Long-time blog dwellers will know of my absolute love for the Indonesian act The Lousy Pop Group which is the recording project of Eko Sutrisno (Shiny Happy Records and Chaotic Pop Records founder) and Addil Anara (who recently also released the brilliant Half Men, Half Sympathy album by his Race solo recording project). Therefore, it ..read more

Although this is the debut album by Manila-based quintet Cinema Lumiere, they already feel like old friends, considering that they have been drip-feeding us a whole host of singles since the brilliant Dreamcatcher EP for nearly five years now. Wishing It Was Sunday is a superb testimony of how their ability to seamlessly link their ..read more

Confirmed on their Facebook page as a song about ‘breaking free from old habits and finding strength in togetherness’ this Silver Jet single by Hamburg-based duo Roller Derby encapsulates all that can be ridiculously cool about just ‘being yourself’ in music. As a result, the perfect English vocals proffered via Philine Meyer’s German accent add a gloriously natural sense of Nico to proceedings as they dart through a deliberately retro Hater-style production that emphasizes every dreamy swirl, A perfect casual tempo, and jangled riffs that seem to slide across the surface of every multi-layere ..read more

Not even a month has passed since the release of the Blue Coast Weather debut EP  and yet Few Border have already returned with a new five-track release in Copenhagen, which tantalizes our jangle-pop receptors in equal measure. The opening double salvo of Blind and the title track offer beautifully subtle gaze inflections, perfectly produced to ensure the crystalline, jangled riffs that feel so akin to the sound of their French countrymen, Pale Spectres do not dominate and act as a cushion for a wonderfully disparate, almost ‘post-punk dulcet’ vocal delivery. The remainder of the re ..read more

Talking alcohol-induced essentials with mates at the pub a few ‘beer Fridays’ ago, and beyond the more tenuous question of what colors badgers and skunks would be if they were not black and white, the more obvious subject of “if you fell out of a plane without a parachute, which piece of music would be most likely to cushion you to the ground’ surfaced…oh that old subject I hear you retort. Bobsled Team and especially this, their second All The Colours Bloom album confirm their status as our most obvious saviors with tracks such as the opening Blue Love, lead single Analita, and See You Soon ..read more

Two years after the debut Swedish Punk album presented itself as a poster child for an “all killer, no filler” saying that gives me the ick as much as ‘bangers’, Danish foursome Kindsight are back with a No Shame No Fame follow-up that once again forces me to search for more erudite terms to replace the above terms as this album simply does not have a track that ever even begins to sidle away from brilliance. Sliding between two primary, inter-linked nuances tracks best represented by Tomorrow, Killing Eye, the simply sublime standout of Terracotta Team Song, and Top 10 Things You Need in the ..read more

After luxuriating in more jangle-pop climes with the recent release of much of the back catalogue of ‘should have been 80s legends’ Banned 37, the Athens, GA based Primordial Void label delves within our favourite genre once more with this superb Dilaudid debut single by Chairs. Featuring Reed Winckler (Team Deathmatch) on vocals and Marcel Sletten (The Rishis) on production the track takes a slow, post-punk inflected, bell-like jangly dream-pop that is so reminiscent of the recent Bobsled Team atmospherics and marries it to  dulcet, sultry Hope Sandoval style vocals whilst augmenting th ..read more

Back with his first new music in nearly four years, Scott Petersen’s Sea Dramas solo recording project returns with a sophomore Escape Scenes album that reminds us just how beautiful the swirling aural textures in his music can be. Recorded during the lockout 2020–2021 period in his San Francisco hometown that was so heavily affected by the COVID pandemic (i.e. the first U.S. metro to be placed into a full lockdown status), this release sees Petersen explores the essence and meaning of the ‘concept of time’ that was so cruelly thrust into our collective consciousness us during our new stay-out ..read more

Neatly sidestepping Rudolph and his bloody reindeer gang this Xmas, Indonesian act, Girl and Her Bad Mood, release a debut Bluest Year EP  that is the perfect beautifully melancholic antidote for those whose sickeningly twee cheeriness at Xmas has been bolstered by the post pandemic landscape. This amazing EP is presented in two primary nuances never really departing from a template that is covered in the jangliest dream-pop sound possible. Initially, there is the plaintive, introspective sound of the Holy Now and The Blue Herons drifting through Drifted, Falling Out, and 2013/Bluest Year ..read more

If the only previous output by Nottingham’s Holden Hush saw him wrapping whimsical titles about British takeaway food around dark, solemn, post-punk-inflected strangeness on his 2017 Loudspeaker single, then this Happiness Is A Poor Man’s Passion EP seems to be a re-awakening where he has taken his musical abilities altogether more seriously. Still omnipresent is the distant, unheard suggestion of a vocal delivery however, the illegibility somehow now seems to merge with beautiful purpose with the jangly aural textures of the standout title track and its journey through spatial surf rock, juxt ..read more