Based in Richmond, California, USA, Golden Teardrops are the husband/wife duo of Ryan Marquez (Apple Orchard) and Lei Marquez (Spring Boutique). Inspired mostly by Brian Wilson’s best work with The Beach Boys, Golden Teardrops recorded a demo called “A Summer Escape” in 2005. Though it never sounded anything like Mr. Wilson’s dazzling (early) catalogue, it set a template for what’s to come. A series of failed demo attempts, however, led to the project being shelved. Ryan continued work on his bedroom pop outfit, Apple Orchard, until about 2012, while Lei offered a lot of tea and sympathy. In late 2014, ideas flowed, and the duo began recording again. Aside from playing The Beach Boys classic, “Pet Sounds”, and "Rain" by The Beatles to death, the duo became even more immersed in albums like, to name a few, The Kinks’ “The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society”, Roger Nichols and the Small Circle of Friends’ self-titled album, Margo Guryan’s “Take a Picture”, Françoise Hardy’s “Tous les garçons et les filles”, "Rubber Soul" and "Revolver" by The Fab Four. The result was “Promises & Smiles”, the first Golden Teardrops album filled with catchy melodies that evoke the duo’s love for 60s pop music, with obvious hints of late 90s / early 2000s indiepop.

The songs form a love story, where lovers continue to discover new things each day. A reflection of the past whilst staying in the moment, with plenty of good vibrations in between.

The albums released by Emma's House Records. You can order the album at emmashouserecords.bandcamp.com/album/promises-smiles-emma-016

2018 Golden Teardrops

“Wide Awake” was the reason why Apple Orchard came into existence. Manila’s Definition Records included the track in the now much sought-after Filipino compilation, Mutual Admiration Society back in 2000. Fulfilled and pleased with the result, brothers Ryan and Dale Marquez then constantly conspired writing the starriest of starry-eyed pop tunes. 

Ryan and Dale have played together in Dorian Of Juniper Bells (which incidentally, was also included in the Mutual Admiration Society comp), aside from their other bands: Ryan with Sodajerk and Carnival Park and Dale for Sonnet LVIII and also, Soft Pillow Kisses. Apple Orchard on the other hand was a project which arose without fine warning, but with silent anticipation. The band’s name was taken from a song by Nottingham outfit Bouquet and the brothers considered The Sugargliders, The Field Mice, Brighter, Sweet William and Sarah Records as primary inspirations.

In the early years of the band after “Wide Awake”, plenty songs were written on a 4-track with mostly schoolboy lyrics and near-whispered melodies. Most of these tunes appeared in various compilations, such as Stamp Collecting (For Beginners) from the Secret Crush imprint and Dashboard Teddy from Dorothy Records, as well as cassette EPs like Last Wednesday from Popgun, Paris Was A Daydream and Across Haymarket And The Triangle, both issued by Best Kept Secret. Another three of these early recordings were released by Humblebee in February 2006 as a 7” single, entitled A Hiding Smile. The following year, Cloudberry Records handed out the 3” cd-r single That Happy Glow, the title track featured Raoul Dela Cruz of Popgun Recordings on trumpet. 

In 2008, Apple Orchard’s debut full-length Half-Steps Toward Bright Skies was released through the band’s own label, Haymarket Recordings. With a more polished and dreamier sound, the album received quite a few good reviews. Following the full-length months later was a limited 3” cd-r Turning Point from Germany’s Edition 59 imprint. August 2009 saw the release of another limited cd-r EP entitled Leafy Lanes, which the band issued through Haymarket and in May 2010, the band released a 7” single called “A Month Of Spring”, also on their own Haymarket label. The single, with its crushing pop noise has garnered comparisons with early Ride songs such as "Like A Daydream" and "Drive Blind". 

In 2012, Apple Orchard released a split 7" single with classic jangle pop group, The Proctors, issued by Dufflecoat Records and Luxury Records. 

Website: https://open.spotify.com/artist/369X4AThnPBoO64OToG5cF

Shop: http://appleorchard.bigcartel.com/

Bandcamp: http://appleorchard.bandcamp.com/

LILYSTARS RECORDS is an independent record label based in Manila, Philippines dedicated to Indie (Pop/Rock/Electronic and its derivative) Music. Determined to house significant local and international indie artists and connect them to the world and beyond where music lovers are most receptive to its aesthetics and sensibility.

Welcome to the supermodernity of Post-Neo-Close Lobsters. This site is an avenue for the uncontainable desire to create new sounds, new sounds built on 'ancient' foundations and set free old sounds built on new precepts. The music here is cumulative and quite useless, the target is beautiful and splendid output. The title Post-Neo-Close Lobsters is inclusive of the term kunstwerk and is an amalgamation partly in honour of German techno minimalism which reawakened the soul, and partly simply a means for the expression of artwork. It is music conceptualised, organised and produced for the fuck of it. That is, it is necessary in every way imaginable. Music as the melody of life. Kunstwerk as life time lines. The CLS is as in CLOSE LOBSTERS, the KUNSTWERK is as in 'Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit'; 'the work of art in the age of technological reproduction'.   CLOSE LOBSTERS KUNSTWERK is effectively, if only really very much partially, Post-Neo-CLOSE LOBSTERS.  POST-NEO-CLOSE LOBSTERS.  The 'legendary' CLOSE LOBSTERS are the font and well from which this movement springs and moves. CLOSE LOBSTERS are an independent pop punk rock group who made little ripples in the pool of sound towards the middle-to-end of the 1980s and into the 1990s. CLOSE LOBSTERS KUNSTWERK is the extension of the CLOSE LOBSTERS into the 21st century and an appropriate vehicle for various types of rythmic mumbo-jumbo. It is a reawakening of the desire and need to create. After high and low plains drifting in the wilderness for stretched time, the right time is nigh and it is mere spooky coincidence that the current economic shakedown has rendered world markets precariously on the very edge of the precipice - just as they were left back in the 90s, and as they are generally prone. As ever, au naturelle, naturlich. Up Up Up, Down Down Down as the song 'Head Above Water' is wont to tell. The 90s were supposed to make the 60s look like the 50s but didn't. Its all the same in the underground. We look into the abyss and allegedly this is where we find our character, and then when we do we are haunted by the past. It has been said that the traditions of the dead generations weigh like a nightmare upon the living. It has been said. In this sense, CLOSE LOBSTERS are past, present and future tense.  A new spectre is haunting Europe. Of late there has been a simultaneous coalescence of events which suggest/trigger something about moments and decades in time. Chains of flashing images. Time is not linear but cyclical and terribly terribly strange. It is an expression of our collective imagination. In this vein, we give vent to the accelerating juggernaut of CLOSE LOBSTERS KUNSTWERK, attempting to capture, if only for a fleeting moment, the spirit of a world turned on its head....the Re-MYSTIFICATION of the very nature of things, a world where the great many are condemned to live-in-quiet-desperation and the rest get twitchy and repetitive and loose. CLOSE LOBSTERS is an endeavour to reflect the revolutionary potential of the underground house music insurrection as it intersects with the spirit of punk rock - as an anti-hierarchical pro-autonomy kill-your-idols type social musical movement. Underground not mainstream - not superstar in the formal sense of this mainstream but in the Warhol manner. Upstream and downstream. Not literally but artistically.  Anti Disco Mafia as they might say in Eivissa and Anti-sterile POP as we have always said. CLOSE LOBSTERS KUNSTWERK is a work-in-progress. Whatever progress might be. Everything here is. The tracks/mixes above appear in latest but never final form. They are restless - given to anxiety. Twitchy. All works and all theorizing are partial. A tune is COSMIC WAR.  It is more than a mere sabre-rattle.  It is the site of the existential struggle. It attempts to soundtrack the struggle within each human heart between the angels of darkness and the demons of light and vice-versa. It is MELANCHOLY SOUL. The POP REBETALISM Mix is a hallelujah-ode to the modern artistic freaks of Athens Greece who have revitalised Rebetika in modern form. Rebetalism as magic realism. There are silent Hellenic voices in there. The original version, the DEEP HOUSE Mix is a live studio recording from the depths and midsts of time, June 1991. It stands here as the original Deep House Mix. The SUPERMODERNITY mix was frankensteined in February 2009. It is way too long. There once was a track called 'Ripples in a Pool' but it aged before our very eyes and the sword of damocles fell squarely on its head. Its days were numbered in any case. It was built in late 2008 and shuddered to collapse in July 2009. The monuments of this modernity are crumbling before they are even completely built. Such is the fevered reality of the 21st century. These are all tracks developed by CLOSE LOBSTERS KUNSTWERK.  For your delectation, the mixes are offered in (some kind of) polychronic order. A few Close Lobsters tracks are also made available here. Steel Love awaits forlornly its 2009 makeover and sits in the corner sulking. In the context of the song, the vocals are now very moving. Tragically so. The sword of Damocles permanently hangs over the song - forever. RIP. Some say the COSMIC FIVE mumbo jumbo mix is the nearest yet. To what is not clear. It was shaped and let loose in March 2009. As indicated, some of the new experimental mixes are saved/taken/rescued from the smouldering embers of the original track Deep House version. The 'Deep House' in the title was a play on living in the depths/basement of a house during the house music explosion of the late 1980s and early 1990s. One night we went to a desert storm and never returned home sweet home so to speak. Shock and Awe before shock and awe in fact. These mixes are prominences on the surface of the sun - solar prominences even, manifestations of supermodernity. Certainly a new movement. Each epoch dreams the one to follow and in a similar vein the dreams of the new mixes were contained in the original. Phantasmagoria abounds! The 'lyric poem' of 'NANANA Deep House' goes something like this: 'My favourite ever stupid phrase is 'things will never be the same' its my favourite stupid phrase la na na na na na na na na na na na na Wrote in a rush from this day on, the spectre haunting Europe will be gone  - lived in deep house in those days  - saving up for some better days - history is about to be changed  - lived in deep house in those days. My favourite ever favourite phrase is 'things will never be the same' la na na na na na na na na na na na...' the chorus, if chorus is what it is, is on the prowl, seeking answers to the incessant movement of things where life never really happens but is gone - Abracadabra! We are living between what has been, what could be, and what should be. CLS KUNSTWERK should be and are remastered in the age of technological reproduction. Welcome to the supermodernity of all things CLS KUNSTWERK - Close Lobsters Kunstwerk. The 'legendary' CLOSE LOBSTERS are the font and well from which this movement springs. CLOSE LOBSTERS are a independent rock group who made little ripples in the pool of sound towards the middle-to-end of the 1980s and into the 1990s. Typically miscast and misunderstood, the majority of impressions of the group were very much wide of the mark. Some people are just plain lazy mentally. The fundamental attribution error. However, this is fine.  Contrary to popular representations they created a dust-up live. They toured relentlessly across the UK, Europe Central and the Mid-to-North-East North American continent releasing three albums and five singles (or something like that). Evading capture and categorisation are the hallmarks of the living. Keep on keepin on as the song goes. All manner of Close Lobsters materials remain available from the usual outlets, that sorta thing, y'know these sorta places - iTunes, Amazon, the WWW. Be picky! This site aims to provide the channel for the resurrection and re-enchantment of the spirit of CLOSE LOBSTERS in supermodern form; as an entity that lives and breathes and stretches and groans and haunts. As it was and is now intended to be.  For those interested in what was, a new singles collection of CLOSE LOBSTERS works was released by Fire Records of London on 05.10.09. It is entitled 'FOREVER, UNTIL VICTORY!' in honour of the songs and the group and of the late Ernesto 'Che' Guevara.  The story of the group is thus: There was once a storm of stones and sticks and half bricks and this barrage was to become a lodestar. The very perfect nature of things. If eternity is indeed the sea mingled with the sun as a young French poet once intimated then unrelenting group disorder defines the everyday and mundane in chains of flashing images. The singles collection was marshalled and brought together, collected if you will, and these disparate souls called songs then began to spontaneously form a chronological narrative/orderly queue. The cover design (see below) is exemplary and features Rebetalism as Salvador Dali. It is a visual representation of Rebetika in modern form. Rewinding to the present, a lot more things and stuff are planned for this new movement, including the unearthing, the cannabalizing, and the technologizing of fragments of old and dusty unreleased Close Lobsters materials so that these embers ignite IN movement and as CLOSE LOBSTERS Kunstwerk Marcavo Music Recordings 2009-2011-2015...and on and on and so on...


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