I’ve got about 8 more hours of work, and then I get to take a nice few weeks off, so I’m looking for a fun number to get me right in the mood…this Andronoids tune helped. Honestly, it reminded me of French Kids (formerly Young Girls) who we’ve worked with on our label end of things. It’s part indiepop and part classic surfy sounds and also fuzzy gaze oriented rock and infectious as all get out. The Swedish outfit just released a new self-titled LP courtesy of Ontario’s We Are Busy Bodies, so if you feel like tapping your toes today, start here!
As we look forward to 2021 (thank goodness), its time to start looking for some new musical voices to keep us captivated, which is where we meet up with French outfit Gloria. They’ve just released this great brand new single, a bewitching number taken from their forthcoming Sabbat Matters LP. It’s an interesting jam, somewhere between modern psychedelia stomps, Fleetwood Mac nods and dream pop; I love the textural mixture that comes with that, which is what’s been drawing me to this tune…that and it seems to transport you back in time, and I’m digging that feel! You can grab the new LP in March via Howlin Banana Records.
Well, this Tim Cohen tune came out yesterday, but our attention was turned to our Catenary Wires/Heavenly, etc takeover, so we didn’t get a chance to praise the tune, until now! It’s been really interesting watching the Fresh and Only’s front man weave his way in and out of his solo career. This tune has this certain slow-burn to it, like a candle flickering in a dark carpeted room, perhaps for sance purposes. For me, aside from this voice, I think my favorite thing is that he seems to have completely erased the sound I associate with him, almost presenting me with something brand new…like a Cohen protg, with just a little more pain in the voice. You Are Still Here will drop on March 26th via Bobo Integral.
Thanks for listening, and thanks again for having us, ATH. 2020 was rubbish in so many ways, but at least we made a lot of stuff, and were able to make some good plans for 2021. We hope you have a great holiday and that we get to see you in real life next year.
Finally, here is the latest video from European Sun, a Christmas card for your digital mantelpiece. Rob, Amelia x
With everything else going on, our main band, The Catenary Wires, took a back seat. We had a bunch of gigs booked in the spring, but obviously they all had to be cancelled. However, the album that we had started putting together at the beginning of the year is now nearly finished. We managed to record a few songs here, before lockdown, but most of it has been recorded since. Fay recorded her keyboards at home, Ian added some extra finger drums, weve done our parts and Andy has played bass and put the whole thing together beautifully. We are lucky to be working with a band who arent just musically gifted, but technically clever too. We are going to release a single early next year, called Mirrorball. Its the story of two lonely individuals who attend a retro 80s disco, and are forced to re-live the horror of the worst music of that decade but then make eye contact across the dancefloor. Yes, its a love song!
We dont have a video ready for the single yet, but we thought we might include a live performance we did for the Wedding Presents At The Edge Of The Sofa virtual festival. These songs will be on the new album: they are The Overview Effect and Like the Rain.
One of the last gigs we went to before lockdown was Penelope Isles, and I was bowled over. The band is based around two siblings from the Isle of Man, Jack and Lily Wolter, alongside two friends (Becky and Jack) they made on moving to Brighton. Their live show is relaxed and funny, noisy but packed full of great tunes. You cant always tell which out of Jack or Lily is singing, but it doesn’t matter. Their first album Until The Tide Creeps In was released by Bella Union. Leipzig is one of my favourites of their songs. – Amelia
Heavenly is not new obviously, it was the band we were in in the 1990s. But lockdown also gave us the time to delve into the storage boxes in our cupboards and get a bit nostalgic. Ian from Damaged Goods Records had suggested putting out a compilation of material a while ago. We thought it would be good to collect up all the singles and make an album out of them. Some of those singles are very hard to get hold of now. The process of putting the album together was great in that it also brought us back in touch with people wed known back then, and reminded us of the amazing scenes we were lucky to be part of. Sarah Records in Bristol, determinedly releasing music for the love of it in the face of contempt from the major labels and the London journalists who serviced them; K Records and the Olympia scene generally, where Beat Happening were creating great music and where Riot Grrrl was coming into being. Plus the vibrant indie scenes in Europe and Japan. Hearing the old songs brought that all back to us. We got hold of some old footage that was shot in the Capitol Theatre in Olympia in the 90s, and we edited it into a video for P.U.N.K. Girl. Its archive material, but it captures something of the time.
The last live thing we did in the days before gigs stopped was to sing with Pete Astor (The Loft, The Weather Prophets). Pete had arranged for a dozen or so friends to sing a cover version of one of their favourite songs. (We did Jackson, with apologies to June Carter and Johnny Cash.) The gig was to promote Petes new album You Made Me. Anyway, since then, he has produced two singles as The Attendant. Its spoken word, with an excellent soundtrack. It feels like Pete has been on a parallel course to us creating new pop music, but also experimenting in the place where poetry and music meet. – Rob
Another event we had to cancel this year was our Words and Music At The Skep Festival we host in our barn. We had a great line-up of poets and musicians booked in for May, but obviously it never happened. We did a virtual mini-version of it on YouTube, which was fun, but not as fun as the real thing would have been. One of the bands we were most excited about seeing was Panic Pocket, a female duo (Selphie and Nat) from London. This is “Pizza In My Pants.” – Amelia
Song features on Never Gonna Happen EP; stream/buy it HERE.
After a period of gestation that lasted several decades (Rob and Steve have been friends since they were 14), we made an album as European Sun. We were just finishing the album as we first went into lockdown. This was the first time the two of us had arranged and produced a set of someone elses songs, but Steve was very trusting. He is still talking to us, and WIAIWYA were happy to put the album out, so it clearly wasnt a disaster.
In the summer, during one of those periods when it was ok to meet up with friends, we all went to our local seaside town, Hastings, for the day. We admired the sea, ate chips and made a video for Favourite Day, one of the singles off the album. Rob decided he wanted to make a set of European Sun videos that would, over time, become a collection of cards that could be put on a digital mantelpiece. This is the first: a seaside picture postcard.
I’ve got about 8 more hours of work, and then I get to take a nice few weeks off, so I’m looking for a fun number to get me right in the mood…this Andronoids tune helped. Honestly, it reminded me of French Kids (formerly Young Girls) who we’ve worked with on our label end of things. It’s part indiepop and part classic surfy sounds and also fuzzy gaze oriented rock and infectious as all get out. The Swedish outfit just released a new self-titled LP courtesy of Ontario’s We Are Busy Bodies, so if you feel like tapping your toes today, start here!
Well, this