For most members of the band it’s the best album. But, tragically, the release of 'Operation Heavenly' in 1996 was overshadowed by the sudden death of drummer Mathew Fletcher. The promotional tour was cancelled, the surviving members of the band went into emotional hibernation and no-one could bring themselves to celebrate these vibrant, upbeat songs.

So, this release by Skep Wax Records, nearly thirty years on, is more like an album launch than a re-issue. Time has healed most wounds, and the songs on 'Operation Heavenly' feel like they can finally emerge onto the stage, with Mathew’s spirit very much alive: his effervescent witty drumming sounding as fresh now as it did then. These tracks are gleeful, melodic, sophisticated and knowing. The tough riot grrrl edge that Heavenly had developed a year before with seminal singles 'P.U.N.K. Girl' and 'Atta Girl', has been blended with a deliberate quantity of Britpop styling. Heavenly were clearly listening to what was going on, liked the energy, but didn’t necessarily feel the need to join in. Some of the tracks (eg Ben Sherman) are as jaunty as early Blur, but the lyrics, mocking a narcissistic boyfriend for his obsession with hair, clothes and his own erections, show that Heavenly didn’t need or want to be part of the la - or even ladette – herd.

'Operation Heavenly' was the band’s first release on a label other than Sarah Records. Matt Haynes and Clare Wadd had brought that exceptional label to a deliberate and dramatic end. The liaison with US punk label K Records continued – as did the duets with Calvin Johnson: 'Pet Monkey' is a moving duet between a growling Calvin Johnson and a sweet-voiced Cathy Rogers, as they dramatize another complex, maybe doomed relationship, with another self-centred boy finding himself frustrated by a girl who won’t take any shit. But in the UK, Heavenly needed to find a new home - and Wiija Records were welcoming hosts, ushering the band into a brasher, less cloistered world: the production on this album is brighter than before, the artwork is colourful and upbeat. With tracks as catchy and as complete as 'Fat Lenny', 'Trophy Girlfriend' and 'Space Manatee' there was an expectation that Heavenly might finally emerge from the indiepop shadows and trouble the charts. And who knows if this might have happened. Mathew was lost before the album was released, and the band had no choice but to bring things to an end.

This reissue also contains two tracks that appeared on the B side of the 7” single of 'Space Manatee'. They are both cover versions, and along with Serge Gainsbourg’s 'Nous Ne Sommes Pas Des Anges' on the main album, these vivacious assaults on 'Art School' by The Jam and 'You Tore Me Down' by The Flamin’ Groovies show that the band, briefly in its prime, could happily embrace any variant of pop music and make it something Heavenly.

TRACK LISTING

1. Trophy Girlfriend
2. K-Klass Kisschase
3. Space Manatee
4. Ben Sherman
5. By The Way
6. Cut Off
7. Nous Ne Sommes Pas Des Anges
8. Mark Angel
9. Fat Lenny
10. Snail Trail
11. Pet Monkey
12. Art School
13. You Tore Me Down

'Portland Town' is as effervescent a pop song as any of Heavenly’s past recordings, with duelling vocals from Amelia and Cathy; looping, twanging, ‘how-did-he-do-that’ guitar escapades from Peter, and a super-catchy melody. As so often with Heavenly, though, the lyrics have real bite.

The song embraces those who find themselves on the margins of a hostile world where maleness, straightness and conformity are in the ascendant. So why Portland? It has always been a sanctuary – one of those places where difference is celebrated, a place where, as the song puts it, anyone can fit in.

The B side is a cover version of a much-loved Only Ones song, ‘Someone Who Cares’.

TRACK LISTING

1. Portland Town
2. Someone Who Cares

2025 is a special Britpop anniversary year, and Swansea Sound are keen to celebrate this summer’s coming together of every single music-lover in the UK with the release of their new single 'Oasis v Blur'.

The song probably sounds more like The Fall getting into bed with The Sweet, but that’s just the way it turned out.

The B side, 'Pacio’r Fan', is about a journey back to a remembered teenage time, when idealism still burned and the world was full of potential. It is a wistful song, but it’s hopeful too: the idealistic flame is still there if you seek it out.

TRACK LISTING

1. Oasis V Blur
2. Pacio’r Fan

Carrying on the long tradition of sentimental jangle pop songwriters, Lightheaded distil 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.

Formed on the shore of New Jersey in 2017 by Cynthia Rittenbach and Stephen Stec, Lightheaded took time to hone their sound with a rotating crew of drummers, guitarists and backup vocalists. They found a community of like-minded bands in a vast but tight-knit international indie pop scene, which eventually led them to the iconic California label Slumberland Records. Their debut cassette EP 'Good Good Great!', a collection of five perfect pop songs, landed in 2023, followed by the full-length 'Combustible Gems' in 2024. A European tour and gigs opening for bands like Heavenly, The Softies and The Ladybug Transistor rounded out their breakout year.

The band signed to Skep Wax Records for 'Thinking Dreaming Scheming', their most collaborative and earnest release to date. A slate of five brand new songs is combined with the five tracks from 'Good Good Great!', now available on vinyl for the first time. Recorded bi-coastally with Gary Olson (The Ladybug Transistor) and Alicia Vanden Heuvel (The Aislers Set, Poundsign) and drenched in lush reverb on tape by Fred Thomas (Saturday Looks Good to Me), the new songs are rendered in a dreamy soft focus that perfectly suits their starry-eyed themes. Adding to all the fun are the cameos and contributions from the new generation of New York indie pop goodness, featuring members of Starcleaner Reunion and Trinket, pushing the songs on this record to a high point in the young band's discography.

TRACK LISTING

1. Same Drop
2. The Lindens, The Lindens, The Lindens
3. Me And Amelia Fletcher
4. The View From Your Room
5. Crash Landing Of The Clod
6. Mercury Girl
7. Orange Creamsicle Head
8. The Garden
9. Patti Girl
10. Love Is Overrated

Over the course of nearly a decade making music, Alicia Jeanine and Jed Smith have charted a distinctive course through the history of pop, evoking influences as varied as the 60s folk of early Fairport Convention and Vashti Bunyan, the sunshine pop of Margo Guryan and Laura Nyro, and indiepop touchstones like Dear Nora, Marine Girls and Dolly Mixture.

Their new album, 'How Long Can It Last', finds Jeanines grappling with themes of personal upheaval and self-excavation, adding weight to their finest set of songs yet. With Alicia’s lyrics incisively interrogating connections, ruptures, and time and its reverberations, songs like 'Coaxed a Storm', 'What's Done Is Done', and 'On and On' combine rich melody with co-composer Jed’s crisp arrangements (along with contributions from longtime live show bassist Maggie Gaster) to stellar effect.

Where 'How Long Can It Last' really shines is, as always, in the songs. While the themes are sometimes heavy, the melodies and harmonies are simply heavenly, elevating these economical songs to give each the feeling of a lost classic. From the first notes of opener 'To Fail' to jaunty closer 'Wrong Direction', this album announces itself as the work of a band in full command of their art (and craft).

TRACK LISTING

1. To Fail
2. You Can’t Get It Back
3. You’ll Figure It Out
4. Coaxed A Storm
5. That’s What You Say
6. What’s Done Is Done
7. On And On
8. What’s Lost
9. What You Do
10. One Art
11. Satisfied
12. How Long Can It Last
13. Wrong Direction

The Catenary Wires are a group comprising Amelia Fletcher, Rob Pursey and Ian Button. Their critically acclaimed third album ‘Birling Gap’ was released in 2021. Since then, they have been focusing on their other bands, playing around the world with Heavenly (stars of the 90s indiepop scene) and Swansea Sound.

A couple of years ago, word reached Rob and Amelia that Brian had been spotted wearing a Heavenly t-shirt at one of his shows, and was a big fan of their music. Given that they, in turn, were fans of Brian’s poetry, introductions were made, friendships were formed, and ‘Sounds Made By Humans’ took shape.

The album isn’t a set of readings with musical backdrops: it’s a collection of songs, where words and music have become completely intertwined. There are verses, and there are choruses. There is no ‘riffing’, no improvisation. In many ways, Brian’s poems are already like pop songs: brief, direct, and witty; sometimes poignant, sometimes biting and political; but always economical, and always accessible.

Rob took thirteen of Brian’s poems and created melodies and arrangements, which are then played by a full band, with Ian Button on drums and Fay Hallam on keyboard. Sometimes the words of the poems are sung by Amelia or Rob. Sometimes they are spoken by Brian. Sometimes both these things happen at once. This is a pop record where the poetry and the music are equal partners: sounds made by humans in perfect artistic alignment. 

TRACK LISTING

1. Alexa, What Is There To Know About Love?
2. The Interview
3. Every Song On The Radio Reminds Me Of You
4. Might Have, Might Not Have
5. To Do List
6. Compilation Cassette
7. Out Of The Rain
8. 31 Rules For Midliefe Rebellion
9. As I Grow Old I Will March Not Shuffle
10. She’d Dance
11. My Heart Is A Lump Of Rock
12. Thou Shalt Not Commit Adulting
13. Customers Who Bought This Record Also Bought…

Debut album from The Gentle Spring: The long-awaited return of Michael Hiscock, Co-founder of The Field Mice.

The Gentle Spring are a new group, formed by Michael Hiscock, Emilie Guillaumot and Jérémie Orsel. Michael has an illustrious pop history, having been a founder member of The Field Mice, possibly the most beloved band on Sarah Records in the 1990s. And with The Gentle Spring, it seems that history is repeating itself… When Michael and his friend Bobby Wratten formed The Field Mice, the two of them very quickly created a set of songs whose emotional honesty, raw guitars and perfect pop melodies pierced the hearts of a generation of indiepop fans, kids who were unmoved by the posturing of mainstream indie, and who didn’t want to spend time in fields dancing at 24-hour raves. The Field Mice were the band who defined the meaning and the spirit of Sarah Records. Defiantly in love with pop, defiantly un-macho, defiantly…sensitive. And now, remarkably, Michael has done it again.

With his new musical partner Emilie, The Gentle Spring have created a fresh new iteration of indiepop music. Once again, the songs are unafraid of raw emotions, brutally honest and is still in love with big pop melodies. They are still….sensitive. But life is seen through a different lens now. There is wisdom, there is experience, and there is the ability to look back at the world with a mixture of regret and joy. These are very adult songs, and the arrangements reflect this. Rich acoustic guitars and Emilie’s haunting keyboard have replaced hectic drum machines and urgent distortion. And there is a third element to this music. Jérémie Orsel’s sophisticated guitar adds textures and melodies that give these songs a real depth, while maintaining an enigmatic distance, never quite overwhelming the vocal line. So things are clearer now. But feelings are just as strong. The pain of unrequited love that made Field Mice songs so poignant hasn’t gone away. In some ways, the thought of roads not taken is more profound when experienced in retrospect. I Can’t Have You As A Friend entertains this notion, still moved by the allure of a different life, but shuddering with fear at what might have happened. Also still haunted by the past, The Girl Who Ran Away conjures up the ghost of a previous failed relationship, which threatens to undermine happiness in the present. In Severed Hearts, sung by Emilie, there is the stark recognition that some endings really are final: sometimes there can be no reconciliations. But the song cleverly moves on from this: it acknowledges that, even after the worst emotional loss, you have to pick yourself, you will move on. It’s sophisticated and it’s mature – but it will still break your heart. Sugartown is another song that plays this trick on you. It insists that there will always be lightness and shade. It warns you against complacency, but does it so kindly that you feel like you’ve been embraced. When Michael’s and Emilie’s vocals combine in the final chorus, telling us that we don’t live in Sugartown, you know they are right – and yet the sweetness of the singing makes you feel that – just for a moment – you do.the band perform as a trio and have already found a keen audience in France, where they are based

TRACK LISTING

1. Sugartown
2. Untouched
3. The Girl Who Ran Away
4. Severed Hearts
5. Looking Back At The World
6. Comments In The Streams
7. The Ashes
8. I Can’t Have You As A Friend
9. The Reason Why You Lie
10. Don’t Bring It Home 

Debut Album From Sassyhiya, London’s Finest New Indiepop Band.

Sassyhiya want to take you somewhere. The journey starts in Kathy and Helen’s flat in South London. Sit down, close your eyes, and immerse yourself... You are on your way to a musical rainforest a long way from Camberwell. Explore your new surroundings, and you will find beautiful pop blooms like Let’s See What We Can Find, as bright and vibrant as The Sundays, thrusting their colourful faces up from the forest floor. You’ll find tangles of sharp-edged guitar, as if Swiss she-punks Kleenex had been left to evolve here in the rich fertile soil (I Had A Thought). You’ll find dark pools full of lyrical complexity, deceptively deep and immersive, with shimmering reflections of The Go-Betweens (Perennial). And you’ll come across delicate love songs, creeping up the trunks and branches of the bass and drums, displaying their fragile beauty (Thank You And Goodbye). And what’s that exotic striped animal prowling through the undergrowth? Actually, it’s Crayon Potato, Sassyhiya’s pet cat, the other resident of their flat in South London, taking up her role as the feline star of a lilting, singalong anthem written in her honour.

That’s what is so great about this album. You are somehow, simultaneously, exploring the most exotic forest in the world while also sitting in a flat in an ordinary, familiar English street with Sassyhiya and their cat. This album transports you without pretending the real world doesn’t exist: it doesn’t get all mystical on you (Take You Somewhere is as unlike Enya as anything you’ve heard). Sometimes you might be reminded of Girls At Our Best, and then Delta 5. You might even, on occasion, think of Echo and the Bunnymen.

The album opens with their single, Boat Called Predator: an appropriate start, inviting you to embark: insistent, almost ominous, but with a siren call of a chorus that means you can’t go back. The first single, Kristen Stewart, is here too: a bold love song to a queer icon, affirming Sassyhiya’s status as the queens (and kings) of a thriving indiepop scene. It’s joyous and it’s life-affirming. There are other love songs here too, like the jokey, wonkily flirtatious Puppet Museum. The album ends with You Can Give It (But You Can’t Take It) - a proper anthem of defiance, gently but insistently taking down the bullies and reactionaries who trample over beauty and diversity: the kind of people you might, unfortunately, bump into as you make your way back onto the streets of South London.

Sassyhiya (pronounced “Sassy Hiya”) were formed when Helen and Kathy, real-life partners and co-songwriters, joined up with Pablo and Neil (drums and guitar). Helen had previously been in Boys Forever and Basic Plumbing, collaborating with much-missed Veronica Falls musician Patrick Doyle. She and Kathy then formed Barry, a stripped-down queercore outfit, with Bart McDonagh (The Male Gays) and Mark Amura (My Executive Dysfunction). Sassyhiya feels like a culmination of all these elements, hitting the sweet spot between post-punk and indie pop. They know their way around a melody but still keep it wonky, with influences ranging from the Breeders and Broadcast to Dolly Parton.

TRACK LISTING

1. Boat Called Predator
2. I Had A Thought
3. Kristen Stewart
4. Thank You And Goodbye
5. Puppet Museum
6. Crayon Potato
7. Take You Somewhere
8. Perennial
9. Let’s See What We Can Find
10. On Our Way
11. Try Try Try
12. You Can Give It (But You Can’t Take It)

New Album From The Most Danceable Post-Punk Pop Band In The UK.

It’s like something has exploded!

CRUMBS have been incubating this, their second album, for a few years now. Who knows how they kept all the energy in check. It must have been like sitting on a volcano. The songs burst out with pure pop fire, sending splinters of guitar, sharp lyrics and snatches of the catchiest backing vocals.

The rhythm section (Jamie and Gem): it’s like Delta 5 meeting Le Tigre in a dark alley in Leeds, fusing blindly and completely, and then forcing its way into the back entrance of a venue, sending volts through the limbs of the unwitting punters, forcing them to dance. This is TIGHT.

And as the lights come on and the indie kids throw themselves around, Ruth’s vocals sweetly assault their ears with anger, joy, political intelligence - and all around, Stuart’s guitar, sometimes twangly-melodic like the B52s, sometimes sweet and ringing like a memory of Scars, sometimes furious and feeding back, keeps you alert and thirsty for more.

These songs do NOT outstay their welcome. Starts and ends are cut hard: no pre-echo, no wistful, drawn-out regretful fade-outs. CRUMBS have imbibed the key lessons taught by The Gang Of Four and The Au Pairs: never let the energy dissipate. But there is more than anger here. The band have smuggled a pop sweetness into the disciplined shapes of their angular songs. You’re Just Jealous has sharp edges, but it’s generous too.

TRACK LISTING

1. You’re Just Jealous
2. Stab Alley
3. Dear Deirdre
4. Diy Sos
5. Rest In Pieces
6. Let’s Not
7. 4291
8. Call Now
9. What’s It Means
10. Sad Snoopy
11. Mambo No.6
12. Too Many Creeps 

Under The Bridge 2 is the sequel to the celebrated 2022 compilation album that reunited groups and songwriters who had once recorded for cult label Sarah Records. The new album showcases the continuing creativity of a special group of musicians who have never rested on their laurels.

Bigger and more expansive than the first album, Under the Bridge 2 is a double LP, containing twenty brand new tracks. There is a huge range of material here, from intense, dark chamber pop to dense shoegaze to out-and-out indiepop. Exciting new groups are unveiled: The Gentle Spring (a new project by Michael Hiscock of The Field Mice); Vetchinsky Settings (a collaboration between Mark Tranmer and James Hackett of The Orchids); and Mystic Village (which features new songs by Robert Cooksey of The Sea Urchins).

You will also see familiar starry names like Even As We Speak, The Orchids and Secret Shine - bands whose line-ups have remained mostly unchanged since the 1990s. And there are established bands who didn’t appear on the first album but are now represented – bands like Action Painting! and The Hit Parade.

Most of the tracks are exclusive and unreleased: there’s the first new song from The Catenary Wires since 2021, a brand new fizzbomb from Jetstream Pony, a haunting instrumental from GNAC.

The emphasis of Under The Bridge is on the new. The bands’ shared history means they have a shared aesthetic, even a shared ethos – they all believe that the future is more important than the past. They are as independent and as uncompromising as ever, but they are still uncynical - and still excited about what Pop Music can be.

TRACK LISTING

The Gentle Spring - Dodge The Rain (Previously In The Field Mice)
Action Painting! - Just Who Are The Cockleshell Heroes?
The Catenary Wires - Alone Tonight (Previously In Heavenly)
The Hit Parade - Apple Tree
Jetstream Pony - Look Alive! (Previously In Aberdeen)
Soundwire - Everything Is Real (Previously In The Sweetest Ache)
Leaf Mosaic - The Branch Line (Previously In The Springfields)
Secret Shine - Captivate This Broken Love
Even As We Speak - Beauty, You Will Break Us All
GNAC – Double Ninth (Previously In St Christopher)
Tufthunter – Chemistry (Previously In Heavenly)
Useless Users - In This, The House Of The Solitary Bees (Previously In Action Painting! & Secret Shine)
The Orchids - A Final Love Song
Wandering Summer - Wake The Silver Dancing Waves (Previously In Boyracer)
Mystic Village - Open Your Eyes (Previously In The Sea Urchins)
Boyracer - Unknown Frequencies
Robert Sekula – Pamela (Previously In Fourteen Iced Bears)
Vetchinsky Settings - Laugh While You Can (Previously In The Orchids & St Christopher)
St Christopher - Burnout ’23
Sepiasound - June In Her Eyes (Previously In Blueboy) 

The Atta Girl and P.U.N.K. Girl singles were released in 1993; album The Decline and Fall of Heavenly came soon after in 1994: collectively they show a band that is rapidly expanding its scope. The album veers confidently from high speed indiepunk (Me And My Madness) to cool surf instrumental (Sacramento) and back again to the sweetest indiepop (Itchy Chin). Meanwhile, the singles, which include the band’s most celebrated tune - P.U.N.K Girl – demonstrates how much confidence Heavenly were deriving from their involvement in the nascent Riot Grrrl scene. All the anger is there, the politics are direct and crystal clear – yet the whole thing is still delivered with the sweetest pop melodies. It’s like being punched and kissed at the same time.

The three releases also show how Heavenly had come to feel equally at home in the UK and in the US. The album maybe feels more British, as demonstrated by the Old World irony of the ‘Decline and Fall’ title. At Heavenly gigs in the UK, often playing with other bands on the increasingly influential Sarah Records, audiences were getting bigger, while the bands were finding a sweet spot where anti-corporate understatement and a dismissive attitude to an increasingly misogynist UK Press was no barrier to success. P.U.N.K Girl and Atta Girl on the other hand, are more gleeful, more headlong, and somehow feel more American: they are carried along by the excitement and adrenaline of having found another spiritual home - the indiepunk Riot Grrrl scene that was focussed on Olympia, WA, the HQ of Heavenly’s US label K Records. (K released P.U.N.K Girl and Atta Girl together on one 10” EP.)

Amelia Fletcher and Cathy Rogers were now confidently sharing vocals, sometimes harmonising, sometimes taking it in turns, sometimes singing over each other. Peter (guitar) Mathew (drums) and Rob (bass) had become adept at changing gear from ornate pop to full-on punk, unafraid of genre rules and increasingly happy to make up their own version of what pop music should sound like.

TRACK LISTING

1. Me And My Madness
2. Modestic
3. Skipjack
4. Itchy Chin
5. Sacramento
6. Three Star Compartment
7. Sperm Meets Egg, So What?
8. She And Me
9. P.U.N.K. Girl
10. Hearts And Crosses
11. Attagirl
12. Dig Your Own Grave
13. So?

Second Album ‘Twentieth Century’ From Indie Agitators Swansea Sound.

On their second album, Swansea Sound present a set of songs as infectious as anything from their previous incarnations. The raw energy of Hue’s old band The Pooh Sticks is still there; the indiepop sugar rush of Amelia’s Heavenly is still as sweet as ever. But these songs are laced with venom and sardonic wit.

Swansea Sound have visited this terrain before: their catchy debut single ‘Corporate Indie Band’ was a sly tribute to a music scene that had lost all its authenticity, with its bands in hock to social media managers: corporate puppets play-acting at independence. In ‘Twentieth Century’, Swansea Sound take it a lot further, having a good look at the heroes of their youth – the fabled eras of rock, punk, post-punk, electro futurism – and considering whether the prophets that emerged from those scenes were of any use whatsoever.

In ‘Paradise’, the electric synth-bleeps conjure up the dated futurism of the 1980s – with all its optimism about a digital nirvana: a nirvana that turned out to consist of Cambridge Analytica, OnlyFans, Spotify and chatrooms populated with incels. The song is as catchy as hell, and might remind you of Magazine. (Swansea Sound don’t think that the Twentieth Century was all bad.) ‘Twentieth Century’, the title track, plays out the egotism of a punk rocker in combat gear, armed with a decent major label deal, singing (with less and less conviction) about revolution: OK, that was grim. But ‘Far Far Away’ is a pretty straightforward love song to Pete Shelley. He was great.

Other tracks turn their attention to the Twenty First Century: ‘Markin’ It Down’ is a duet between Hue, a vinyl obsessive, and Amelia, the owner of a second-hand record shop, with him searching for bargains amidst the over-supply of Yard Act albums, and her trying to suggest something older that might excite him. ‘Click It And Pay’ is a duet between a harassed home-worker doing some online shopping and the woman in the fulfilment warehouse who’s under pressure to pack his requisites. ‘I Don’t Like Men In Uniform’ (inspired by Hue’s ageing Yorkshire Terrier Kenny – once a fierce beast, now just grouchy), is about those blokes who used to be aggressive enough to fight anyone, but can’t quite find the energy for a scrap these days. Punk’s nearly dead.

Final track ‘Pack The Van’ is a surprisingly elegiac pop song, looking right back to early teenage years, wondering if it’s still possible to access the undiluted idealism and excitement of youth. And decides that, yes, that isn’t out of the question...

All these songs are indiepop, if you insist. They are full of earworms and they will make you want to dance. But they are also full of funny, complex, mordant ideas - and maybe that’s why you’ll want to hear them many times over.

TRACK LISTING

1. Paradise
2. Seven In The Car
3. Keep Your Head On
4. Click It And Pay
5. I Don’t Like Men In Uniform
6. Twentieth Century
7. I Made A Work Of Art
8. Markin’ It Down
9. Punish The Young
10. Far Far Away
11. Greatest Hits Radio
12. Pack The Van

A new wave of indiepop is emerging in the UK, and Panic Pocket are at the forefront of it. Playful, tuneful, sardonic and sassy, Sophie and Natalie have been friends since childhood, know each other’s secrets - and probably know a few of yours too.

Formed in 2017, Panic Pocket soon became a DIY sensation, releasing debut EP Never Gonna Happen, with Reckless Yes in 2019. Their debut album has found a new home.

Amelia and Rob at Skep Wax Records fell in love with the mixture of punk-grrrl attitude and songwriting skill: “They reminded us of all our favourite bands rolled into one. Panic Pocket know how to turn anger and humour into brilliant pop songs.” Panic Pocket will be the main support band at Heavenly’s sell-out London shows in May.

Many of Mad Half Hour’s 10 indie-pop anthems are concerned with being at odds with life's accepted milestones, feeling alienated from the people you thought wanted the same things as you, while trying to forge your own path. So the top-down janglepop of ‘Boyfriend’ reflects on what happens when your best friend finds love…and insists on bringing it everywhere, and ‘Get Me’ answers claustrophobic questions about ‘settling down’ with a not-so-silent scream over some deliciously dirty riffs.

But Panic Pocket’s superpower is their sense of fun. On Mad Half Hour, you’re never more than a few seconds away from a monster hook, killer harmony or an acerbically witty turn of phrase worthy of the band’s heroes Aimee Mann or Liz Phair. From receiving a cryptic “frog emoji” from a long-forgotten one-night stand, to ‘Don’t Get Me Started’’s streetlit walk of shame “via Morrisons car park”, no memory is off-limits, no matter how painful.

If you want punkpop exuberance, lyrics that are so truthful they hurt, plus some very infectious tunes - then Mad Half Hour is exactly the soundtrack you need, right down to the minute.

TRACK LISTING

1. Get Me
2. Still The Bad Guy
3. Mad Half Hour
4. Say You’re Sorry
5. Out Of The Woodwork
6. Boyfriend
7. Cheryl (Red Is The Bluest Colour)
8. I’ve Earned My Right To Be Petty
9. Mr Big
10. Don’t Get Me Started

Marlody’s first album I’m Not Sure At All takes anxiety, weakness, fear - and turns them into strength: powerful melodies, the sweetest harmonies you ever heard, and lyrics that insist on the possibility of hope, without losing sight of the possibility of despair.

Dominated by her extraordinary keyboard playing, Marlody’s songs are illuminated - and sometimes made sinister - by occasional bursts of programmed percussion, submarine bass and distant, chiming digital bells. These are deep, darkly beautiful pop songs.

When she was a girl, Marlody was one of the higher-achieving classical pianists of her generation, winning competitions and destined for greatness. She hated it, and threw it all away. In the intervening years, putting more and more distance between herself and her classical origins, she listened to Yo La Tengo and Shellac and a hundred other things that took music to new, untutored extremes. I’m Not Sure At All is the outcome.

Marlody’s painful personal journey is not glossed over in the lyrics: Words is about the debilitating effect of psychiatric medication; Malevolence is about the horrible urge to commit inexcusable violence; Friends in Low Places is a remarkable hymn of solidarity with all those people who’ve contemplated taking their own lives. But the songs are strangely uplifting: they offer up their truths so calmly and are so generously wrapped in harmonies that they feel like gifts. There are great stories here too: Summer takes a child’s point of view, describing the beginnings of new life after the loss of a parent. Wrong relates the history of an adulterous affair, with a piercing sympathy for the emotional state of the adulterer.

There are musical echoes: the infectiousness and daring of some of the vocal melodies might remind you of Kate Bush, the intimacy might remind you of Cate Le Bon, the stabs of anger and pain might remind you of Liz Phair. The keyboard is sometimes as smooth as Fleetwood Mac; other times it’s as raucous and distorted as Quasi. The harmonies are from another place again – you could imagine hearing them in an Unthanks recording.

TRACK LISTING

01 Summer
02 Runaway
03 Change
04 These Doubts
05 Malevolence
06 Up
07 Wrong
08 Words
09 Friends In Low Places
10 Otherly

The long-awaited new album from the best pop band in Scotland...

The Orchids were making sophisticated pop music right back in the early 1990s when Sarah Records first started. Their songs were as emotionally pure as anything else on that label, but they were always a step ahead of their peers in terms of song arrangements and musical ambition. With a casual, unpretentious air they made writing perfect pop songs seem easy, almost accidental, and several great releases followed. The Orchids gained a passionate following: people knew a good thing when they heard it and they hugged it close. But maybe now it’s time for the rest of the world to be let in on the secret.

The songs themselves are a beautiful mix of strength and gentleness. They wrap you in a powerful embrace, making you feel comfortable and secure – and then whisper their insecurities and anxieties into your ear. They say: ‘it’s OK to admit weakness. It’s OK to be fragile. That’s where true strength comes from’. From Glasgow, and proudly Scottish, the band shares a musical lineage with other great groups from that city, from Aztec Camera to Orange Juice, Lloyd Cole to Teenage Fanclub - bands that specialise in song-writing that can tell big stories through small personal fragments, that can make the ordinary extraordinary.

Ian Carmichael has helped the band create a perfectly produced masterpiece. He subtly accentuates the drama of the songs, with a sophisticated choreography and gloss that never overwhelms the tenderness of the music. In ‘This Boy Is A Mess’ (the first single from the album), the lyric confesses frailty while the arrangement gets stronger and stronger. It is bittersweet and exhilarating at the same time. ‘I Want You, I Need You’ has harmonies as big as a house – but the yearning message remains intimate and close. ‘I Don’t Mean To Stare’ is an elegant version of the song that first appeared on Skep Wax compilation Under The Bridge.

Album opener ‘Didn’t We Love You’ daringly opens up empty spaces where the reverb of the drums is the only thing you can hear... and then floods your ears with a harmonised chorus, sweet guitar melodies and sweeping effects. Even then, the lyrical lament, expressing the desire to live in a better place - a place unspoilt by the greedy phonies who’ve taken over – comes across as clearly as if Hackett were leaning over for a friendly chat in the snug bar of The Orchids’ favourite Glasgow pub.

TRACK LISTING

1. Didn’t We Love You?
2. Limitless #1
3. What Have I Got To Do?
4. This Boy Is A Mess
5. I Never Thought I Was Clever
6. Echos
7. Isn’t It Easy
8. Something Missing
9. I Should Have Thought
10. I Don’t Mean To Stare
11. A Feeling I Don’t Know
12. I Want You, I Need You
13. Limitless #2 (Hurt)

A compilation of new songs. An essential purchase for all fans of Sarah Records.

The bands on this compilation were all on Sarah Records, or have key members whose bands were on that label. There are some names you’ll recognise: The Orchids, The Wake, Even As We Speak, where line-ups have remained relatively unchanged. And there are newer groups: Jetstream Pony (ex-Aberdeen), The Catenary Wires (ex-Heavenly), Soundwire (ex-The Sweetest Ache), where different shapes have evolved.

Time has moved on, but the music is as wonderful and as idealistic as ever. All the tracks on Under The Bridge are pop gems. Some are punk rock, some are indiepop, others are dreamy swirls of fuzz. Some are gentle and some are some are full of rage, but all of them are defiantly sensitive, literate and independent. (Some things haven’t changed.) The bands on this compilation are flattered, maybe, that people spend serious money bidding for their old 7” singles. But they are a lot more excited about the music they are creating today.

All the tracks on Under The Bridge are new, and most of them are previously unreleased.

When Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey started Skep Wax Records in 2021 they were heavily influenced by the labels they’d worked with in the past: K, Elefant, Fortuna Pop, WIAIWYA. But Sarah Records was the one they admired most: it was ethical, totally independent, and better organised than most majors. When they looked around, they discovered that so many of the bands they once shared a label with were still making fantastic music. Under The Bridge is a celebration of that.

CDs and LPs will include a 16-page colour booklet.

TRACK LISTING

Tracklist (With A Guide To Previous Incarnations)
GROUP/Song Title MEMBERS WERE PREVIOUSLY IN -
1. THE LUXEMBOURG SIGNAL - Travel Through Midnight  - Aberdeen
2. EVEN AS WE SPEAK Begins - Goodbye
3. LEAF MOSAIC - Bullet Train - The Sugargliders
4. THE ORCHIDS - I Don’t Mean To Stare
5. TUFTHUNTER - Monsieur Jadis - Heavenly
6. USELESS USERS - Wish You Well - Secret Shine, Action Painting!
7. ST CHRISTOPHER - Stornaway
8. SECRET SHINE - Lost In The Middle
9. BOYRACER - Larkin
10. JETSTREAM PONY - Strood McD F.C. - Aberdeen
11. SOUNDWIRE - Another Sun - The Sweetest Ache
12. SEPIASOUND - Arcadian - Blueboy
13. THE CATENARY WIRES - Wall Of Sound - Heavenly
14. THE WAKE - Stockport

Swansea Sound started in the middle of lockdown. They realised that fast, loud, joyous, angry indiepop punk was the answer to being stuck indoors. Who needs introspection?

Hue Williams is reunited with Pooh Sticks partner Amelia Fletcher (ex- Talulah Gosh, Heavenly). Rob Pursey (also ex-Heavenly) and Ian Button (Wreckless Eric’s live collaborator) provide the noise. Swansea Sound are the fast, acerbic and joyous past, present and future of indie.

Four of the tracks were released as singles, all of them now impossible to obtain. ‘Corporate Indie Band’ was a limited edition cassette, ‘I Sold My Soul on eBay’ was a one-off lathe cut that got auctioned on eBay (with a £400 winning bid), ‘Indies of the World’ was a 7” inch single that briefly hit the UK physical charts, but immediately sold out and plummeted back out again. And then there was ‘Swansea Sound’: a requiem for a lost radio station; an anti-corporate lament - another limited edition cassette single.

First track Rock N Roll Void gives a three minute revision session, just in case you’ve forgotten about The Ramones, The Kinks, The Buzzcocks and the brief explosion of indie noise pollution of 1986. Some of the songs are reflexive – ‘Swansea Sound’ and ‘The Pooh Sticks’. (Who else was going to write a tribute to The Pooh Sticks?) Others are searching for hope in the digital desert – ‘Let It Happen’, ‘I’m OK When You’re Around’, ‘Pasadena’, ‘Angry Girl’. ‘Je Ne Sais Quoi’ is pure pop throwaway fun. The others songs are dead catchy too, they just happen to express a sickness and a contempt for the state of things. ‘Corporate Indie Band’ is about a group who have mortgaged their creativity to a major label and sold their identities to an online marketing team of public schoolboys. Freedom of Speech takes a look at three contemporary ‘alternative’ music stars and considers how they’ve responded to BLM, the pandemic and the rise of right-wing populism. ‘Like self-serving arseholes’, is the unfortunate answer. (You won’t struggle to work out who the three ‘alternative’ stars are.)

Swansea Sound took their name from a well-loved local radio station when it was given a corporate makeover in 2020. They even used the radio station’s abandoned logo. Like the indiepunk pop songs, something modern acidic and angry has taken up residence in a familiar, borrowed frame. You can throw yourself around to Swansea Sound like it’s 1986, but if you catch the lyrics you’ll remember you’re in 2021. (Sorry about that.)

The Rum Puncheon, a notorious pub in Swansea, closed down decades ago.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Rock N Roll Void
A2 I Sold My Soul On Ebay
A3 I'm Ok When You're Around
A4 The Pooh Sticks
A5 Let It Happen
A6 Je Ne Sais Quoi
B1 Pasadena
B2 Indies Of The World
B3 Corporate Indie Band
B4 Freedom Of Speech
B5 Angry Girl
B6 Swansea Sound

Indie pop comes of age!

Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey love pop songs, but pop songs with an edge. With their early bands Talulah Gosh and Heavenly, they were often dismissed by critics of the time as fey or ‘twee’, but this prejudice has since been revised: some of those sweet fizzy songs were about date-rape, and the band were an influential part of the movement that became riot grrrl.

On their new album as The Catenary Wires, the songs are as strong as ever, full of sweet melody and rich with vocal harmonies. But the tunes are now vehicles for startlingly honest adult concerns: the fractured relationships, anxieties, passions and politics of people who live on an island that’s turning in on itself. Like the Go-Betweens and XTC before them, The Catenary Wires know that pop music can convey dark, sardonic, complex emotions, just as well as it can celebrate teenage angst.

The album depicts England, not just in its lyrics, but in its music. The Catenary Wires have listened to the songs and stories England has comforted itself with over the decades, and re-imagined them. Canterbury Lanes presents a duetting couple, old now and worn down, but still aspiring to put their folk band back together, hoping to rekindle the idealistic flames of the early 1970s. Mirrorball, fizzy with syn-drums and Casio, presents another couple – middle-aged and unattached, who find unexpected love at a retro 80s disco. In the 70s-flavoured pop of Always on my Mind, love appears again, almost by surprise, conjured up by an old photo in a pile of memorabilia.

The opening track, Face on the Rail Line, is a love song set in the now, full of emotion, but shot through with the paranoia that we all feel, living at a time when we are constantly in contact, but rarely communicate the truth. The last two songs on the album, Like the Rain, and The Overview Effect, are anxious romances, set in a fragile world.

The Catenary Wires are now a five-piece band. The other members have impressive musical pedigrees of their own. Fay Hallam was in Makin’ Time, and now releases records in her own name. Andy Lewis played bass in the Weller Band, and has more recently worked with Louis Phillippe and Judy Dyble. Ian Button was in Thrashing Doves and Death in Vegas. These talented musicians elevate the songs, taking the arrangements onto another level.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Catenary Wires craft perfectly balanced pop songs, with rich production and a deep rooting in classic British indie music. there are echoes here of the storytelling vocals of Jarvis Cocker or the swooning harmonies of The Beautiful South, but with a casual and personable production aesthetic. Really lovely stuff.

TRACK LISTING

1. Face On The Rail Line
2. Alpine
3. Always On My Mind
4. Mirrorball
5. Three Wheeled Car
6. Liminal
7. Canterbury Lanes
8. Cinematic
9. Like The Rain
10. The Overview Effect