A DIY INDIEPOP VINYL & CASSETTE LABEL

Nov 15: Arborist at The Waiting Room

November 15th: Arborist + Cormac Nagle at The Waiting Room, Stoke Newington, London.

ARBORIST
A very special full-band show with Arborist, in support of his latest album Looking For Love.

Belfast native Mark McCambridge played his first show as Arborist supporting James Yorkston. A solo tour followed, and impressive performances led to notable support slots alongside Low, Cat Power, Echo & The Bunnymen and Guy Garvey. Arborist's debut single, the Americana-tinged "Twisted Arrow," caught the attention of the critics with an astonishing duet with Kim Deal of The Breeders. The debut album Home Burial (2016) and its follow-up, A Northern View, both received glowing praise, from The Guardian ("instant classic" ★★★★) to MOJO ("devastatingly bleak… upliftingly beautiful" ★★★★) to Uncut (8/10), with BBC 6 Music play from Cerys Matthews, Cillian Murphy, Lauren Laverne, Radcliffe and Maconie and Gideon Coe — and Steve Lamacq calling single "Taxi" "one of those records that makes you immediately stop what you're doing." He went on to even greater success with the 2023 Northern Irish Music Prize winning third LP, An Endless Sequence of Dead Zeroes, which was recorded at SpaceBomb Studios in Virginia with musician and producer Matthew E White. For his fourth LP, Looking For Love, he has signed with Fika Recordings and with a tour approaching in November, 2026 looks set to be a seminal year for the Irish artist.

CORMAC NAGLE
Cormac Nagle is a 28 year old indie folk songwriter based in Glasgow, Scotland. He blends a singular vocal delivery with timeworn melodies and fingerstyle guitar playing - uplifted by a literary lyrical voice.

He has played shows across the UK and Ireland, supporting artists such as Ryley Walker, John Wesley Harding, Seamus Fogarty, Lily Seabird and Andrew Combs. He has also garnered airplay on BBC Introducing and Ricky Ross from Deacon Blue’s Another Country show on BBC Radio Scotland.

2025 saw him join Jeffrey Martin on a UK tour and his song Ablution was included on the ‘Folklore Volume 3’ Vinyl compilation alongside Michele Stodart (The Magic Numbers), Frankie Archer, and The Ocelots. In 2026, he released the EP Cosmic Concerns and Cowboy Chords and toured across the UK with Grammy-nominated songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan.

Tickets from wegottickets.com/f/26242

Approximate timings:
1900 doors
1930 Cormac Nagle
2030 Arborist
Finished by 2200.

Fightmilk - Escape! From Camp Run For Your Life [Digital]

Artist: Fightmilk
Title: Escape! From Camp Run For Your Life / Ghost Food
Format: digital single
Cat#: Fika118SG2
Release date: 31 October 2026
Bandcamp | Spotify

It’s alive!

A love letter to the warm, comforting hug of the horror genre in a world where real life can be a terrifying, relentless stream of dread and foreboding, the acclaimed Fightmilk bring final girl energy to new double A-side single Escape! From Camp Run For Your Life / Ghost Food.

Delivering a spooky double feature out on Halloween, the new single is a juddering jump scare embracing the spirit of Goosebumps, Ghostwatch, Are You Afraid of the Dark?, camp outs in the woods, cursed video cassettes and howling at the moon with glorious abandon until the credits roll.

Released on 31 October on Fika/INH, the song follows up on the critical and commercial success of their last Album, 2024’s No Souvenirs and this year’s previous single Sounds Like A You Problem with the band adopting a noisier harder edge to their signature, peerless, indie pop style.

“He did it for the devilment
Hiding in the walls
There’s something in the woods tonight
I don’t like it at all”

“This was the product of years of obsessively reading R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps book series for children, where horrible things happen in broad daylight, your parents can’t protect you and happy endings come with a caveat,” says singer Lily Rae of Escape! From Camp Run For Your Life.

“For morbid tots like me it cultivated a lifelong love of creepy, scary things. It also became a weird source of comfort when my lifelong anxiety was made worse in adulthood by latent fascism, climate catastrophe, human rights being stripped away and trying to ‘live normally’ and powerlessly alongside a constant stream of news about…well, you’ve got the internet, you know what I mean.

So I took my comfort media - horror - and used it as a way to translate my CONSTANT EXISTENTIAL DREAD. Every day feels terrifying at the moment and this is a love letter to the warm hug of horror, where you can close the book or stop the film at any time you like.

“Ghost Food is from a line in The Night Alphabet by Joelle Taylor. It doesn’t mean the same thing in that context but I thought of it as describing something that keeps you alive but gives you no joy or sustenance. It’s a bit of a weird love song and employs my favourite emotion - obsessive yearning! - to talk about how grey and empty it is when the person or the thing that you love is out of reach. The days are endless, food tastes of nothing and all the birds singing in the trees are just annoying. You’re staying alive for the sake of it.”

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 saw them writing and recording their third album No Souvenirs, released in late 2024 on Fika Recordings and INH Records. The album was enormously well-received with John Kennedy inviting the band onto Radio X for a session and was accompanied by a full UK tour.

Arborist - Looking For Love [12"/CD]

Artist: Arborist
Title: Looking For Love
Format: 12” white vinyl | digifile CD | digital
Cat#: Fika122
Release date: 16th October 2026
Bandcamp

Love or its absence dominates the intimate songs on the new album from ARBORIST – the musical outlet of Mark McCambridge. Looking For Love, Arborist’s fourth album of exquisitely inventive Americana, places us firmly in his hometown of Belfast, allowing it to act as a microcosm of the wider-world, with all its foibles and charms. We find fictional protagonists scouring the dark corners of the city, wiling-away afternoons in strip clubs, wandering the streets in all weather and reflecting on the harsh reality of modern society, all in search of an elusive love – emphasising our need for it now more than ever.

Looking for Love is ARBORIST’s first album to be self-produced by McCambridge, largely from his home studio in Belfast – and at times it feels like we are in the room with him. It’s a different kind of record for him as previously he has always sought collaboration; whether it be with Kim Deal who chose to sing intertwined harmony on his debut single “Twisted Arrow”, or recording in The Curfew Tower owned by The KLF’s Bill Drummond who described Mark’s songwriting as being  “riven with more loss than any record since Leonard Cohen quit this world”, and who Matthew E White and his Spacebomb band collaborated with to such astonishing effect on the previous Arborist LP, 2023’s An Endless Sequence of Dead Zeros, winner of the prestigious Northern Ireland Music Prize. This time, with no outside producer steering the way, McCambridge found that the quiet hours were where he felt most at ease, despite periods of trial and error, and, by his own admission, moments of feeling genuinely lost in it all.

Despite playing many of the parts himself, McCambridge still called upon old friends from the community around him; Spacebomb’s resident bassist Cameron Ralston (Bonnie Light Horseman, Hiss Golden Messenger) again features throughout the record, alongside Eamon Ferris (The Waterboys) on drums, with the great and the good from Belfast’s vibrant music scene. Grainne Meyer plays concert harp and Aga Olek plays violin for the quasi-title track “Looking 4 Love” – an off-kilter love-letter to Belfast. Meilana Gillard provides a sleazy saxophone on “Bye Bye Johnny Cash” – a seedy tale of a man obsessively visiting a dancer in a club, and The Larne Community Youth Choir provide backing vocals for “Go Kill The Fatted Calf” – a song Mark wrote about his son growing up, a take on the parable of the prodigal son, with Jonny Ashe’s blistering guitar solo adding an album highlight. The Errigal Ensemble String Quartet and Aisling Agnew’s breathtaking flute solo feature on “What Is It You’re Asking” – a song about love, or its absence, both personally and universally in these times.

McCambridge was recently honoured with a “Fellowship” by the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen's University Belfast where he collaborated with such illustrious names from the literary world as Nick Laird, Caoilinn Hughes and Conor McPherson. Through the University he was given access to the music department's Steinways and pipe organs, and decided to try one out for the album’s centrepiece “I’ve Been A Flaneur”. As Mark explains, "The drone on the pipe organ — and the sound of it starting and stopping — was so visceral that I decided to try a half-written song against it right there and then, and this came out in one take… The song was a breakthrough artistically - I don't think I'll ever record in the same way again after this."

The album was engineered by longtime collaborator Ben McAuley (Van Morrison) and mixed by Jimmy Robertson (Anna Calvi, Beth Gibbons, Fat Dog). The results are staggering, devastating and uplifting in equal measure, calling to mind albums such as Songs Ohia’s Magnolia Electric Co., The Divine Comedy’s Regeneration, The Blue Nile’s Hats and Wilco’s Ode to Joy, as well as early-70s records from John Cale, John Lennon and Bill Fay.

Belfast native Mark McCambridge played his first show as Arborist supporting James Yorkston. A solo tour followed, and impressive performances led to notable support slots alongside Low, Cat Power, Echo & The Bunnymen and Guy Garvey. Arborist's debut single, the Americana-tinged "Twisted Arrow," caught the attention of the critics with an astonishing duet with Kim Deal of The Breeders. The debut album Home Burial (2016) and its follow-up, A Northern View, both received glowing praise, from The Guardian ("instant classic" ★★★★) to MOJO ("devastatingly bleak… upliftingly beautiful" ★★★★) to Uncut (8/10), with BBC 6 Music play from Cerys Matthews, Cillian Murphy, Lauren Laverne, Radcliffe and Maconie and Gideon Coe — and Steve Lamacq calling single "Taxi" "one of those records that makes you immediately stop what you're doing." He went on to even greater success with the 2023 Northern Irish Music Prize winning third LP, An Endless Sequence of Dead Zeroes, which was recorded at SpaceBomb Studios in Virginia with musician and producer Matthew E White. For his fourth LP, Looking For Love, he has signed with Fika Recordings and with a tour approaching in November, 2026 looks set to be a seminal year for the Irish artist.

"A staggering debut of depth and substance" - UNCUT

"An instant classic" - The Guardian

"Devastatingly bleak…upliftingly beautiful" - Mojo

"A poignant, beautiful record" - Lauren Laverne BBC6Music

Press for Looking For Love

“desolate love songs from the dark end of the street” Uncut 8/10
”Lush and rich with ideas and intimacy, Looking For Love is too big for Arborist’s fanbase to stay so small” Mojo 4/5
“on Looking For Love he continues to set an extraordinarily high bar for composition, songwriting, and arrangement, making him a songwriter and musician whose every contribution is essential listening” KLOF
“an expertly woven musical fabric with deft lyrical turns of phrase” Music OMH 4/5
“This album continues McCambridge’s trajectory of making beautiful, intelligent and masterful music, and it invites and deserves numerous listens, with each one bringing out different pleasures. Utterly beguiling.” Americana UK
“Looking For Love is a beautifully affecting work, both lyrically and from McCambridge’s delicately handled expansive instrumentation” The Bad Arts
“Sumptuous effort from Belfast balladeer” Hot Press
“Belfast Americana of the highest order, songs of darkness from society’s twilight underbelly, rich in pageantry, and a rare emotional depth, vulnerability and honesty” Music Love Music
“tenderness and grit in equal measure” Nialler9
“something in the songwriting that reminds me of Richard Hawley or even a pop-forward version of Leonard Cohen” Austin Town Hall

Arborist - Bye Bye, Johnny Cash [Digital]

Artist: Arborist
Title: Bye Bye, Johnny Cash
Format: digital single
Cat#: Fika122SG2
Release date: 16th September 2026
Bandcamp | Spotify

“Bye Bye, Johnny Cash” is the third single to be taken from the new album Looking For Love, from ARBORIST – the musical outlet of Mark McCambridge. Directed by longtime collaborator Tristan Crowe, the video is sophisticated and louche (and possibly NSFW), beautifully shot in the dark, ornate interior of Belfast’s Rattlebag cocktail bar and featuring the talents of Derry-based burlesque dancer Audrey Blue. The song is the seedy tale of a man obsessively visiting a dancer in a strip club, one of the enthralling cast of fictional characters in McCambridge’s study of the underbelly of life in his home city of Belfast. Atmospheric and evocative - with a dash of sleaze accentuated by Meilana Gillard’s sensual saxophone solo - “Bye Bye, Johnny Cash" is exquisitely uplifting despite the tawdry subject matter. 

McCambridge says of the video: "The song Bye Bye, Johnny Cash was born of a sordid tale from a friend - it deals with another kind of 'love' and loneliness to those found elsewhere on the album. As the band play, the audience are bored and distracted, only to turn and become enraptured with the burlesque dancer lurking behind them - what hope do we have of someone spending 4m30 watching a music video when sex is just a click away? And the song's denouement speaks to our collective fear that you just never know who's watching.”

Dancer Audrey Blue says: "Was a pleasure to weave burlesque across mediums through Arborist's sound, paired with the macabre backdrop of Rattlebag".

Arborist’s fourth album of exquisitely inventive Americana is the first album to be self-produced by McCambridge himself, largely from his home studio in Belfast – late night recordings lending the album a crepuscular, stark atmosphere and the feeling that we are present with him there in the room.

These quiet hours are clearly where McCambridge feels most at ease - after all, this is a singer Bill Drummond has described as writing songs,“riven with more loss than any record since Leonard Cohen quit this world”, who Kim Deal chose to sing in beautiful, intertwined harmony with on debut single “Twisted Arrow” and who Matthew E White and his Spacebomb band collaborated with to such astonishing effect on the previous Arborist LP, the Northern Irish Music Prize winning An Endless Sequence of Dead Zeroes.

Spacebomb’s resident bassist Cameron Ralston (Bonnie Light Horseman, Hiss Golden Messenger) again features throughout, alongside Eamon Ferris (The Waterboys) on drums and Ben McAuley (Van Morrison) engineering. It is close-mic-ed and intimate, calling to mind albums such as Songs Ohia’s Magnolia Electric Co., The Divine Comedy’s Regeneration, The Blue Nile’s Hats and Wilco’s Ode to Joy, as well as early-70s records from John Cale, John Lennon and Bill Fay.

Recently honoured with a ‘Fellowship’ by the Seamus Heaney Centre at Queen’s University in Belfast - alongside author Caoilinn Hughes and playwright Conor McPhearson – 2026 looks set to be a seminal year for the Irish artist.

Looking For Love is ARBORIST’s first album to be self-produced by McCambridge, largely from his home studio in Belfast – and at times it feels like we are in the room with him. It’s a different kind of record for him as previously he has always sought collaboration; whether it be with Kim Deal who chose to sing intertwined harmony on his debut single “Twisted Arrow”, or recording in The Curfew Tower owned by The KLF’s Bill Drummond who described Mark’s songwriting as being  “riven with more loss than any record since Leonard Cohen quit this world”, and who Matthew E White and his Spacebomb band collaborated with to such astonishing effect on the previous Arborist LP, 2023’s An Endless Sequence of Dead Zeros, winner of the prestigious Northern Ireland Music Prize. This time, with no outside producer steering the way, McCambridge found that the quiet hours were where he felt most at ease, despite periods of trial and error, and, by his own admission, moments of feeling genuinely lost in it all.

Despite playing many of the parts himself, McCambridge still called upon old friends from the community around him; Spacebomb’s resident bassist Cameron Ralston (Bonnie Light Horseman, Hiss Golden Messenger) again features throughout the record, alongside Eamon Ferris (The Waterboys) on drums, with the great and the good from Belfast’s vibrant music scene. The album was engineered by longtime collaborator Ben McAuley (Van Morrison) and mixed by Jimmy Robertson (Anna Calvi, Beth Gibbons, Fat Dog). The results are staggering, devastating and uplifting in equal measure, calling to mind albums such as Songs Ohia’s Magnolia Electric Co., The Divine Comedy’s Regeneration, The Blue Nile’s Hats and Wilco’s Ode to Joy, as well as early-70s records from John Cale, John Lennon and Bill Fay.

More about Arborist

Belfast native Mark McCambridge played his first show as Arborist supporting James Yorkston. A solo tour followed, and impressive performances led to notable support slots alongside Low, Cat Power, Echo & The Bunnymen and Guy Garvey. Arborist's debut single, the Americana-tinged "Twisted Arrow," caught the attention of the critics with an astonishing duet with Kim Deal of The Breeders. The debut album Home Burial (2016) and its follow-up, A Northern View, both received glowing praise, from The Guardian ("instant classic" ★★★★) to MOJO ("devastatingly bleak… upliftingly beautiful" ★★★★) to Uncut (8/10), with BBC 6 Music play from Cerys Matthews, Cillian Murphy, Lauren Laverne, Radcliffe and Maconie and Gideon Coe — and Steve Lamacq calling single "Taxi" "one of those records that makes you immediately stop what you're doing." He went on to even greater success with the 2023 Northern Irish Music Prize winning third LP, An Endless Sequence of Dead Zeroes, which was recorded at SpaceBomb Studios in Virginia with musician and producer Matthew E White. For his fourth LP, Looking For Love, he has signed with Fika Recordings and with a tour approaching in November, 2026 looks set to be a seminal year for the Irish artist.

"A staggering debut of depth and substance" - UNCUT

"An instant classic" - The Guardian

"Devastatingly bleak…upliftingly beautiful" - Mojo

"A poignant, beautiful record" - Lauren Laverne BBC6Music

"A poignant, beautiful record" - Lauren Laverne BBC6Music

Adam Ross - Superfan [Digital]

Artist: Adam Ross
Title: Superfan
Format: digital
Cat#: Fika117EP1
Release date: 15th September 2026
Bandcamp | Spotify

The new EP contains three songs captured during the recording sessions for my album Bring On The Apathy. Leftovers, if you will. But sometimes leftovers are delicious. These are the Boxing Day turkey sandwiches to my album's Christmas Day meal. I originally thought the album was going to be slower and more melancholic overall, but these songs ended up getting kicked out of the way by more upbeat numbers like Lost In The Daylight and Kites on the finished record. These songs are for the superfans.

As with Bring On The Apathy, these songs were recorded onto tape in an analogue studio called Green Door in Glasgow. Samuel J. Smith was at the helm and the band features Owen Curtis Williams on drums, Cameron Maxwell on bass, Pete MacDonald on piano, Pedro Cameron on violin, Gill Fleetwood on harp and vocals, Amanda Nizich on vocals and C Duncan on vocals and vocal arrangements. We recorded most of it live, all in the room together, with a few overdubs. I'm on tour this month and next. 
- Adam

Adam Ross is an indie-folk songwriter based in north-east Scotland. He is a solo artist and has also led the cult indie band Randolph's Leap for over a decade, releasing music with legendary Fife label Fence Records and Lost Map as well as Olive Grove Records and Fika Recordings. He is known for his unique brand of articulate lyricism which blends humour, poignancy, wordplay and offbeat stories.

Adam released a debut solo album Staring At Mountains in 2022, a sparse trio album featuring Pedro Cameron and Jenny Sturgeon. This was followed by the 2024 release of a critically acclaimed second solo album, Littoral Zone, recorded and produced by composer and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Wasylyk. The album further cemented Adam's status as one of the country's most original songwriters. He released a standalone synth-pop single Drink The First Light featuring Mercury Prize nominated C. Duncan in 2025 and Adam’s third album, Bring On The Apathy, was released on 15th May 2026 via Fika Recordings 

Adam Ross live dates
19 September - Glasgow Glad Cafe (full band)
25 September - Edinburgh The Kitchen Sings (duo with Gillian Fleetwood)
26 September - Marple Traders (duo with Gillian Fleetwood)
1 October - London Green Note (solo)
2 October - Coventry The Tin (solo)
3 October - Rainham The Oast (solo)
4 October - Eaglescliffe The Waiting Room (solo)
22 October - Kirkcaldy Acoustic Music Club (duo with Gillian Fleetwood)
3 November - Montrose Folk Club (full band)

Arborist - The Taming of Horses [Digital]

Artist: Arborist
Title: The Taming of Horses
Format: digital single
Cat#: Fika122SG1
Release date: 19th August 2026
Bandcamp

Arborist - the musical outlet of singer-songwriter Mark McCambridge - is delighted to announce the new album Looking For Love will be released via Fika Recordings on 16 October 2026. Arborist’s fourth album of exquisitely inventive Americana places us firmly in his hometown of Belfast, allowing it to act as a microcosm of the wider-world, with all its foibles and charms. We find fictional protagonists scouring the dark corners of the city, wiling-away afternoons in strip clubs, wandering the streets in all weather and reflecting on the harsh reality of modern society, all in search of an elusive love – emphasising our need for it now more than ever.

He shares the single “The Taming of Horses”, expansive, mesmerising and instantly hummable with lush hammond organ adding a certain sophistication to a song that is sprawling in theme. It was written back in 2022, during late nights watching Jacob Brownowski’s landmark 70s epic documentary series The Ascent of Man, which Mark describes as “just sensational television that we can show to Extraterrestrials when they come, to get them up to speed.”  The song is somehow simultaneously disquieting and uplifting - we deal with humanity’s proclivity to repeat its mistakes but are lifted above it all to a plain beyond time itself.

Looking For Love is ARBORIST’s first album to be self-produced by McCambridge, largely from his home studio in Belfast – and at times it feels like we are in the room with him. It’s a different kind of record for him as previously he has always sought collaboration; whether it be with Kim Deal who chose to sing intertwined harmony on his debut single “Twisted Arrow”, or recording in The Curfew Tower owned by The KLF’s Bill Drummond who described Mark’s songwriting as being  “riven with more loss than any record since Leonard Cohen quit this world”, and who Matthew E White and his Spacebomb band collaborated with to such astonishing effect on the previous Arborist LP, 2023’s An Endless Sequence of Dead Zeros, winner of the prestigious Northern Ireland Music Prize. This time, with no outside producer steering the way, McCambridge found that the quiet hours were where he felt most at ease, despite periods of trial and error, and, by his own admission, moments of feeling genuinely lost in it all.

Despite playing many of the parts himself, McCambridge still called upon old friends from the community around him; Spacebomb’s resident bassist Cameron Ralston (Bonnie Light Horseman, Hiss Golden Messenger) again features throughout the record, alongside Eamon Ferris (The Waterboys) on drums, with the great and the good from Belfast’s vibrant music scene. The album was engineered by longtime collaborator Ben McAuley (Van Morrison) and mixed by Jimmy Robertson (Anna Calvi, Beth Gibbons, Fat Dog). The results are staggering, devastating and uplifting in equal measure, calling to mind albums such as Songs Ohia’s Magnolia Electric Co., The Divine Comedy’s Regeneration, The Blue Nile’s Hats and Wilco’s Ode to Joy, as well as early-70s records from John Cale, John Lennon and Bill Fay.

More about Arborist

Belfast native Mark McCambridge played his first show as Arborist supporting James Yorkston. A solo tour followed, and impressive performances led to notable support slots alongside Low, Cat Power, Echo & The Bunnymen and Guy Garvey. Arborist's debut single, the Americana-tinged "Twisted Arrow," caught the attention of the critics with an astonishing duet with Kim Deal of The Breeders. The debut album Home Burial (2016) and its follow-up, A Northern View, both received glowing praise, from The Guardian ("instant classic" ★★★★) to MOJO ("devastatingly bleak… upliftingly beautiful" ★★★★) to Uncut (8/10), with BBC 6 Music play from Cerys Matthews, Cillian Murphy, Lauren Laverne, Radcliffe and Maconie and Gideon Coe — and Steve Lamacq calling single "Taxi" "one of those records that makes you immediately stop what you're doing." He went on to even greater success with the 2023 Northern Irish Music Prize winning third LP, An Endless Sequence of Dead Zeroes, which was recorded at SpaceBomb Studios in Virginia with musician and producer Matthew E White. For his fourth LP, Looking For Love, he has signed with Fika Recordings and with a tour approaching in November, 2026 looks set to be a seminal year for the Irish artist.

"A staggering debut of depth and substance" - UNCUT

"An instant classic" - The Guardian

"Devastatingly bleak…upliftingly beautiful" - Mojo

"A poignant, beautiful record" - Lauren Laverne BBC6Music

"A poignant, beautiful record" - Lauren Laverne BBC6Music

Jacob Bronowski's 1970s BBC series The Ascent of Man was the spark that began the writing of the song The Taming of Horses a few years ago. So, frequent collaborator Tristan Crowe and I wanted to reflect this with the use of archive footage, taking us on the short journey from the Big Bang to an unknown future. We pass through the Garden of Eden, Eadweard Muybridge's 'The Horse in Motion' to humanity's leap into space and the endless, unsettling creep of technology. 
Mark, Arborist

Freschard & Stanley Brinks - Pole Fitness [12"]

Artist: Freschard & Stanley Brinks
Title: Pole Fitness
Format: 12" album on green vinyl
Cat#: Fika121LP
Release date: 24th July 2026
Bandcamp

STANLEY BRINKS

By the late 90s he’d become a full time singer-songwriter – André Herman Düne – as part of three piece indie-rock band, Herman Düne alongside his brother, David-Ivar. Several albums and Peel sessions later and after a decade of touring Europe, mostly with American songwriters such as Jeffrey Lewis, Calvin Johnson and early Arcade Fire he settled in Berlin. The early carnival music of Trinidad became a passion, and in the early 21st century he became the unquestioned master of European calypso, changing his name to Stanley Brinks.

Under this moniker he has recorded well in excess of 100 albums, collaborated with the New York Antifolk scene on numerous occasions, recorded and toured with traditional Norwegian musicians, and played a lot with The Wave Pictures.

FRESCHARD grew up in a farm in French Burgundy. Aged 18 she moved to Paris, where she baked pies and cakes in a cafe. There, a local musician and regular customer called Stanley Brinks wrote a few songs for her to sing. Homeless in Paris, she saved up just enough money to get herself a ticket to New York. There she found an old electric guitar and started writing her own songs. In 2004 she moved to Berlin, where she recorded her first LP, "Alien Duck". Her second album, "Click Click", recorded in 2006, features electric guitar by Stanley Brinks. On her third album, she plays the drums herself. On her fourth “Shh...” she also plays the flute, and she breaks out the washboard on her fifth “Boom Biddy Boom”.

Freschard & Stanley Brinks - Hotel Berlin [12"]

Artist: Freschard & Stanley Brinks
Title: Hotel Berlin
Format: 12" album on pink vinyl
Cat#: Fika120LP
Release date: 24th July 2026
Bandcamp

STANLEY BRINKS

By the late 90s he’d become a full time singer-songwriter – André Herman Düne – as part of three piece indie-rock band, Herman Düne alongside his brother, David-Ivar. Several albums and Peel sessions later and after a decade of touring Europe, mostly with American songwriters such as Jeffrey Lewis, Calvin Johnson and early Arcade Fire he settled in Berlin. The early carnival music of Trinidad became a passion, and in the early 21st century he became the unquestioned master of European calypso, changing his name to Stanley Brinks.

Under this moniker he has recorded well in excess of 100 albums, collaborated with the New York Antifolk scene on numerous occasions, recorded and toured with traditional Norwegian musicians, and played a lot with The Wave Pictures.

FRESCHARD grew up in a farm in French Burgundy. Aged 18 she moved to Paris, where she baked pies and cakes in a cafe. There, a local musician and regular customer called Stanley Brinks wrote a few songs for her to sing. Homeless in Paris, she saved up just enough money to get herself a ticket to New York. There she found an old electric guitar and started writing her own songs. In 2004 she moved to Berlin, where she recorded her first LP, "Alien Duck". Her second album, "Click Click", recorded in 2006, features electric guitar by Stanley Brinks. On her third album, she plays the drums herself. On her fourth “Shh...” she also plays the flute, and she breaks out the washboard on her fifth “Boom Biddy Boom”.

June 3: Norman Blake + Adam Ross + Robin Ince at The Harrison

A very special night for the launch of Adam Ross' most recent solo album Bring On Your Apathy, with friends Norman Blake and Robin Ince.
Tickets from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings

Norman Blake is best known as the guitarist, vocalist, and co-founder of the celebrated Scottish alternative rock band Teenage Fanclub, though he's also amassed an impressive resume of side projects.

During his downtime from Teenage Fanclub, Norman Blake often busied himself with a wide range of collaborations and side projects. In tandem with Euros Childs of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci, he formed the group Jonny. With Eugene Kelly of the Vaselines and Eugenius, Blake recorded as the Famous Monsters. Francis MacDonald, Blake's BMX Bandits and Teenage Fanclub bandmate who has also worked with Belle and Sebastian, has performed with Blake under the moniker Frank Blake. After moving to Canada in 2009, Blake started writing songs with Joe Pernice of the Pernice Brothers, and the two recorded and toured as the New Mendicants. And Blake has enjoyed an especially fruitful partnership with Jad Fair of the legendary lo-fi group Half Japanese. In addition to Teenage Fanclub cutting an album with Fair, Blake and Fair teamed up for a 2015 duo album, Yes, and Fair, Blake, and the Japanese group Tenniscoats joined forces for two albums together, 2014's How Many Glasgow and 2017's Raindrops.

Adam Ross is an indie-folk songwriter based in north-east Scotland. He is a solo artist and has also led the cult indie band Randolph's Leap for over a decade, releasing music with legendary Fife label Fence Records and Lost Map as well as Olive Grove Records and Fika Recordings. He is known for his unique brand of articulate lyricism which blends humour, poignancy, wordplay and offbeat stories.

Adam released a debut solo album Staring At Mountains in 2022 which was followed by the 2024 release of a critically acclaimed second solo album, Littoral Zone, produced by multiple Scottish Album Of The Year Award nominated composer and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Wasylyk. The album further cemented Adam's status as one of the country's most original songwriters. He released a standalone synth-pop single Drink The First Light featuring C. Duncan in 2025 and Adam’s third album is due out in 2026.

Robin Ince is many things. A multi award winning comedian, author, broadcaster, bibliomaniac and a populariser of scientific ideas. He is perhaps best known as the former co-host and co-creator of the Sony Gold Award winning BBC Radio 4 series The Infinite Monkey Cage with Professor Brian Cox. As a stand up Robin has toured the world and as an author he has written four acclaimed books, including Bibliomaniac, earned him the prestigious Booksellers Association Author of the Year award. His fifth, Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal is published in May 2025. He co-created the Cosmic Shambles Network and created the groundbreaking science variety night Nine Lessons and Carols for Curious People which has been adapted worldwide. He has received an Honorary Fellowship of UCL, an honorary doctorate from Royal Holloway College (University of London), and is a fellow of the British Science Association.

May 27: Carla J Easton at Paper Dress Vintage

Tickets from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings

Support from Schande and Count Jaakola.

Join us for the London launch of Carla J. Easton's new album!

I Think That I Might Love You, Carla’s fifth solo album – it is still a pop album at heart, but also her first ‘guitar’ record. Produced by ​​Howard Bilerman (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Wolf Parade, Leonard Cohen, The Weather Station) the album finds Carla gathering up friends old and new to craft a record that feels like a natural but also significant leap forward.

Carla J. Easton is an award nominated singer-songwriter, releasing 4 critically acclaimed solo albums. She is also a member of TeenCanteen and Poster Paints, and has written songs/music for Belle & Sebastian, BMX Bandits, Hen Hoose & National Theatre Scotland. Championed by BBC6 Music, she has performed at festivals across the UK and internationally (SXSW, Pop Montreal, The Great Escape, Celtic Connections, Indiefjord and Pop Cologne) touring the UK with Camera Obscura, The Vaselines and Kim Richey.

In 2018, she released the SAY Award Shortlisted 'Impossible Stuff’, produced by Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire/British Sea Power/Leonard Cohen) which featured singles that achieved Record of the Day, Guardian Track of the Week and BBC Scotland Single of the Week.

Her third album 'WEIRDO' was released in 2020 via Olive Grove Records - a record that Bandcamp Daily described as “all volume needles buried in the red, glitter bursting from every chorus.” The Line of Best Fit praised its “maximalist” tendencies while hinting that Scotland has found its own answer to the pop titans Carly Rae Jepsen and Taylor Swift and Pitchfork called it “bubblegum pop [with] the scrappy glamour of a homemade theatrical production”.

Her latest project Poster Paints was formed with Simon Liddell (Frightened Rabbit) during 2020. Their critically acclaimed self titled debut album was released by Ernest Jennings October 2022.

Her fourth studio album ‘SUGAR HONEY’ was released in 2023 via Olive Grove Records and featured the singles ‘One Week’, ‘Blooming 4U’ and the album title track ‘Sugar Honey’.

Carla is a member of the Hen Hoose Collective and Co-Director of the feature-length documentary ‘Since Yesterday: The Unsung Pioneers of Scottish Pop’.

SCHANDE

A London trio, Schande are known for writing discordantly catchy, melodic indie rock- that joyous blend of 90s indie at its best, mixed with a unique element of the unknown.

What started as a solo project (“Jen Schande”) in the UK during the early 2000s quickly became a band, and Jen ditched the solo moniker to reflect the collective. They released a split 7” with the Cribs and opened for bands like The Gossip. After returning for a time to the US where a stateside incarnation formed, opening for bands such as The Thermals and Against Me!, Jen moved back to her home state of California and settled in San Francisco. Upon moving to London in 2013, she returned to playing solo.

In 2015 Schande was rebirthed as full band, in its most impressive formation to date. Now featuring London promoter and DIY staple Jeremy Sheppard (Ace Bushy Striptease, Flemmings, Night of the Triffids) on drums and Giovanni Villaraut on bass, each member’s musicianship adds its own idiosyncratic touches to create a collective sound.

COUNT JAAKOLA

Count Jaakola is the project of London-based Finnish songwriter Tiia Jaakola. From the humdrum to the huge; Tiia explores heartbreak, disappointment, climate change, and dying house plants. The record plays with contrasts, light and shadow, fizz and gloom. Keys melt into darker textures before guitars and drums lift them back into sparkle. It’s heaviest moment is the title track, written in an airport bathroom after Tiia’s father passed, yet even here, hope breaks through in irresistible vocal harmonies and inventive melodies.