Winter Sprinter 2019: Withered Hand + Catenary Wires + Mikey Collins

It’s the final of our 4 night stint at The Lexington, and we’re sending you off in to the weekend in style with Withered Hand, CatenaryWires and Mikey Collins!

Advance tickets are on sale now from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings for £11. The Winter Sprinter runs from Jan 8-11th 2019.

Withered Hand is the songwriting output of Dan Willson. A cult figure in the Scottish music scene since 2009, Dan has released two widely acclaimed albums, New Gods (2014) and Good News (2009) and several lo-fi EPs. Currently working towards his third full length album, Withered Hand continues to tour and play one-off dates in venues from concert halls to living rooms.

The Catenary Wires are Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey. Amelia and Rob are best known for making fuzzy, sixties girl-group inspired indie-pop in their previous bands Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, Marine Research and Tender Trap.

 With the Catenary Wires, they have created something different; gentler and more acoustic, emotive and melancholy, although still fuelled by their great love for pop melodies and harmonies.

Mikey Collins found fame and cult acclaim as the drummer in indiepop behemoths Allo Darlin’. By the time the much loved band parted ways in 2016, Mikey was already hard at work in his Big Jelly Studios in Ramsgate, working on the songs that would go on to become his debut album.

Recently released on Fika Recordings, Mikey’s record, Hoick, is largely inspired by his relocation from London to the Kent coast; ruminations on living by the sea and building a new community in a new town. Musically, it keeps the pop-tinged heart of his old band, and, through the addition of disco rhythms and RnB grooves, moves his sound into intriguing new directions. Live he’s backed by a crack team of musical heroes who bring his intricate musical ideas to life.

Winter Sprinter 2019: Haiku Salut + Gwenifer Raymond + Joss Cope

We’re delighted to be able to unveil the line up for the third night of the Winter Sprinter as Haiku Salut, Gwenifer Raymond and Joss Cope. It’s all happening at The Lexington on Thurs 10th of January.

Advance tickets are on sale now from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings for £11. The Winter Sprinter runs from Jan 8-11th 2019.

Haiku Salut are an instrumental dream-pop-post-folk-neo-everything trio from the Derbyshire Dales. The group consists of multi-instrumentalists Gemma Barkerwood, Sophie Barkerwood, and Louise Croft. Between them, Haiku Salut play accordion, piano, glockenspiel, trumpet, guitar, ukulele, drums, and melodica. Their music also features electronic elements, which they refer to as “loopery and laptopery”.

Gwenifer Raymond is a Welsh multi-instrumentalist, originally from Cardiff but now residing in Brighton, England. Gwenifer began playing guitar at the age of eight shortly after having been first exposed to punk and grunge. After years of playing around the Welsh valleys in various punk outfits she began listening more to pre-war blues musicians as well as Appalachian folk players, eventually leading into the guitar players of the American Primitive genre. She has since been playing her own moody and often-times manic original American Primitive styled compositions on guitar and banjo around the UK and the US.

Joss Cope is a Midlands born musician with a pedigree stretching back to the Liverpool post punk scene and early Creation Records. He's worked with his elder brother Julian, made videos, campaigned for Greenpeace, and played guitar and bass for a number of bands in recent years before teaming up with some top Helsinki musicians to make this debut solo record. 

Winter Sprinter 2019: Flowers + Firestations + Deerful

We’re chuffed to be able to unveil the line up for the second night of the Winter Sprinter as Flowers, Firestations and Deerful. It’s all happening at The Lexington on Wed 8th of January.

Advance tickets are on sale now from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings for £11. The Winter Sprinter runs from Jan8-11th 2019.

There’s something great about a three-piece—think The Cocteau Twins, The Clean, Galaxie 500—and the way that irreducible nucleus takes its strength from its limitations, making a virtue of its purity. Flowers singer Rachel Kenedy's ethereal vocals and Sam Ayres textured guitar is backed by the powerful, metronomic beat of drummer Jordan Hockley. Effortlessly blending pop songs with noise while leaving space for more stripped back elements, the recordings strike a perfect balance between the sweetness of Kenedy’s voice and Ayres’ abrasive guitar stylings. Their musical inspiration from shoegaze, C86 and New Zealand’s Flying Nun label is now evident.

Firestations are Mike Cranny, Laura Copsey, Martin Thompson, Giles Littleford and Tom Hargreaves. They write lyrical alt-pop songs filtered through joyous surges of collective noise-making and bursts of electronic sound from synths and guitars.  They released their acclaimed debut album Never Closer at the end of 2014.  After much gigging to support it, including festival appearances at Indietracks, Aaaahfest in Germany and Indiefjord in Norway, they hunkered down to record a follow-up. On The Year Dot, Firestations have refined and expanded on their shared obsession – sketching simple pop songs then painting over them with drones, vocal harmonies, electronica and unusual rhythms.

Much as The Year Dot is a true DIY effort in its creation – made over the best part of three years in a small home studio in Walthamstow, the north circular hissing in the near distance – it’s by no means a lo-fi album. “We spent a lot of time obsessing over making it a really absorbing listen” says Mike, “it’s a distillation of dreaming away the days on the outskirts, flickering between dead-end admin jobs, depression, writing lyrics on my phone, running through local woods, recording drums in industrial units, periods of hopelessness and moments of joy.”

Deerful is Emma Winston, a musician based in London, UK. She writes lush, sad electropop about feelings on synthesisers small enough to use on the bus and in tiny live-coding environments, and exists in a perpetual state of being far too excited about making things. Her musical influences include the Postal Service, The Magnetic Fields, Kero Kero Bonito, Emmy the Great, CHVRCHES, Owen Pallett, Grimes, and the DuckTales for Game Boy soundtrack.

Winter Sprinter 2019: Suggested Friends, Peaness and Whoa Melodic

We kick off the Winter Sprinter on Tuesday 8th January at The Lexington, in London, with Suggested Friends, Peaness and Whoa Melodic.

Advance tickets are on sale now from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings for £7.50.

Suggested Friends Bandcamp tells us they make “bittersweet dad rock for you and your mates”, which is hilarious but, obviously, the London quartet are a lot more than that. They make effervescent and melancholic pop rock songs, with catchy-as-anything hooks and frenetic choruses. Faith from the band probably puts it best: “We are a jangle punk-ish pop group based in London, singing songs about regret, aspiration, and microaggressions. We’re all about the catchy choruses and OTT guitar solos.”

They also have a song with perhaps the best title ever, “I Can’t Roll My Eyes That Far Back”, a tongue in cheek critique of elitist music scenes. They’ve been gigging all over the UK in the illustrious company of the likes of UK DIY bands including KEEL HER, Trust Fund and Spook School. Their self-titled debut album is brilliant and their second LP is in the works for 2019.

Formed in Chester, England in late 2014, three piece indie-pop band Peaness are the kind of instantly likeable, warm and creative people that can get away with having radio DJ’s blush like a peach every time they have to say the band’s name on the airwaves. Lucky really, as it’s a phenomenon that’s becoming increasingly more common with spins racking up at BBC Radio One, BBC6 Music, Radio X and more as this burgeoning bunch of friends grow quickly into the big shoes that the early press-hype has set out for them to fill.

Whoa Melodic is Michael Wood, whom usually shares his multi-instrumentalist talents with various bands including Singing Adams/Steven Adams & The French Drops and The Hayman Kupa Band (with Darren Hayman of Hefner and Emma Kupa of Standard Fare/Mammoth Penguins).

With an unnatural obsession with Paul McCartney, Whoa Melodic also has echoes of Teenage Fanclub, Squeeze, World Party and Elliott Smith. Melody is key yet his lyrics tend reflect what is going on in his life. Nostalgic, tune drenched and reassuring.

Flowers play Winter Sprinter 2019

We’re delighted to announce our Wednesday headliner for The 2019 Winter Sprinter as Flowers! It’s their first headline show in far too long; they’ll be joining Haiku Salut (Thursday) and Withered Hand (Friday) as our other announced headliners. Details of Tuesday’s show to be unveiled shortly….

“This is our one and only headline show in a long time, so we're planning a suitably long (and hopefully quite good) set of our all-time favourite songs right from our very first demos to some brand new ones!” Rachel, Flowers

There’s something great about a three-piece—think The Cocteau Twins, The Clean, Galaxie 500—and the way that irreducible nucleus takes its strength from its limitations, making a virtue of its purity. Singer Rachel Kenedy's ethereal vocals and Sam Ayres textured guitar is backed by the powerful, metronomic beat of drummer Jordan Hockley.

Effortlessly blending pop songs with noise while leaving space for more stripped back elements, the recordings strike a perfect balance between the sweetness of Kenedy’s voice and Ayres’ abrasive guitar stylings. Their musical inspiration from shoegaze, C86 and New Zealand’s Flying Nun label is now evident.

Advance 4 day passes and individual day tickets are now available from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings.

The Winter Sprinter runs from the 8th - 11th January 2019 at The Lexington, London.

Winter Sprinter 2019

Fika Recordings, Wiaiwya and Gare du Nord proudly present the return of annual Winter Sprinter!

Four nights, three labels, twelve bands, DJs… the perfect antidote to the post-Christmas blues in the intimate surroundings of The Lexington, from January 8th-11th.

Our first two headliners are Haiku Salut and Withered Hand, playing Thursday 10th and Friday 11th respectively.

Haiku Salut are an instrumental dream-pop-post-folk-neo-everything trio from the Derbyshire Dales. The group consists of multi-instrumentalists Gemma Barkerwood, Sophie Barkerwood, and Louise Croft. Between them, Haiku Salut play accordion, piano, glockenspiel, trumpet, guitar, ukulele, drums, and melodica. Their music also features electronic elements, which they refer to as “loopery and laptopery”.

Withered Hand is the songwriting output of Dan Willson. A cult figure in the Scottish music scene since 2009, Dan has released two widely acclaimed albums, New Gods (2014) and Good News (2009) and several lo-fi EPs. Currently working towards his third full length album, Withered Hand continues to tour and play one-off dates in venues from concert halls to living rooms.

We’ll be announcing the other two headliners and details of the rest of the line up shortly. In the meantime, you can buy super-early bird 4 day passes for the bargain price of £32, or individual tickets for Thursday or Friday for £11 each from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings.