There nothing quite like blindly buying an album at the local record store and finding something you just love. Trust me, I’ve bought some real junk over the years (Betty Boo circa 1990, anyone?) in that pursuit. But I’ve found some really good stuff. Sometimes it’s the album cover (Jessamine), sometimes it’s the record label (Henry’s Dress), sometimes it’s just a good vibe (Super 5 Thor). Even today, in the new millenium, that still happens with the world wide web. I stumbled across a real gem of band, the Lovekevins, on the online store Delicious Goldfish Records. Fantastic Swedish pop that soars and bounces and captivates and I just have to go listen to “Stop Being Perfect” again right now.
Math and Physics Club
It already feels like summer. When it gets this hot this early, there’s really nothing you can do but lounge around and listen to pop music and pine about “Weekends Away,” like the Math and Physics Club.
Bitmap
Bitmap is the solo project of one Luke Barwell, formerly of the British band Salako (not to be confused with former Crystal Palace, Coventry, and Reading winger John Salako, now at Brentford, if you’ll pardon the English soccer reference). For all of you out there wondering what Revolver would have sounded like had Beck been fronting the Beatles, with Brian Wilson as sound engineer, Bitmap’s latest album Micro/Macro will satisfy that curiosity.
Fancey
Fancey is the name of both the solo project and album of the New Pornographers’ Todd Fancey. Like many people his age, Fancey grew up listening to AM radio playing the soft rock hits of ’70s. In this day of ’80s plagiarism, Fancey and like-minded souls From Bubblegum To Sky provide a refreshing take on pop music. That New Pornographers sound is there, but throw in some Beach Boys, some Association, and some Todd Rundgren, and you’ve got that “Rock N Roll Rhythm.” Hmmm, makes you wonder what kind of music the kids of today growing up on Playstation/Xbox are gonna put out in another decade or two…
Trembling Blue Stars
I’ve got a prized piece of vinyl entitled Wire Play Pop. It’s a seven-song assortment pulled from Wire’s first three albums. Ever since I bought it that title has bugged me, because I wouldn’t necessarily equate Wire with pop (although the world would be a better place if that was the definition of pop). But anyway, if that title would ever be appropriate, it would be as Trembling Blue Stars Play Pop. TBS sing about love and love lost like only popsters can. They’ve got a new single out now, but this song is from last year’s The Seven Autumn Flowers.
Empress
Empress was the alter ego of that mad Leeds outfit Boyracer, with several members having stints in Hood. But while Boyracer has been fast, frentic, and fun, Empress was haunting and mesmerizing, with the stillness of Low and the sensuousness of Movietone. And if you haven’t heard Empress already, well, now it’s time.
Lilys
I just love it when people ask me, “What’s your favorite kind of music?” It’s always people who really don’t know me, and I love it even more when my hesistation to answer immediately leads them to further clarify. “Rock? Rap? What about Jazz?” But I always answer, simply, “Lilys.” Kurt Heasley, the force behind Lilys, is a musical chameleon, changing colors and styles at will. He started as an American My Bloody Valentine, then shifted to psych-tinged Kinks, then drifted into Pink Floyd, came back again to the Kinks, then passed on into mellow pop-influenced electronica, and with the last release, 2003’s Precollection, touched on UK indie pop. Each shift usually throws me for a loop, but I keep coming back, and I keep answering, “Lilys.”
Malcolm Middleton
Malcolm Middleton is one half of Scotland’s Arab Strap. On his second solo album, Malcolm expands on his earlier work and the sounds he churns out for Arab Strap. Folksy one minute, almost danceable the next, Malcolm shares the highs and lows with equal beauty. But make no mistake, this being Scottish, the self-loathing is still there; just listen to the chorus of “A Happy Medium.”
Swoon
Need another reason to move to or at the very least vacation in Sweden? Swegazers. Yeah, that’s Swedish shoegazers, and our pick today from the suggestion box, Swoon, have coined the term. Like one of the masterpieces of shoegazing, Lilys’ 1992 album In the Presence of Nothing, which deliberately mimicked My Bloody Valentine, Swoon are not ashamed to show their influences, and like Lilys, they do it so well that their songs can stand alone on their own merit. So those of you wondering what your band would sound like if you were raised in Sweden on Chapterhouse, Ecstacy of St. Theresa, Ride, and even Lilys, that’d be Swoon.
Smoosh
Yeah yeah, I know they’ve hobnobbed with Katie Couric on “The Today Show,” that they’re a couple of preteen sisters, and that they’re all the rage these days, but Smoosh are pretty damn good. Let me share something I learned from listening to “Massive Cure”: Asya and Chloe are not scenesters, hipsters, teenstars, or fakers. They’re in this for the music, the very purest motive there is. Sure, there are lots of indie band comparisons, but 12-year-old Asya sings like a 12-year-old PJ Harvey, and 10-year-old Chloe shuffles the drums like nobody’s business. Girl power!