresh life into the cerebral, leftfield pop that animated the gloomy teens, college radio DJs and record store clerks of the 80s and 90s. Such touchstones as The Go-Betweens, The Smiths, Magnetic Fields, Felt and more are obvious inspirations, but Donaldson’s prolific, prodigious talent for mood and melody have virtually created their own genre, and "Unwishing Well" is its purest embodiment yet.

Unwishing Well

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The Reds, Pinks & Purples - Learning to Love a Band

The Reds, Pinks & Purples - What’s Going on with Ordinary People

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

Lunchbox - Dinner for Two

Greasy Boy

Exactly As It Seems

If I Could Make You Care

D.E.B.T

Heavy in My Mouth

Unsympathetic Parts 1 & 2

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.

The Reds, Pinks & Purples - What’s Going on with Ordinary People

Slumberland Records

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