A DIY INDIEPOP VINYL & CASSETTE LABEL

Sunturns - Christmas III [12"]

Artist: Sunturns
Title: Christmas III
Format: 12” transparent & purple splatter vinyl
Cat#: Fika105LP
Release date: 6th December 2024
Bandcamp | Spotify

The Norwegian super-group with members from Making Marks, The Little Hands of Asphalt, Mildfire, Flight Mode and Elva return with a third album of original Christmas songs. 

Get into that alternative, Nordic Christmas spirit!

Christmas III at its heart is an alt-Christmas album: the songs are firmly rooted in December’s festivities, albeit not usually relying on the season’s traditional reference points. The songs hone in on the more ambivalent sides of Christmas - family, customs and the passing of time - with a keen eye towards the holidays’ most obvious function in countries close to the Artic circle: getting through the cold and dark times to celebrate the winter solstice and the turning of the sun. 

Drawing from Sufjan Stevens’ epic indie Christmas compendium and Phil Spector’s wall of sound classic A Christmas Gift From You, Christmas III is built on shimmering guitars, snow filled piano lines, gentle strings, springy vocals and dynamic drums - all steadily conducted by Sunturns’ own Sjur Lyseid (Flight Mode, The Little Hands of Asphalt) in the producer’s seat at his Globus studio in Oslo.

Songs like "I Do", "New Snow", "Colibri Heart" and "The Day Before the Day", have indeed been released as singles in the years after 2015, but the record is also packed with new Christmas songs about sunstroke, winter depression and everything other belonging. Beautiful First Winter was the first taste of the album already in October, and the Christmas singles Crash Course Christmas and Back in Town will make the Christmas bells ring in the right way.

With three songwriters (Ola Innset, Einar Stray and Sjur Lyseid) contributing to Christmas III, there’s an ever shifting sense of reflections. Parenthood and the struggles of the dark Norwegian winter is behind Ola’s track First Winter. “Some times I feel bad about bringing children into such a difficult world. Not so much with respect to daylight and the seasons, they’re just going to have to learn how to live with it, but with many other things – like war, poverty, climate change and even just death.” 

Back In Town might have been inspired by a discussion over whether Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town” is a Christmas song or not, but it’s written about his youngest daughter Klara, to his elder daughter, about taking holidays with your family in a town you once lived.

Einar pulls in Phoenix and Mew by the way of Jesus and Mary Chain on Crash Course Christmas, resulting in a seasick wave of a pop tune. “It’s a song about the guilt of not prioritizing your relationships. It’s been year of rainchecks and Christmas finally gives you some time to reflect. You’ve experienced so much and changed so much as a person that you almost forget your origins. Coming home for Christmas can then be a ritiual of finding your way back to what you left behind."

Drawing on the knitwear from the film Love, Actually, Turtle Neck, taps into the Backstreet Boys by way of Mac Demarco, with a sneaky reference to the legendary Norwegian Christmas hit En Stjerne Skinner I Natt.

Album closer This Christmas / Next Christmas leans in on the hook for the Norwegian Christmas TV show Jul i Blåfjell, a multi-generational seasonal staple (essentially a daily children’s advent calendar kids show). “The song is about your parents ageing and needing your help – possibly really far away - while at the same time having your own children to take care of”.

If previous albums Christmas I (2011) and II (2015) are somewhat different from each other, then Christmas III represents a fusion of the two. Sunturns’ debut is full of youthful exuberance and was recorded with plentiful overdubs in Oslo, while 2015’s follow up is more pensive and somewhat darker, and was recorded live during one week in the Swedish forests. Einar elaborates: “I love making records like this: short, effective sessions with limited time and therefore no bland ‘perfection’. There’s a nerve to knowing you can collectively bring it all together without the luxury of time”. Christmas III represents a return to the lighter tone, on at least some of the songs, but with the wisdom of age that emerged on the second. You can’t just return to your twenties, however much you might want to!

The cover artwork is a homage to Christmas dress codes for Norwegian men. Suits and shirts are a rarity in day to day life, but there are a handful of occasions that require some form of formal attempt at a suit: New Year’s Eve, National Day, weddings & funerals, and Christmas Eve: resulting in various degrees of sartorial elegance on the day (and on this instance, a hot summer’s day stifling the Christmas vibes, with ambiguous apparel instructions ahead of the photoshoot!).

Sunturns will reconvene again in December for their annual Oslo show, complete with string section and choir at Parkteatret on the 13th of December.

Merry Christmas!

Sunturns are
Ola Innset – vocals, guitars, banjo
Sjur Lyseid – vocals, guitars
Einar Stray – vocals, keyboards, guitars
Eivind Almhjell – guitars, bass
Simen Herning – guitar
Jørgen Nordby – drums

Dec 1: Sunturns + New Starts at The Shacklewell Arms

We’ve got a very special joint headline show on the 1st of December at The Shacklewell Arms.

Sunturns, the Norwegian Christmas indiepop supergroup play their first ever show outside of Oslo. They’ve played an annual show in Norway since the beginning of the 2010s, and we’re delighted to bring them to London ahead of the release of their third album of original Christmas material.

Tickets from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings and from Dice.

SUNTURNS

Sunturns was formed as a Christmas super group by members of Oslo indiepop bands Monzano, My Little Pony and Einar Stray Orchestra. Those bands aren’t around anymore, but the band members have other projects, such as Flight Mode, The Little Hands of Asphalt, Elva, Making Marks and Mildfire. Sunturns still exists, however, with the same name and the same line-up – strangely making it one of the most long-lived of the bands to come out of the Oslo indiepop-scene of the early 2000s. Since it is a Christmas band, they only play shows at a particular time of year. You guessed it: Christmas.

The name Sunturns refers to the original meaning of Christmas in the North, namely the winter solstice and the “turning” of the sun. Instead of getting shorter and shorter, the days start to get longer. Big hurray, but spring is still a long time away. The band is named after the song “The Sun Turns”, which opened the debut album Christmas I, and was originally recorded by My Little Pony. Christmas II also has a song with the phrase “sunturns” (The Axial Tilt), and on Christmas III it pops up again in the track First Winter.

Sunturns are:
Ola Innset – vocals, guitars, banjo etc. [Making Marks, Elva]
Sjur Lyseid – vocals, guitars etc. [Flight Mode, The Little Hands of Asphalt, Monzano]
Einar Stray – vocals, keyboards, guitars etc. [Einar Stray Orchestra, Mildlife]
Eivind Almhjell – guitars, bass, etc.
Simen Herning – guitar
Jørgen Nordby – drums

NEW STARTS

New Starts are a spikey, fresh sounding band recalling the poppier ends of new wave and angular guitar rock. Their influences include The Cars, Breeders, Bay City Rollers, The Velvet Underground and ZZ Top.

Lead singer Darren Hayman has his own long career running from the late 90s with John Peel faves Hefner to his more recent thematic and historical albums dealing with the English Civil War, William Morris and forgotten rural idylls.

“I wanted a band again,” says Hayman, “and not a band that just backed me up and played my old songs. When we form our first bands in our teens we just find some friends and work through the musical differences. I usually look for players who play in a way I’m used to. This time I looked for variance and was led by people’s personality.”

Guitarist Joely Smith [of South London’s noise-pop adults and recently DIY-punks Fresh] was recommended by a mutual friend who said, ‘She makes everything better’. Hayman and Smith shared a coffee and agreed on the correct number of guitar pedals and decided to proceed without an audition.

“There is a tendency for me to make my chords too pretty. Joely cuts against that and plays in the opposite direction.” Hayman is a fan of rules and constraints and employed a new, oblique strategy on this record. “Even though I wrote all the songs, I wanted the songs to belong to everyone during arrangement. I decided that I would say ‘yes’ to every suggestion from the band, regardless of my instinct.”

This made the songs warp and bend into new shapes and ensured that the record was the product of four individuals. Bassist Giles Barrett and drummer Will Connor come from funky afro beat influenced band Tigercats. “Pretty much the only rhythm I use, left to my own devices, is the ‘road runner’ rhythm. Will takes to care to find where the drum beat can be and we always end up somewhere I didn’t expect.”

Fightmilk - No Souvenirs [12"/CD]

Artist: Fightmilk
Title: No Souvenirs
Format: 12” vinyl on paddling pool blue | digifile CD
Cat#: Fika104
Release date: 15th November 2024
Bandcamp | Spotify

Following the runaway success of their critically acclaimed 2021 second album Contender, the question for fast-rising London four-piece Fightmilk was always going to be “what next?” With a tight indie-pop sound that defined their early recordings, the answer was obvious to a band who seem hellbent on the notion of evolve or die…

The band originally formed in 2015 in a Brixton pub garden by Lily and Alex, who had both, separately, just been dumped and thought being in an angry punk band would cheer them up. Then they found Nick and Healey to hold the rhythm down and make them sound good. With three albums under their belt, they’ve perfected their chaotic, melodic brand of joy and rage-filled pop with full-throated yelling and sparkling guitar riffs as their trademark. They’ve graduated from angsty whippersnappers in their mid-twenties to overgrown teenage 30-somethings with mild ongoing back and shoulder pain.

Their previous two albums Not With That Attitude (2018) and Contender (2021) marked them out as an ambitious and rising prospect, and now on their forthcoming new album No Souvenirs the band eschew their former Britpop ties and edge further into DIY punk and heavier rock influences to reveal a leaner, meaner, more abrasive side to their cathartic lo-fi anthems.

Whilst collectively diving into their passion for Jimmy Eat World, frontwoman Lily Rae made a conscious decision to strengthen her “big loud yell” with influence from Alicia Bognanno (Bully), Nat Foster (Press Club), and Missy Dabice (Mannequin Pussy). “My voice is the biggest it’s ever been and I’m constantly thrilled when people are surprised at how loud I am, considering I’m so small in stature,” she grins. “Lyrically I always look to Bruce Springsteen for inspiration but I also really enjoyed the angsty candour of Sour by Olivia Rodrigo, and Kacey Musgraves’ impeccable one-liners.”

There are a few genre experiments on the record—Yo La Tengo in ‘Paddling Pool’, ‘Canines’ is part The Strokes and part Neu!, and ‘Back From Tour’ was heavily influenced by long term friends Johnny Foreigner. “You could probably make a case for ‘Inferno’ having a bit of Counting Crows to it, but we were never writing to emulate,” explains guitarist Alex. “The references and touchstones just happened along the way. As far as we’re concerned, they just sound like Fightmilk - and that’s a really nice place to be nearly a decade in.”

“As a songwriter, I’ve disciplined myself to keep to ‘first thought best thought’ more, and not overwork lyrics and melodies into the ground - the line that needs to be there is usually the most obvious one,” says Lily of the process for this record. “As we’ve become more collaborative as writers, you can hear Healey’s DIY punk influence come in more, and Nick’s heavier rock influences. We’re more secure in keeping weird sh*t in, and not adding or cutting things because it feels like we’re supposed to.”

“That said, we’ve also been REALLY picky with the songs that made it onto the album - there’s probably another album’s worth of songs that didn’t feel right, even if we loved them. We got really good at finding the “magic thing” in each song that made it work.”

Spilling over with candid lyrics about death, doomed love, and dog bites, framed by endless punk energy and the kind of full-throated riff-rock that sounds just at home in a giant stadium as it does in a sticky-floored toilet bar, No Souvenirs is a triumphant return from the band, who are equally enthused by the album.

“It’s easily our best one yet,” says Lily of the record. “I want every track on it to be a Sunfly Karaoke song one day. It’s a big growly, grungy album with a healthy amount of yelling - but there’s lots of humour in it, too. Ideally it’s played very loudly with the bass turned up, three beers deep, and singing along to all the choruses.”

With the quartet about 75% finished making their previous album Contender when Covid hit, a lot of their grand plans required a rethink. A heavily produced record, when the band were finally allowed to start playing shows again they found that some of the more elaborate songs ended up falling by the wayside. “On the plus side, it reminded us how much joy and catharsis we found in making a screaming racket in front of people,” says Alex on the genesis of the new album. “No Souvenirs was written with that joy and catharsis as a starting point.”

Recorded at Dean Street Studios in Soho, London over 2 or 3 manic weekends in 2022/23, new album No Souvenirs was produced by Keith TOTP, engineered by Sam Hogg and Tom Quigley, and mixed and mastered by Adrian Hall.

With no label and no plan, Fightmilk agreed they would just make the best album they could and worry about the logistics after the fact. “That took quite a lot of pressure off, and allowed us to relax in the studio and be a bit more creative on the day,” remembers Lily. “We’ve never finished writing songs whilst in the studio before, and similarly never had so many songs finished that we could shelve the ones we weren’t 100% sure on, so we had the shared experience of two albums behind us and a lot of hard work and discipline when it came to making sure the songs were exactly what they needed to be.”

“I only realised after we put the songs together how personal to me this album was,” explains Lily. “Not just because I’m writing about extremely specific sitcom episodes in my life (getting fired from bridesmaid duty, being bitten on the arse by a dog, being relentlessly asked when I’m going to have kids), but because whilst we were making it, I turned 30. It’s a significant age for women, especially in music, because aside from being something called a ‘geriatric millennial’, there’s an unspoken rule that there’s a cut-off point for you to have ‘made it’ and after that you have to settle down and be normal.”

“The music industry is freakishly obsessed with women’s youth and anyone older than 25 is considered ancient. (I’m maybe the world’s biggest Japanese Breakfast fan and there’s an interview with Michelle Zauner where she talks about this way more eloquently.) But when I hit 30, I felt like I was only just starting to have anything interesting to say, and had so much more curiosity and enthusiasm for everything!”

For Lily, writing for the album also aligned with the tenth anniversary of the death of a close friend, with the resulting track ‘No Souvenirs’ lending its title to the album as a whole. “It had taken me that long to write about it in a way I felt ok with. But I realised that I couldn’t have written it before,” she explains. “I needed that distance, and that maturity, to be able to articulate those feelings. It feels to me now like the album is about scorched earth, moving on, taking nothing with you for the next ‘thing’ - and realising that getting older is a privilege.”

When it comes to personal favourite tracks, Lily earmarks ‘Paddling Pool’ as her highlight. “It’s a step away from our usual big grungy pop fare, and we got to experiment with some really floaty, quieter sounds. It was nice to do Lucy Dacus singing instead of Courtney Love singing. ‘That Thing You Did’ has my favourite chorus, though. I never thought we’d write an earworm.”

The album’s artwork is, as ever for Fightmilk, meticulously crafted and filled with meaning. A framed display case full of…well, souvenirs…there’s one for each of the songs, and a bunch that aren’t.

“We’re very into visual metaphors here at Fightmilk,” laughs Lily. “No Souvenirs means exactly that—you can’t take it with you. I’m a really sentimental keepsake-hoarder and I’ve got letters, birthday cards, empty perfume bottles, button badges, and all sorts from years ago. I can’t bring myself to say goodbye to them but, without being morbs about it, even if I hold onto these physical memories my whole life, someone’s probably going to put them in the bin when I die. There’s also a bit of that being a hangover from my 20s and trying not to bring any of that angst and self-doubt and uncertainty with me into the next part of my life.”

Bringing a huge amount of energy and joy with them whenever and wherever they hit a stage, interacting with the audience is a vital part of the Fightmilk live experience. “Without people singing and dancing at us we wouldn’t have gigs at all, so we want everyone to get involved!” says Lily of the band’s future tour plans. “I love hopping offstage and wandering through the crowd with a microphone, demanding people name a famous dog, so whatever happens there will always be crowd participation… oh, and bring earplugs. We’re really loud.”

Fightmilk is Lily, Alex, Healey and Nick - a London-based four-piece who write sweaty, loud, shouty pop songs. Formed in the beer gardens of South London in 2015, the band quickly drew attention with their debut album Not With That Attitude (Reckless Yes, 2018) - singled out by Drowned In Sound for its “package of massive, Godzilla-heft hooks” and “crack–like melodies.” Gaining support from 6Music and Radio X, the band swiftly hopped in the van to play shows with the likes of Art Brut, Desperate Journalist and Nova Twins, as well as touring Germany.

Not letting a seismic global clusterfuck stand in their way, the band released their second LP Contender in 2021 via Reckless Yes. Described as “a joyous riot from start to finish” by Kerrang, it was an album with something to prove, adding stacked harmonies, analog drum machines and even heftier riffs to the band’s arsenal, while still remaining decidedly true to the band’s spiky indiepop sound. As soon as they were released from lockdown they began a near relentless gigging schedule, taking in multiple trips around the UK, support slots with Johnny Foreigner, mclusky and Problem Patterns, plus a sold-out 2022 headline slot at Norway’s Indiefjord Festival, where a sweat-soaked Fightmilk crowdsurfed their way offstage at midnight only to find it was still light outside.

The band’s eighth year in action has seen them writing and recording their third album, to be released in late 2024 on Fika Recordings & INH Records. Fightmilk have turned the distortion up and the indiepop down with rougher and rawer songs about body image, death, and being fired from bridesmaid duty.

“Having listened to this album for the last few weeks I’m still undecided what my favourite track is, or which I’d suggest is the standout. The same happened when I reviewed Contender. I think Alex hits the nail on the head when he says they just sound like Fightmilk, which is reason enough to buy this album, and play on repeat” Louder Than War [5/5]

“No Souvenirs is a smorgasbord of raw emotion, musical intelligence, juxtaposition and realism all wrapped into twelve songs that remind you that feeling bitterness may not be a bad thing after all. It’s certainly going to help Fightmilk on their quest across Britain and beyond.” Noizze [8/10]

“No Souvenirs wants to be a great album and wears that ambition on its face; there’s no shame about going bigger. If anything, it’s what makes Fightmilk excel at a rate far beyond their peers. The best of both worlds isn’t some unscalable summit, and No Souvenirs is set-in-stone proof how much it can achieve.” The Soundboard

“Offering rage, joy, and catharsis, FIGHTMILK lay it all on the table on No Souvenirs” Distorted Sound

“No Souvenirs is an invitation to shed past baggage, scream louder, and embrace the messiness of living. For a band nearing a decade, Fightmilk has managed to keep their music youthful yet matured. They are proof that getting older can be liberating.” Amplify The Noise

“the album is encrusted with jangly indie-pop jewels such as Canines, Yearning and Pining, and Inferno, which deftly suck out all the Aussie slacker-pop drawl of the Quivers aesthetic to just leave everything that is perfect about three-minute jangly indie-pop when it is conveyed with precocious British aloof” Jangle Pop Hub

“enticing and clever; satirical at times but not haphazard or misguided” Ghost Cult Mag

Sunturns - Crash Course Christmas [Digital]

Artist: Sunturns
Title: Crash Course Christmas
Format: digital
Cat#: Fika105SG3
Release date: 13th November 2024
Bandcamp | Spotify

Crash Course Christmas is the third track to be taken from the new Sunturns album “Christmas III”, out on December 6th on transparent & purple splatter vinyl and digitally.

The Norwegian indiepop super-group with members from Making Marks, The Little Hands of Asphalt, Mildfire, Flight Mode and Elva return with a third album of original Christmas songs. 

They play The Shacklewell Arms, London on December 1st, and Parkteatret, Oslo, December 13th.

Get into that alternative, Nordic Christmas spirit!

Crash Course Christmas is a seasick wave of a pop tune, constantly on the brink of breaking down - think Mew by Phoenix meets The Jesus and Mary Chain.

This one is penned by Einar Stray, one of the three songwriters in the band. He expands: “I love making records like this: short, effective sessions with limited time and therefore no relentless drive for “perfection”. There’s a nerve to it. 

It’s a song about the guilt of not prioritizing your relationships. It’s been year of rainchecks

and Christmas finally gives you some time to reflect. You’ve experienced so much, and

changed so much as a person, that you almost forget your origins. Coming home for

Christmas can then be a ritual of finding your way back to what you’d left behind.”

Christmas III at its heart is an alt-Christmas album: the songs are firmly rooted in December’s festivities, albeit not usually relying on the season’s traditional reference points. The songs hone in on the more ambivalent sides of Christmas - family, customs and the passing of time - with a keen eye towards the holidays’ most obvious function in countries close to the Artic circle: getting through the cold and dark times to celebrate the winter solstice and the turning of the sun.

Drawing from Sufjan Stevens’ epic indie Christmas compendium and Phil Spector’s wall of sound classic A Christmas Gift From You, Christmas III is built on shimmering guitars, snow filled piano lines, gentle strings, springy vocals and dynamic drums - all steadily conducted by Sunturns’ own Sjur Lyseid (Flight Mode, The Little Hands of Asphalt) in the producer’s seat at his Globus studio in Oslo.

Songs like "I Do", "New Snow", "Colibri Heart" and "The Day Before the Day", have indeed been released as singles in the years after 2015, but the record is also packed with new Christmas songs about sunstroke, winter depression and everything other belonging. Beautiful "First Winter" was the first taste of the album already in October, and the Christmas singles "Crash Course Christmas" and "Back in Town" will make the Christmas bells ring in the right way.

With three songwriters (Ola Innset, Einar Stray and Sjur Lyseid) contributing to Christmas III, there’s an ever shifting sense of reflections. Parenthood and the struggles of the dark Norwegian winter is behind Ola’s track First Winter. “Some times I feel bad about bringing children into such a difficult world. Not so much with respect to daylight and the seasons, they’re just going to have to learn how to live with it, but with many other things – like war, poverty, climate change and even just death.” 

If previous albums Christmas I (2011) and II (2015) are somewhat different from each other, then Christmas III represents a fusion of the two. Sunturns’ debut is full of youthful exuberance and was recorded with plentiful overdubs in Oslo, while 2015’s follow up is more pensive and somewhat darker, and was recorded live during one week in the Swedish forests. Einar elaborates: “I love making records like this: short, effective sessions with limited time and therefore no bland ‘perfection’. There’s a nerve to knowing you can collectively bring it all together without the luxury of time”. Christmas III represents a return to the lighter tone, on at least some of the songs, but with the wisdom of age that emerged on the second. You can’t just return to your twenties, however much you might want to!

Merry Christmas!

Sunturns - Back In Town [Digital]

Artist: Sunturns
Title: Back In Town
Format: digital
Cat#: Fika105SG2
Release date: 23rd October 2024
Bandcamp | Spotify

Back In Town is the second track to be taken from the new Sunturns album “Christmas III”, out on December 6th on transparent & purple splatter vinyl and digitally.

The Norwegian indiepop super-group with members from Making Marks, The Little Hands of Asphalt, Mildfire, Flight Mode and Elva return with a third album of original Christmas songs. 

Get into that alternative, Nordic Christmas spirit!

The second track from Christmas III is another written by Ola Innset [of Making Marks, and half of Elva alongside Allo Darlin’s Elizabeth Morris].

New single Back In Town might have been inspired by a discussion over whether Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back In Town” is a Christmas song or not, but it’s written about his youngest daughter Klara, to his elder daughter, about taking holidays with your family in a town you once lived and attempting to make the most of it.

Christmas III at its heart is an alt-Christmas album: the songs are firmly rooted in December’s festivities, albeit not usually relying on the season’s traditional reference points. The songs hone in on the more ambivalent sides of Christmas - family, customs and the passing of time - with a keen eye towards the holidays’ most obvious function in countries close to the Artic circle: getting through the cold and dark times to celebrate the winter solstice and the turning of the sun.

Drawing from Sufjan Stevens’ epic indie Christmas compendium and Phil Spector’s wall of sound classic A Christmas Gift From You, Christmas III is built on shimmering guitars, snow filled piano lines, gentle strings, springy vocals and dynamic drums - all steadily conducted by Sunturns’ own Sjur Lyseid (Flight Mode, The Little Hands of Asphalt) in the producer’s seat at his Globus studio in Oslo.

Songs like "I Do", "New Snow", "Colibri Heart" and "The Day Before the Day", have indeed been released as singles in the years after 2015, but the record is also packed with new Christmas songs about sunstroke, winter depression and everything other belonging. Beautiful "First Winter" was the first taste of the album already in October, and the Christmas singles "Crash Course Christmas" and "Back in Town" will make the Christmas bells ring in the right way.

With three songwriters (Ola Innset, Einar Stray and Sjur Lyseid) contributing to Christmas III, there’s an ever shifting sense of reflections. Parenthood and the struggles of the dark Norwegian winter is behind Ola’s track First Winter. “Some times I feel bad about bringing children into such a difficult world. Not so much with respect to daylight and the seasons, they’re just going to have to learn how to live with it, but with many other things – like war, poverty, climate change and even just death.” 

If previous albums Christmas I (2011) and II (2015) are somewhat different from each other, then Christmas III represents a fusion of the two. Sunturns’ debut is full of youthful exuberance and was recorded with plentiful overdubs in Oslo, while 2015’s follow up is more pensive and somewhat darker, and was recorded live during one week in the Swedish forests. Einar elaborates: “I love making records like this: short, effective sessions with limited time and therefore no bland ‘perfection’. There’s a nerve to knowing you can collectively bring it all together without the luxury of time”. Christmas III represents a return to the lighter tone, on at least some of the songs, but with the wisdom of age that emerged on the second. You can’t just return to your twenties, however much you might want to!

Merry Christmas!

Fightmilk - Yearning and Pining [Digital]

Artist: Fightmilk
Title: Yearning and Pining
Format: digital single
Cat#: Fika104SG4
Release date: 15th October 2024
Bandcamp | Spotify

Hot on the heels of announcing their third album, DIY power pop quartet Fightmilk are unleashing its final single, “Yearning and Pining” on 15th October 2024.

Singer and lyricist Lily Rae explains that the title came first following a band discussion about how there were no straight up romantic Fightmilk songs, and what followed was a tongue-in-cheek love song.

"Yearning & Pining is a two-minute country-punk biscuit about having the cosmic horn for someone. Being so lusty that you give yourself an asthma attack. We've all been lost in the sauce of an all-encompassing crush, and this song is for those currently drowning in it. We also filmed it entirely on a doorbell cam."

The track is taken from the band's upcoming third album No Souvenirs, A riotous combination of riffage, pop hooks, angst, heartfelt emotions, wit, and wisdom crashed out with infectious, gleeful abandon, the new album will be released on 15th November 2024 via Fika Recordings (Mammoth Penguins, Fortitude Valley) and new kids on the block INH Records.

Three years in the making, the 12-track album is preceded by  third single ‘That Thing You Did’, released 17th September 2024, with the album also available to pre-order now.

Following swiftly on from the success of the album’s well-received first two singles ‘Summer Bodies’ and ‘No Souvenirs’, which explored issues of body imagine and death respectively, Fightmilk are increasing the tempo as they build toward the album release which is to be marked with a headline show at London’s Paper Dress Vintage on 15th November 2024 with a full tour to follow.

Having relished in the visceral pleasure of playing together and live on stage again post Covid, the band’s new sound reflects that joy, the abandonment in doing what you love and the catharsis of doing so. Moving on with their third album and embarking on a more intuitive and collaborative style of writing, the band have embraced their influences and gone with their instincts.

The new single demonstrates how well they have achieved those ambitions, and how making a screaming racket in front of people can be both elemental and fun, sensitive and muscular within the span of moments. 

“As a songwriter, I’ve disciplined myself to keep to ‘first thought best thought’ more, and not overwork lyrics and melodies into the ground,” says Lily of the new approach. “We’re more secure in keeping weird shit in and not adding or cutting things because it feels like we’re supposed to.”

New single ‘Yearning and Pining’ is released 15th October 2024 via Fika Recordings/INH Records

Fightmilk is Lily, Alex, Healey and Nick - a London-based four-piece who write sweaty, loud, shouty pop songs. Formed in the beer gardens of South London in 2015, the band quickly drew attention with their debut album Not With That Attitude (Reckless Yes, 2018) - singled out by Drowned In Sound for its “package of massive, Godzilla-heft hooks” and “crack–like melodies.” Gaining support from 6Music and Radio X, the band swiftly hopped in the van to play shows with the likes of Art Brut, Desperate Journalist and Nova Twins, as well as touring Germany.

Not letting a seismic global clusterfuck stand in their way, the band released their second LP Contender in 2021 via Reckless Yes. Described as “a joyous riot from start to finish” by Kerrang, it was an album with something to prove, adding stacked harmonies, analog drum machines and even heftier riffs to the band’s arsenal, while still remaining decidedly true to the band’s spiky indiepop sound. As soon as they were released from lockdown they began a near relentless gigging schedule, taking in multiple trips around the UK, support slots with Johnny Foreigner, mclusky and Problem Patterns, plus a sold-out 2022 headline slot at Norway’s Indiefjord Festival, where a sweat-soaked Fightmilk crowdsurfed their way offstage at midnight only to find it was still light outside.

The band’s eighth year in action has seen them writing and recording their third album, to be released in late 2024 on Fika Recordings & INH Records. Fightmilk have turned the distortion up and the indiepop down with rougher and rawer songs about body image, death, and being fired from bridesmaid duty.

Live Dates:

15.11.24 - London - Paper Dress Vintage (album release show)
16.11.24 - Cambridge - Indie Pop All Dayer
22.11.24 - Rainham, The Oast
27.11.24 - Sheffield - Sydney & Matilda (with Slash Fiction)
28.11.24 - Glasgow - Stereo (supporting Slime City)
29.11.24 - Manchester, The Castle Hotel (support New Starts).

New album ‘No Souvenirs’ will be released 15th November 2024 via Fika Recordings/INH Records

Oct 5: KATHRYN WILLIAMS & WITHERED HAND at TWO PALMS

aka Williams & Willson, with support from Adam Ross.

Tickets from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings
£17 + bf / £8 concessions for those on low- or no-wages (no questions asked).

Prolific singer-songwriter Kathryn Williams and recently reinvigorated troubadour Dan Willson (aka Withered Hand) are on the road again in support of their collaboration album, ‘Willson Williams’, which came out April 2024 via One Little Independent Records.

Support comes from Adam Ross.

Estimated timings:
Kath & Dan solo sets 8pm
Adam Ross 9pm
Kath & Dan joint set 10pm
11pm finish

KATHRYN WILLIAMS & WITHERED HAND

‘Willson Williams’ witnesses the meeting of two likeminded musicians who’ve built their successful, independent careers on inventive folk instrumentation, reflective and sincere lyricism, and not a small amount of self-deprecation. Their modest confessionals, written poetically and over nostalgic and atmospheric melodies, are as relatable as ever, and together they find new ways to unpack their feelings.

Based in Edinburgh, Scottish indie folk-pop act Withered Hand is the solo project of singer/songwriter Dan Willson. A veteran of multiple bands in late-'90s and early-2000s Edinburgh music scene, Willson began his solo career after receiving an acoustic guitar from his wife as a 30th birthday gift. Migrating slowly from bandmate to solo artist, he began singing and writing his own loose, jangly songs, eventually releasing his debut EP, ‘Religious Songs’, under the moniker Withered Hand. Finding immediate success with the new format, Willson released a second EP in 2009 before teaming up with legendary American producer Kramer to make his first full-length album, ‘Good News’, in 2010.

Kathryn Williams is often described as “a songwriter’s songwriter”, her timeless and searching work has earned her accolades, critical acclaim, and a loyal fan-base. In this new musical world when we talk about an artist’s body of work, we tend to think of a handful of records stretched out across of a handful of years, if we’re lucky. A changing industry and a focus on immediacy has done little to alter such notions, which makes Kathryn Williams something of an anomaly – releasing 12 full-length albums under her own name since her debut LP, ‘Dog Leap Stairs’, released in 1999.

ADAM ROSS

Adam Ross is a songwriter based in north-east Scotland. He has led the cult indie band Randolph's Leap for over a decade, releasing music with independent labels Fika Recordings, Olive Grove Records and King Creosote and Pictish Trail’s Fence Records and Lost Map Records. He released his debut solo album 'Staring At Mountains' in 2022. He is known for his intricate, storytelling lyrical style which often blends humour and poignancy.

May 2024 saw the release of a brand-new solo album produced by multiple Scottish Album Of The Year Award nominated composer and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Wasylyk and released on London label Fika Recordings. Arts bodies Creative Scotland and Help Musicians have supported and funded the album in recognition of what is one of the most exciting musical collaborations of 2024.

Sunturns - First Winter [Digital]

Artist: Sunturns
Title: First Winter
Format: digital
Cat#: Fika105SG1
Release date: 2nd October 2024
Bandcamp | Spotify

The Norwegian super-group with members from Making Marks, The Little Hands of Asphalt, Mildfire, Flight Mode and Elva return with a third album of original Christmas songs. 

Get into that alternative, Nordic Christmas spirit!

Christmas III at its heart is an alt-Christmas album: the songs are firmly rooted in December’s festivities, albeit not usually relying on the season’s traditional reference points. The songs hone in on the more ambivalent sides of Christmas - family, customs and the passing of time - with a keen eye towards the holidays’ most obvious function in countries close to the Artic circle: getting through the cold and dark times to celebrate the winter solstice and the turning of the sun. 

Drawing from Sufjan Stevens’ epic indie Christmas compendium and Phil Spector’s wall of sound classic A Christmas Gift From You, Christmas III is built on shimmering guitars, snow filled piano lines, gentle strings, springy vocals and dynamic drums - all steadily conducted by Sunturns’ own Sjur Lyseid (Flight Mode, The Little Hands of Asphalt) in the producer’s seat at his Globus studio in Oslo.

With three songwriters (Ola Innset, Einar Stray and Sjur Lyseid) contributing to Christmas III, there’s an ever shifting sense of reflections. Parenthood and the struggles of the dark Norwegian winter is behind Ola’s track First Winter. “Some times I feel bad about bringing children into such a difficult world. Not so much with respect to daylight and the seasons, they’re just going to have to learn how to live with it, but with many other things – like war, poverty, climate change and even just death.” 

If previous albums Christmas I (2011) and II (2015) are somewhat different from each other, then Christmas III represents a fusion of the two. Sunturns’ debut is full of youthful exuberance and was recorded with plentiful overdubs in Oslo, while 2015’s follow up is more pensive and somewhat darker, and was recorded live during one week in the Swedish forests. Einar elaborates: “I love making records like this: short, effective sessions with limited time and therefore no bland ‘perfection’. There’s a nerve to knowing you can collectively bring it all together without the luxury of time”. Christmas III represents a return to the lighter tone, on at least some of the songs, but with the wisdom of age that emerged on the second. You can’t just return to your twenties, however much you might want to!

Merry Christmas!

Free Fika Recordings party @ Paper Dress Vintage

I'd planned for having a party for 10 years of Fika Recordings, but lockdowns scuppered that, so we're throwing a little free label party in September - which happens to coincide with my 40th. Come down, hang out, watch some bands, drink some beer.
For those with kids or that can't make it out in the evening or just want to hang out over beers and pizza, the plan is to be in the Pembury Tavern beforehand, 4-7pm.
All welcome!

From 4pm ish: Pembury Tavern
From 7pm ish: Paper Dress Vintage
Bands from 8pm ish: adults + Steven Adams + Jessica's Brother

adults

Combining elements of indie-pop, punk, emo and just a little bit of 2009 vintage math-rock for good measure, adults are four pals trying to find their way in a disintegrating world. Reflecting on how we look after ourselves, one another and people in our community; their songs are a riotous collision reminiscent of Johnny Foreigner, The Beths or Trust Fund, bursting with crunching guitars, speedy drums and yelping dual vocals.

They’ve released singles with Art Is Hard and For The Sakes Of Tapes, and self released an EP (The Weekend Was Always Almost Over), which was subsequently released on vinyl by Caballito records. In October 2022 the band's debut album 'for everything, always' was released by Fika Recordings.

Faster, messier and sillier than they have any right to be, adults are a hopeful and joyous noisy pop band based in South London.

Steven Adams

Steven Adams is a "national musical treasure" (The Guardian) who fronted country pranksters The Broken Family Band throughout the 2000s before calling time on that band at the height of their success. 

He's been ploughing his own furrow ever since, with multiple name changes (Singing Adams, The Singing Adams, Steven James Adams, Steven Adams & The French Drops), and a series of albums ranging from DIY indie rock, intimate folk and - with 2018's Virtue Signals - experiments in krautrock and politically-charged widescreen pop.

Originally from South Wales, Adams now lives in East London. His latest album Drops came out in the autumn of 2023.

Jessica’s Brother

Jessica’s Brother are a London trio comprised of songwriter Tom Charleston, Jonny Helm (drums, also of The Wave Pictures) and Charlie Higgs (bass). Channelling the spirit of the Brothers Grimm to create an otherworldly atmosphere, they weave their motley influences together making a rich and eclectic vision, with nods to Silver Jews, Jason Molina, Nick Cave, Richard Thompson and Neil Young. There are themes of joy, anger and silliness in a carefully crafted world with a colourful cast of characters.

The trio formed in October 2016. Jonny and Charlie worked together in a framing business and had often talked about collaborating in a band together. Fate intervened when Jonny’s girlfriend Jessica introduced him to her brother Tom, and they found a songwriter in waiting.