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.

Adam Ross - Bring On The Apathy [12"/CD]

Artist: Adam Ross
Title: Bring On The Apathy
Format: 12” green vinyl | digifile CD | digital
Cat#: Fika117
Release date: 15th May 2026
Bandcamp

Fika Recordings are pleased to present Bring On The Apathy, the third solo record from Scottish songwriter Adam Ross, out 15th May. 

The album was recorded onto tape, using traditional analogue techniques at Glasgow’s Green Door Studio with Samuel J. Smith. It showcases some of the most emotionally open, lyrically deft and characterful songwriting so far from one of Scotland’s most accomplished writers. The vintage recording approach brings a warmth and intimacy to a record which is in equal parts raw and organic while also beautifully arranged and performed as Adam is joined by a raft of excellent collaborators.

The album itself is a reaction. Whether it be in the title, the lyrical content or the method in which the sounds were captured, the listener will find elements of pushback from Adam against the world around him:

“I was feeling fairly down and uninspired about the musical landscape” Adam explains. “The risk with digital recording where every instrument is overdubbed separately is that it can end up sounding metronomic, sterile and lacking personality or a sense of space. I also started to get a bit freaked out by the topic of AI-generated music and the insidious, creeping impact it’s already having. I therefore decided that, as a bit of a protest, I wanted to make something that sounded extra-specially human and hand-crafted, where you could hopefully hear the interplay between musicians.”

For this reason, Adam decided to record the majority of the album live, as a band, playing together in the same room without a click track. “I’d put a band together to tour my last album, Littoral Zone, and I really enjoyed the way we all worked together. I don’t like to micro-manage rehearsals or over-arrange songs and I realised that everyone in the band is very creative and instinctive, rather than being robotic “session musicians”. They’re all great at improvising and adding ideas without ever impinging or encroaching on what the song is trying to convey. I was really keen to capitalise on this with the new record and it suddenly became very clear that an analogue studio would be the ideal way to capture these little connections in a way that felt intimate and authentic.” 

Green Door Studio was chosen as the destination as it specialises in analogue sound production but it had an extra significance for Adam. “Green Door was the first studio I ever recorded in, back in 2009. My band Randolph’s Leap got a demo-development grant and we recorded our first EP there. The band had never actually been in the same room as each other and we were very naïve and unprepared. Recording to tape can be quite unforgiving and, in truth, we probably weren’t ready for it. It took me 16 years to build up the experience and courage to go back!” 

This time around, the “unforgiving” nature of tape recording became an inspiration. “The musicians on the record are such great players that they rarely make mistakes, so there was a confidence there that we wouldn’t need to rely on copious amounts of editing or post-production, which isn’t always possible with tape anyway. If the songs sped up or slowed down a bit or you heard the piano stool creak or someone breathing then that was all fine. I wanted it to sound as natural and “real” as possible. The vintage equipment brings a delicious amount of depth to things like the drums. I’m not sure I can go back to digital now!” 

The core band consisted of Owen Curtis-Williams on drums, Cameron Maxwell on bass, Pedro Cameron on violin, Gillian Fleetwood on harp and (long-time collaborator with Randolph’s Leap) Pete MacDonald on piano. Mercury Prize-nominated artist C Duncan was drafted in to write and perform backing vocal arrangements along with Amanda Nizich and Gillian Fleetwood.

Adam says “I made this album for myself and tried not to second-guess things when it came to stylistic choices. I’d been listening to a lot of Bob Dylan, Karen Dalton and Bill Callahan records and I thought it might be interesting to apply those sorts of influences to my brand of Scottish quirk-pop”. 

The title, ‘Bring On The Apathy’, sums up the mood surrounding the creation of the album. “I couldn’t get away from the sense that people are feeling quite jaded. I think it’s a natural response to the way the world is right now. There’s obviously a much wider, societal aspect to that idea, but it also relates directly to the way I feel about releasing music nowadays. There are lots of highs and many beautiful, rewarding moments that come from it but the act of promoting and marketing an album can be incredibly demoralising at times. It’s a fact that the majority of people will have nothing but apathy for the creative thing you’ve spent years cultivating and that’s totally understandable but, you know, it can be tiring. I think apathy is a big reason people decide to stop making art. So the title is meant to be empowering. It’s about recognising the abundance of apathy in the world and trying to inure myself to it and get some kind of control and power over it.” 

While those feelings of weariness and even cynicism are noticeable in the lyrics of the songs, Adam says, “I hope there’s plenty of positivity and optimism to be found in there too. I wanted there to be lots of grey areas rather than binary emotions though. There’s also a lot of playfulness and provocation in the words. I don’t necessarily mean everything I sing.” 

The sense of bittersweet melancholia is also tied in with another key theme of the record: aging. The album opens with Berkeley Street, a twisting and turning collection of snatched memories from Adam’s time living in Glasgow in his 20s. He has since relocated to St Cyrus, an Aberdeenshire village on the north-east coast. “I was in Glasgow for a Celtic Connections gig in January 2025. It was unseasonably warm and I was wandering the streets around where I’d lived over a decade earlier. It all felt entirely familiar but I bumped into a guy I used to know and his hair had turned grey since I last saw him. Now, I’ve got nothing against grey hair of course, but it was a clear reminder of the pesky old passage of time.” 

The closing track is, appropriately enough, entitled Time and examines the idea of purpose. “It’s something I didn’t think about much until recently. I’m quite good at living in the moment but as I reach my mid-late 30s I’m much more prone to a bout of existential dread.”

Self-interrogation threads its way throughout the album. “Is this a midlife crisis or is it art?” asks Adam on Crisis while I Never Thought You Couldn’t Not asserts that the path to success is “littered with the bodies of the easily distracted and the self-aware.” 

However, despite the ennui, Adam is keen to state that he has no intention of giving up. “Songwriting is a form of therapy. It’s good to explore these feelings and get them out there. I feel much better for it and, on the whole, music-making is a joyful thing for me. I’ve still got plenty of optimism and I’m already pouring it into new songs. I’m really proud of this record. It’s my favourite thing I’ve ever made. I hope people like it. Bring on the apathy.”

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Pre-release praise for Bring On The Apathy:

"Masterful songwriting, memorable hooks and melodies at every turn, delicate arrangements and knowing and wise lyrics. A wonderful album. Highly recommended."  - Norman Blake (Teenage Fanclub) 

"Adam's music and songwriting comfortably inhabits the sweet spot between Edwyn Collins and The Beautiful South, and this album captures him in fine, fine form" - James Yorkston

"A clutch of literate and thoughtful new songs from Adam Ross, dressed in tasteful arrangements that revel in a rich chamber pop tradition. Adam’s lyrics are singular, raising eyebrows, smiles and spirits, usually in the same song." - Withered Hand

May 13: Broken Chanter at Paper Dress Vintage

Fika Recordings presents Broken Chanter + Sassyhiya + Emma Kupa

Broken Chanter is the stage name of Glaswegian songwriter David MacGregor, on tour in support of his latest album This Could be Us, You, Or Anybody Else.

Support comes from Sassyhiya and Emma Kupa.

His album, Chorus Of Doubt, (agit-pop with heart - 8/10 - UNCUT) was released by Chemikal Underground in April 2024 and was on the Longlist of 20 for the 2024 Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award.

Prior to this incendiary new gem of an LP, MacGregor has released two critically acclaimed albums as Broken Chanter - 2019's eponymous introduction to his new guise (A stunning, stately debut - The Skinny) and 2021's Catastrophe Hits (Muscular, fast-moving indie-pop – The Scotsman)

He spent 2007-2017 as the principal songwriter of Scottish Alt-Pop darlings Kid Canaveral - a band that could get you to dance, laugh, and weep all in the space of the same set. Their Debut LP Shouting at Wildlife was described by The Herald as “a Scottish pop classic that should be mandatory in every record collection in the country", and saw the band perform across a large chunk of the western hemisphere, with the similarly well-received follow-up Now That You Are a Dancer being Longlisted for the SAY Award in 2014.

Tickets from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings

£12 + bf (£7.50 no questions asked concessions).

Carla J Easton - I Think That I Might Love You [12”]

Artist: Carla J Easton
Title: I Think That I Might Love You
Format: 12” vinyl
Cat#: Fika119LP
Release date: 8th May 2026
Bandcamp
A split release alongside our friends in the USA, Ernest Jenning Recording Co.

Throughout the process of making her acclaimed documentary Since Yesterday: The Untold Story of Scotland's Girl Bands, women kept telling Carla J Easton how they bought a guitar, learnt three chords, and dived headfirst into making music. Having built her career around playing keys – through four solo albums, her band’s Teen Canteen and Poster Paints, and currently as part of The Vaselines live setup – she couldn’t shake this idea of following where so many of her heroes had led. 

That seed of an idea soon became the basis for I Think That I Might Love You, Carla’s fifth solo album – 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. 

The new album was inspired not only by her time making the Since Yesterday film, but also by her work within Hen Hoose, the Scottish songwriting collective that unites a diverse array of female and non-binary artists, writers and producers to create new work collaboratively. As such, I Think That I Might Love You includes a number of co-writes across its eleven new songs, including Simon Liddell (Frightened Rabbit, Poster Paints), Hen Hoose’s MALKA (Hen Hoose), Glasgow’s Man of the Minch, Canadian singer songwriter Brett Nelson, and cult hero Darren Hayman of Hefner. 

Recorded live off the floor at Glasgow’s legendary Chem 19 studio – and with just a single day’s rehearsal – I Think That I Might Love You is a spirited expression of communal energy; an old school approach to a bold new chapter, a vivid capturing of human performance.

It is also, both suitably and understandably, an album about friendship – a celebration of such things but also a reflection on what it means to lose them. Indeed, the album’s path began in a recording booth at Third Man Records in Nashville, Carla side by side with her friend and songwriting companion Brett Nelson. “We started writing about this idea of the red thread, the red string of fate,” Carla explains. “It’s the idea that you have more than one soulmate, platonic as well as romantic. You’re usually only going to meet people in your postcode, but with billions of people on the planet you've probably got soulmates all over the world. So if you find any kind of thread, that's something really important and you should pick it up and follow it.”

Lead single ‘Oh Yeah’ is also the album’s glowing opener, setting things off with a bucketload of warmth. Co-written with her Poster Paints bandmate Simon Liddell, it’s animated and full of spirit, the track wrapped-up within two-minutes, flying along in a heady rush of melodrama, all glowing melodies and a dizzying sense of adventure. 

Then there’s ‘Let’s Make Plans For The Weekend’ – a co-write with Pedro Cameron – which buzzes in an appropriately colourful style. A buoyant and sharp three-minute pop song, Carla’s voice is spirited and jubilant as the song bursts forward, characteristically infectious, an undercurrent of restless energy. While ‘Red Kites In the Sun’ is classic Scottish indie-pop. Something of a slow-build, it opens with jangly guitars front-and-centre, before the instrumentation shines and swells around her, the song opening up into a warm-hearted gem, the wistful strings adding a whole heap of romanticism that feels deeply charming. 

Elsewhere, ‘Really, Really, Really, Really Sad’, written with with Darren Hayman is swooning and decadent, a 60s tinged burst of heavy-hearted pop, while  ‘Pillars Crash Down’, written with Brett Nelson on a vintage 60s organ, feels like the moment the album’s many shades come together; the heavy-hearted nature of the album’s more withdrawn moments finding a balance with its exuberance, to showcase what feels like a bold new chapter in Carla’s ever-shifting story. 

“When you're co-writing you can find yourself working with genres or sounds that you don't normally do,” Carla says, reflecting on the process. “And that’s great, because I like to keep learning. At this stage, I'm not really trying to reinvent the wheel, I'm here to have fun.”

If that sounds somewhat flippant it’s not supposed to. Carla’s songwriting has changed and improved over the years, and that growth had led her to approach the new album with a whole new dose of confidence. I Think That I Might Love You thrives within that approach, swept up in glistening immediacy, paying no mind to over-thinking. “There’s a shared euphoria that comes from finishing a song you’ve been co-writing with someone,” Carla says. “That’s the feeling we were trying to capture here.”

It’s captured in songs that stirred from a similar place to those women mentioned above, the ones who picked up a guitar, taught themselves to play it, and dived headfirst into spaces they haven’t always been invited to. Those songs grew from long road-trips through the States, through shared voice-notes from her home to friends near and far, and finally on to the Glasgow studio where the whole album came so vibrantly to life. As such, I Think That I Might Love You is a record of communal heart and power. That’s the thread that was followed, and it’s what runs right through these songs from start to finish, binding them all together. Cherry-red and glowing with life. 

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About Carla J Easton

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’.

She is currently completing her 5th solo studio album, reuniting with Howard Bilerman to produce at Chem19, which has been supported by Creative Scotland.

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

Carla J Easton - Let's Make Plans for the Weekend [Digital]

Artist: Carla J Easton
Title: Let's Make Plans for the Weekend
Format: digital single
Cat#: Fika119SG3
Release date: 22nd April 2026
A split release with Ernest Jenning Recording Co.

With new album - and first guitar-forward record in her catalogue - I Think That I Might Love you due for release on 8 May, Carla J Easton is releasing the third taste of the album on 22 April. After the riffs and rushes of "Oh Yeah" and "Really, Really, Really, Really Sad", Carla is returning to her pop roots on the stunning dancefloor-ready "Let's Make Plans for the Weekend".

“Let’s Make Plans For The Weekend” is three minutes of disco-infused, classic pop euphoria. Built on a deep bass groove, shimmering synths and Chic-inspired guitars, it sits somewhere between the glossy bite of "Chewing Gum"-era Annie and the brat energy of countless 90s pop princesses.

Featuring guest vocals from MALKA (Hen Hoose), the track snaps to the beat with playful precision - all butterfly clips, glitter gel and playground mythology - capturing the kind of magnetic, larger-than-life energy you wanted to be part of. It’s a frosted lipstick kiss with smeared mascara: lights flashing, hands in the air, sticky floors, and the promise of escape when Friday finally hits.

Tongue firmly in cheek and glasses raised high, it’s a celebration of late nights, friendship, and the weekly ritual of letting go.

Carla says: “I love this song so much. I knew the album was leaning more guitar indie-pop, but I couldn’t not include this. Me and my friend Pedro Cameron (Man of the Minch) wrote and demoed it in two hours, we’re both massive fans of Kylie Minogue and Girls Aloud. We wanted to write something that celebrates friendship, dancing, and that feeling you chase every weekend after a hard week.”

Written and recorded together, the pair layered shimmering synths and added a burst of synth brass for a soaring, hands-in-the-air finale. As Carla puts it, “it’s the token synth-pop banger on the album, the guilty pleasure, the one that gets you dragging your friend onto the dancefloor.”

"Let's Make Plans for the Weekend" and I Think That I Might Love You are both produced by Howard Bilerman (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Wolf Parade, U.S. Girls, The Weather Station). The album was made with support from Creative Scotland.

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Praise for Carla J Easton:

"Shimmering jangle-pop" - We All Want Someone to Shout For

"With the velocity of a Buddy Holly classic...it jangles and jitters dextrously" - The List

"Axe in hand or not, her joyous pop instincts remain — and this one will burrow into your head." - SNACK Magazine

Airplay on Marc Riley, Amy Lamé (BBC 6 Music), The Arts Mix and Roddy Hart's Mix Tape (BBC Radio Scotland)

Adam Ross - I Never Thought You Couldn't Not [Digital]

Artist: Adam Ross
Title: Berkeley Street
Format: digital
Cat#: Fika117SG2
Release date: 14th April 2026
Bandcamp

Fika Recordings are pleased to present I Never Thought You Couldn’t Not, the second single from Adam Ross’s forthcoming third solo album, Bring On The Apathy.

The song is a sprightly folk-pop number led by harp, violin and crisp tape-recorded snare drum. Drawing on stylistic inspiration from the likes of The Beautiful South and Jonathan Richman the song finds Adam in a cutting mood and opens with the lines “You lack the charisma to be a cult leader but you’re knocking it out the park with your bad ideas”. The cynicism continues with lyrics like “We all know by now that none of us love people, we all know we only love ideas” and “the path to the summit is littered with the bodies of the easily distracted and the self-aware”.

As Adam explains “There’s definitely a sort of jaded edge to the lyrics on this album, but I tried to enjoy it and have some fun with that feeling. Obviously ‘Bring On The Apathy’ is quite a jaded title so I guess people will have fair warning! With this song, I didn’t want to be too direct or literal with the lyrics but the inspiration came from a feeling of alienation in the modern world. With online culture, ideas and emotions and messages can feel really one-dimensional and shallow. I guess it’s the curse of short-form content - everything has to be dumbed down and squeezed into a 90-second clip or less. Everything is presented in such a surefire way, with such certainty and confidence which can feel quite alienating for people who struggle with those two things. I was trying to respond to that feeling and maybe parody it slightly.”

As the song progresses, the lyrics continue to tumble out, presenting Adam’s particular brand of scattergun philosophy, all neatly tied up with the double-negative of the song’s title. “My songwriting process relies heavily on having an ever-evolving notes document on my phone with song ideas, snippets of lyrics, rhyming couplets and lines that I like the sound of. This song was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle of delving into the document and arranging different lines until it felt right”.

The music was recorded onto tape, using traditional analogue techniques with audio engineer and tape-recording specialist Samuel J. Smith. In an increasingly digital musical world, Adam was seeking a more organic and human experience when making this new record. The finished album, Bring On The Apathy, showcases some of the most emotionally open, lyrically deft and characterful songwriting so far from one of Scotland’s most accomplished writers. The vintage recording approach brings a warmth and intimacy to a record which is in equal parts raw and organic while also beautifully arranged and performed as Adam is joined by a raft of excellent collaborators.

The core band consists of Owen Curtis-Williams on drums, Cameron Maxwell on bass, Pedro Cameron on violin, Gillian Fleetwood on harp and (long-time collaborator with Randolph’s Leap) Pete MacDonald on piano. Mercury Prize nominated artist C Duncan was drafted in to write and perform backing vocal arrangements along with Amanda Nizich and Gillian Fleetwood.

“I love these musicians. It’s the kind of record where you can listen multiple times and focus on a different instrument each time. Each player is doing something inventive and beautiful without ever overshadowing what the song is trying to convey.”

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March 31: The Leaf Library at The Ivy House

The Leaf Library launch their 4th studio album After The Rain, Strange Seeds at The Ivy House.
Support from Lila Tristram.

Tickets from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings

The Leaf Library are a north London band playing melodic dream-like music built on layers of chiming guitars, pulsing electronics, noise and looping drones. They have released three studio albums (Daylight Versions, About Minerals and The World Is A Bell), a collaborative LP with Japanese artist Teruyuki Kurihara (Melody Tomb), a recent double LP of rarities and compilation tracks (Library Music: Volume One) and a four track EP for Castles In Space.

The band formed in the mid 2000s around singer Kate Gibson and ex-Saloon guitarist Matt Ashton and has settled into the core line up that includes drummer Lewis Young and bassist Gareth Jones.

On their studio albums the band have collaborated with musicians as diverse as Alasdair MacLean of The Clientele, singer Ed Dowie, noise group Far Rainbow and string collective Iskra Strings, and have provided music for a number of exhibitions, films and performances. Over the last few years they have released five Monument CDRs; an on-going series of experimental solo and side projects on their Objects Forever imprint (which also features releases by Michael Tanner, Melinda Bronstein and anrimeal, amongst others).

In their live shows the carefully constructed and occasionally delicate sound world of their albums is replaced by a sometimes noisier and more intense experience, helped by the addition of an ever-evolving collective of musicians including guitarist Mike Cranny (of fellow drone pop travellers Firestations) and keyboardist Irina Shtreis.

Associated Leaf Library bands include Beneather, Boa Resa and Molch (drummer Lewis Young), Mirrored Daughters (Lewis and guitarist Matt Ashton, plus Marlody and Mike Firestations), The Form Group (guitarist Matt), Sea Glass (guitarist Matt again, Melinda Bronstein and Mike Firestations again), The Nameless Book (guitarist SJ Nelson), Sun Drawing (Matt again), Wintergreen (bassist Gareth Jones), and Basic Design (Matt again).

The Leaf Library - After The Rain, Strange Seeds [12"/CD]

Artist: The Leaf Library
Title: After The Rain, Strange Seeds
Format: 12" album on yellow vinyl | CD in digifile sleeve
Cat#: Fika114LP | Fika114CD
Release date: 20th March 2026
Bandcamp

London quartet The Leaf Library return with their brand new album After The Rain, Strange Seeds (out on 20 March via Fika), a luminous collection of pastoral indiepop, drawing inspiration from suburban isolation, unreliable memories and the surreality of the weather. Their most immediate and melodic work to date, the richly evocative songs brim with chiming guitars, buzzing organs and warm, dulcet strings, evoking Yo La Tengo’s more contemplative moments, The Clientele’s autumnal jangle pop and early Stereolab’s motorik melodicism. The sound of the album is defined by mixer John McEntire, whose work with Stereolab and Yo La Tengo (as well as a member of Tortoise and The Sea And Cake) have been major inspirations to the band.

The album explores themes of memory and place, albeit through an abstract haze – returning again and again to specific moments frozen in time: midsummer bright hot days in the Chilterns (“Sun In My Room”), meteorology and the strange movement of the weather (“Colour Chant”), red kites circling over suburban motorways (“Some Circling”), and the uncanny feeling of dusk and nighttime creatures on “The Reader’s Lamp” (titled by celebrated film director Peter Strickland). The lyrics are vivid yet elliptical, strung with abstract ideas and imagery, conjuring a gently unsettling, though never unwelcoming atmosphere. Not quite trusting your own recollection of things, while marvelling at the oddness of the natural world, the album’s title is a good summation of the mix of strangeness and hope contained within.

As on past albums the band - founded by singer Kate Gibson and ex-Saloon guitarist Matt Ashton in the mid 2000s, and now completed by drummer Lewis Young and bassist Gareth Jones - have involved their extended musical family, including guitarist Mike Cranny (of fellow drone pop travellers Firestations) a member of the Leaf Library live band. The album also sees the return of James Underwood’s Iskra Strings, a quartet that features on four tracks, with sumptuous arrangements by Daniel Fordham, as well as regular contributor Melinda Bronstein on vocals and Will Twynham (Dimorphodons) on harpsichord. They also welcomed Paddy Milner (on Hammond organ) and Scott McKeon (guitar) – both current members of Tom Jones’ band – for a startlingly delicate rolling crescendo to closing track “There Was Always A Golden Age”.

After The Rain, Strange Seeds is the fourth studio album from The Leaf Library, which follows Daylight Versions (2015), The World Is A Bell (2019), About Minerals (2020) and a collaborative LP on Mille Plateaux with Japanese artist Teruyuki Kurihara (Melody Tomb), a double LP of rarities and compilation tracks (Library Music: Volume One - 2022) and a four track EP for electronic label Castles In Space. Band members have been involved with a plethora of solo projects, side-projects and collaborations, most recently Matt, Lewis, Mike from Firestations and singer Marlody in Mirrored Daughters.

Recorded across multiple studios between April 2022 and August 2023, After The Rain, Strange Seeds sees The Leaf Library challenging themselves with more traditional songwriting and more structured compositions (more chords and more choruses!) rather than just relying on sounds or textures. The result is The Leaf Library’s most accomplished and affecting work, John McEntire’s mix bringing a bold clarity to the band’s meticulous arrangements – closer to how they sound live than anything they’ve done before, and a culmination of where they’ve been heading over the years. With After The Rain, Strange Seeds they have created an album that is bright and transcendent yet blissfully intimate.

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About The Leaf Library

The Leaf Library are a north London band playing melodic dream-like music built on layers of chiming guitars, pulsing electronics, noise and looping drones. They have released three studio albums (Daylight Versions, About Minerals and The World Is A Bell), a collaborative LP with Japanese artist Teruyuki Kurihara (Melody Tomb), a recent double LP of rarities and compilation tracks (Library Music: Volume One) and a four track EP for Castles In Space.

The band formed in the mid 2000s around singer Kate Gibson and ex-Saloon guitarist Matt Ashton and has settled into the core line up that includes drummer Lewis Young and bassist Gareth Jones.

On their studio albums the band have collaborated with musicians as diverse as Alasdair MacLean of The Clientele, singer Ed Dowie, noise group Far Rainbow and string collective Iskra Strings, and have provided music for a number of exhibitions, films and performances. Over the last few years they have released five Monument CDRs; an on-going series of experimental solo and side projects on their Objects Forever imprint (which also features releases by Michael Tanner, Melinda Bronstein and anrimeal, amongst others).

In their live shows the carefully constructed and occasionally delicate sound world of their albums is replaced by a sometimes noisier and more intense experience, helped by the addition of an ever-evolving collective of musicians including guitarist Mike Cranny (of fellow drone pop travellers Firestations) and keyboardist Irina Shtreis.

Associated Leaf Library bands include Beneather, Boa Resa and Molch (drummer Lewis Young), Mirrored Daughters (Lewis and guitarist Matt Ashton, plus Marlody and Mike Firestations), The Form Group (guitarist Matt), Sea Glass (guitarist Matt again, Melinda Bronstein and Mike Firestations again), The Nameless Book (guitarist SJ Nelson), Sun Drawing (Matt again), Wintergreen (bassist Gareth Jones), and Basic Design (Matt again).

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Reviews for After The Rain, Strange Seeds:

“locates the avant-pop sweet spot” ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Mojo
“Experimental Londoners hone sprawl into melodic brightness” [9/10] Uncut
”There is an eerie majesty threaded through this record that trickles through, burrows under the skin and then keeps going.” The Quietus
“a pure and unashamed blast of drone-pop heaven” Moonbuilding
“full of droney, dreamy indie rock” Brooklyn Vegan
“Taken together, it's a set that, like much of Stereolab's output, welcomes the art-school kids, stoners, and indie pop sentimentalists alike” All Music
“beautifully crafted and light” Is This Music
“a potent piece of pop music that brings to mind both Teenage Fanclub and Admiral Fallow” Spectral Nights
“An achingly opulent release” GigSlutz

Press Quotes:

“World-weary yet innocent, blissful dreampop” – Uncut

“A sensory deprivation tank of experimental sometimes-pop” – Concrete Islands

“Like experiencing The Clientele’s ghostly pastoral elegies warped through the drone melodies of Stereolab" – PopLib

"A melancholy wonder" – The Guardian

"Fascinating, bold and experimental drone-pop" – Louder Than War

“Music for a rainy Tuesday afternoon of the soul” – Pete Paphides

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Carla J Easton - Really, Really, Really, Really Sad [Cassette]

Artist: Carla J Easton
Title: Really, Really, Really, Really Sad
Format: Limited edition cassingle
Cat#: Fika119CS1
Release date: 18th March 2026
Exclusive b-side: Romance Is Dead

Following her 2023 album SUGAR HONEY, Scottish songwriter, producer and now filmmaker Carla J Easton (Teen Canteen, Poster Paints, The Vaselines) made an award-winning documentary called Since Yesterday, about the history of pioneering Scottish girl groups. Their stories inspired Easton to take a new approach to her fifth album I Think That I Might Love You. She picked up the guitar and learned it for the first time, pushing her keyboard sound to the fringes on an album that's a celebration of guitar-led music - pop, indie and power.

First single "Oh Yeah" was released last month and Carla is following that up with "Really, Really, Really, Really Sad" - a song co-written with indie legend Darren Hayman (Hefner). It's out 18 March.

"This one sounds far happier than the title suggests," explains Carla. "I love songs that sound happier than they actually are."

"Really, Really, Really, Really Sad" is built like a power-pop sugar rush of big hooks, bouncing rhythms, and blistering guitars, but the lyric is basically the emotional equivalent of shrugging your shoulders after someone lets you down.

"I wrote it with Darren Hayman [of Hefner], who I first met years ago when I supported him. We reconnected later and started swapping voice notes with melodies and half-formed ideas. Darren is one of those writers who makes songwriting feel easy, playful, quick, and instinctive. This one arrived fast; it’s not melodrama. It’s not devastation. It’s just really, really, really, really sad."

"Really, Really, Really, Really Sad" and I Think That I Might Love You are both produced by Howard Bilerman (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Wolf Parade,U.S. Girls, The Weather Station). The album was made with support from Creative Scotland. 

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About Carla J Easton

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’.

She is currently completing her 5th solo studio album, reuniting with Howard Bilerman to produce at Chem19, which has been supported by Creative Scotland.

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