Pete's short-takes August 2003
Summer has been relatively quiet on the new record front, I picked up the usual amount of older records in London's second hand shops but there was hardly anything exciting new.
My first ever trip to Japan in July/August was fantastic and I bought a lot of music nearly exclusively Japanese but hardly any of it new. I was catching up with lot of things I wanted to get my hands on over the last 13 years since I first heard some Japanese pop bands. As it is very hard to get hold of these things outside of Japan I will not go into details here but I hope to write a Japan special later on. If you ever plan to go to Japan for record shopping you may be interested in my experiences, check my new 'record shopping in Japan' guide.
MJ Hibbett & The Validators are a five piece from Leicester, UK. Their first album 'This is not a library' is a collection of 18 songs and was just released on 'Artists Against Success'. Musically I would compare them with fellow Leicesteronians 'Airport Girl', your standard guitars and the occasional lovely trumpet or even strings. There are a few good songs on here but I afraid not good enough to excite me anymore. I've heard too much of this stuff. What's more refreshing are the lyrics, the songs are about life in England in the early 2000s and there is enough wrong this that life to fill the 18 songs. Unusually the CD also has a big multi-media part with additional tracks as MP3s, notes and lyrics for all songs and lots of additional information about the band on a really cool web-interface. This is the sound of angry young England and its worth the listen.
The Sprites released their debut-album 'Starling, Spiders, Tiger and Sprites' on March Records. The Sprites are Jason and Amy Korzen, Jason used to be front man of Barcelona and there still similarities in the sound but despite their name the Sprites are less electronic than Barcelona. The first song on the CD 'Do it yourself' is also my favourite and it seems it describes Jason's time with his old band. While MJ Hibbett is singing about Marks & Spencers and WH Smith, the sprites are mentioning 'Vinyl Ink' the legendary Washington DC record store. 'Following Her Around' is a great song with lots of name-dropping, yes it's another unfulfilled crush story but we can all relate to it. The great name-dropping continues on the next song 'I Wish I sang Better' another little pop germ, kind of minimalistic but great in a Lucksmiths kind of way. I quite like it.
Egg Records out of Glasgow released 7 EPs between 1988 and 1991, all by local bands of which the Bachelor Pad are probably the best known. The CD 'Egg Records - An Introduction' compiles 11 tracks from those singles and adds three good unreleased songs by 'Remember Fun', 'The Church Grims' and 'Change of Season'. For me this is a trip back in time, I haven't listened to any of those records for a long time and had forgotten about these great songs. For anybody who missed this the first time around this is a great opportunity to get your hands on these songs. This CD is a must-have to the two 'Remember Fun' songs alone.
More classic Scottish pop music comes from 'Nice Man', they first caught my attention with the exquisite song 'Rain, Rain, Rain' on a Beikoku-Ongako CD back in 2000. Their album was first released in Japan only as well but was re-released this summer on Shoeshine records out of Glasgow. Nice Man is basically Francis MacDonald who most of you may know from his work with the BMX Bandits, The Pastels and Teenage Fan Club. This also gives you an good idea what this album sounds like, I would say TFC comes closest. There are a bunch of great tunes on the album , 'Fallin in luv' and 'Mine All Mine' have hit potential. www.shoeshine.co.uk
Two new releases from Firestation Tower Records, the first is a CD EP by Ambition Beggars. These guys did two singles back in the 80s and re-united after releasing the Beg compilation album in 2001. I understand the three tracks on this EP are actually new songs. The voice of singer Bob Kemp is still typical Manchester 1989 but the music is not baggy but solid guitar pop. All three songs come in two versions which wasn't really necessary but doesn't hurt. If you like their previous stuff, you will like this as well. The second is the debut album by Berlin four piece 'Phony'. Entitled 'First Love' it is very typical for the kind of German pop music you get on Firestation Tower Records, still guitar based but with dance and soul influences, listen to the MP3s on their web site to get an idea.
My first ever trip to Japan in July/August was fantastic and I bought a lot of music nearly exclusively Japanese but hardly any of it new. I was catching up with lot of things I wanted to get my hands on over the last 13 years since I first heard some Japanese pop bands. As it is very hard to get hold of these things outside of Japan I will not go into details here but I hope to write a Japan special later on. If you ever plan to go to Japan for record shopping you may be interested in my experiences, check my new 'record shopping in Japan' guide.
MJ Hibbett & The Validators are a five piece from Leicester, UK. Their first album 'This is not a library' is a collection of 18 songs and was just released on 'Artists Against Success'. Musically I would compare them with fellow Leicesteronians 'Airport Girl', your standard guitars and the occasional lovely trumpet or even strings. There are a few good songs on here but I afraid not good enough to excite me anymore. I've heard too much of this stuff. What's more refreshing are the lyrics, the songs are about life in England in the early 2000s and there is enough wrong this that life to fill the 18 songs. Unusually the CD also has a big multi-media part with additional tracks as MP3s, notes and lyrics for all songs and lots of additional information about the band on a really cool web-interface. This is the sound of angry young England and its worth the listen.
The Sprites released their debut-album 'Starling, Spiders, Tiger and Sprites' on March Records. The Sprites are Jason and Amy Korzen, Jason used to be front man of Barcelona and there still similarities in the sound but despite their name the Sprites are less electronic than Barcelona. The first song on the CD 'Do it yourself' is also my favourite and it seems it describes Jason's time with his old band. While MJ Hibbett is singing about Marks & Spencers and WH Smith, the sprites are mentioning 'Vinyl Ink' the legendary Washington DC record store. 'Following Her Around' is a great song with lots of name-dropping, yes it's another unfulfilled crush story but we can all relate to it. The great name-dropping continues on the next song 'I Wish I sang Better' another little pop germ, kind of minimalistic but great in a Lucksmiths kind of way. I quite like it.
Egg Records out of Glasgow released 7 EPs between 1988 and 1991, all by local bands of which the Bachelor Pad are probably the best known. The CD 'Egg Records - An Introduction' compiles 11 tracks from those singles and adds three good unreleased songs by 'Remember Fun', 'The Church Grims' and 'Change of Season'. For me this is a trip back in time, I haven't listened to any of those records for a long time and had forgotten about these great songs. For anybody who missed this the first time around this is a great opportunity to get your hands on these songs. This CD is a must-have to the two 'Remember Fun' songs alone.
More classic Scottish pop music comes from 'Nice Man', they first caught my attention with the exquisite song 'Rain, Rain, Rain' on a Beikoku-Ongako CD back in 2000. Their album was first released in Japan only as well but was re-released this summer on Shoeshine records out of Glasgow. Nice Man is basically Francis MacDonald who most of you may know from his work with the BMX Bandits, The Pastels and Teenage Fan Club. This also gives you an good idea what this album sounds like, I would say TFC comes closest. There are a bunch of great tunes on the album , 'Fallin in luv' and 'Mine All Mine' have hit potential. www.shoeshine.co.uk
Two new releases from Firestation Tower Records, the first is a CD EP by Ambition Beggars. These guys did two singles back in the 80s and re-united after releasing the Beg compilation album in 2001. I understand the three tracks on this EP are actually new songs. The voice of singer Bob Kemp is still typical Manchester 1989 but the music is not baggy but solid guitar pop. All three songs come in two versions which wasn't really necessary but doesn't hurt. If you like their previous stuff, you will like this as well. The second is the debut album by Berlin four piece 'Phony'. Entitled 'First Love' it is very typical for the kind of German pop music you get on Firestation Tower Records, still guitar based but with dance and soul influences, listen to the MP3s on their web site to get an idea.
| Source: | TweeNet Internal | Link: | |
| Published: | 22 September 2003 | Author: | Peter Hahndorf |
| Category: | Unclassified | TweeNet: |
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