A DIY INDIEPOP VINYL & CASSETTE LABEL

Apr 8: Bill Botting & The Two Drink Minimums + Common or Garden + jay cavalier at The Waiting Room

You’ll know Bill Botting as one half of Moustache Of Insanity, a quarter of Allo Darlin’ and a whole lot of awesomeness. He's back in the UK briefly for what'll be a very special show!

Support comes from Common or Garden. A step forward from her previous acoustic based & ukulele lead outfit Owl & Mouse, London located Common or Garden is self described as ‘scrappy’ synth pop - self produced and more experimental than her previous outfit. The core of her songwriting charm remains: vociferously personal stories, resonating harmonies and layers of vocals to lose yourself in.

Opening the night is Jay Cavalier and The Band, a mysterious bedroom-stadium rock group from England. They have one song on the Internet (as of April 4th) and so far only one confirmed member had been sighted. He hopes that more of his band will join him soon.

Join us at The Waiting Room on the 8th of April.

Tickets from wegottickets.com/event/653644/

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.”

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.

New Starts + Carla J Easton at The Lexington

Tuesday 10th September
The Lexington
Tickets from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings

New Starts 2200:2300
Carla J Easton 2100-2145
tba 2015-2045
Doors 1930

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.”

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’ will be released 20th October via Olive Grove Records and features the singles ‘One Week’, ‘Blooming 4U’ and the album title track ‘Sugar Honey’.

Stanley Brinks and Freschard at SJQ

Sunday 21st July at SJQ (Servant Jazz Quarters), Bradbury Street, Dalston, N16 8JN.

Fika Recordings presents Stanley Brinks and Freschard

Doors open 1930
Music from 2000 - 2200

Tickets £15 + bf from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings.
Some £8 concessions are available for those on no- or low-incomes (no questions asked).

Stanley Brinks is renowned for his unique anti-folk style: both playful and suggestive, insightful and entertaining. Brinks was born in Paris, France, in 1973. He studied a bit of biology and worked as a nurse for a while. Half Swedish, half Moroccan, strongly inclined to travel the world, he soon began spending most of his life on the road and developed a strong relationship with New York. 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. 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 more than 100 albums, collaborated with the New York Antifolk scene on several 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. For this year’s “Boom Biddy Boom” she also plays the washboard.

 

Sun 15th March: Jeanines + Breakup Haircut + Athabaska

Fika Recordings presents a free show at The Shacklewell Arms!
Tickets from Dice.

Jeanines
Brooklyn's Jeanines specialize in ultra-short bursts of energetic but melancholy minor-key pop. With influences that run deep into the most crucial tributaries of DIY pop — Messthethics, the Television Personalities, Marine Girls, early Pastels, Dolly Mixture — they've crafted a style that is as individual as it is just plain pleasurable. Alicia Jeanine's pure, unaffected voice muses wistfully on the illusions of time, while My Teenage Stride/Mick Trouble mastermind Jed Smith's frantic Motown-esque drumming and inventive bass playing provide a thrilling rhythmic foundation.
 
 Breakup Haircut
This ragtag team came together from across the wilds of London to play their own brand of spooky confessional punk. With heart, power, and oh so many feelings, they hope to one day  master playing really, really fast.
 Breakup Haircut formed for First Timers 2019, and have since been described as 'instantly charming', 'a mix of nihilism and slapstick guaranteed to put a smile on your face', and 'a pop punk version of the Scooby Doo gang'. 
 Defined by fierce basslines, humorously relatable lyrics, and a vehement determination not to recycle the same three punk drumbeats, they've been making pals, taking names, and solving mysteries left, right, and centre.
 
Athabaska
Athabaska are Roxy Brennan, Faith Taylor, Jacob Wills, and Mike Boyle. The band formed in January 2019 to bring together folk, indie and heartland rock. The seeds of the project were planted in 2009 when Jacob and Faith began playing together as students – over the years they played and sang together on a variety of stages, markets, bookshops and living room floors. After spending three years playing in the indie DIY scene, Faith began importing some of these sounds into the project, and what became Athabaska expanded to include Roxy and Mike. 

Rough timings:
1930 doors open
2000 Athabaska
2050 Breakup Haircut
2140 Jeanines
and a nice early finish for a Sunday night!

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