Fika009: Red Shoe Diaries

4

11th July 2011. This is the day we cease to be a cassette only label and venture into the wonderful world of vinyl records! Our first foray with wax is coming from Nottingham's Red Shoe Diaries.

When I Find My Heart... will be a 10" EP of the songs they've been teasing audiences with for the past few months. Fists have rightly described them as "the most exciting glittery-literary indie pop band to come from the city since Tindersticks". Other reference points? Well, there's a bit of Will Oldham's alt-folkyness in there we reckon, along with something that brings to mind Stephen Merritt or Jens Lekman. More than anything, these are just 5 beautiful tracks that we're excited to be able to release. As with our other releases, expect something beautifully made and including the usual tea and cake shenanigans; there'll be just 300 of these records made.

We'll have the 5 tracks available to stream and pre-order shortly, along with details of a special launch gig in London in July.

In case you can't wait, you can download their first EP for free for a limited time.

Books

Almost there!

We're just about getting everything together for our next cassette releases from Slottet, this web Amida, Petter Seander and Ed Greene. They're looking and sounding rather good! Amida have just got back from New York Popfest, where their track "Virtue Was Your Downfall" was filmed, to be played in the back of NYC's taxi cabs! Go watch it here! Tasty Fanzine have given their EP 8/10, and Music Dash describe them as "charming, poetic, partly American and as previously quoted, somewhat ahead of their time".

Swedesplease have written lovingly about the Ed Greene EP we'll be bringing to you in July, while Higher Power Moment, quite a moving blog about music and addiction, described them as "charming, gentle and witty".

You should definitely check out the live video for Petter Seander's Easy Hearts Crack - it is a beautiful, mellow version of the uptempo electro song on his Destroyer EP. Got to admit, I don't totally get Let The Cat Out's description of it as "if Outkast and The Postal Service met at a Passion Pit party", but it is a cracker.

Slottet's EP pleases Swedesplease too, affectionately saying these songs are "the closest to a Postal Service outtake you'll find". We're still trying to persuade these guys to get over to the UK to play a gig for us... while the first three will be playing a date towards the end of June - a release party! There'll no doubt be cake again, bunting and general fun times!

Remember you can pre-order all these cassettes through the website - just click on the artwork to stream and buy!

Ed Greene - A Place To Call Home

Blimey, these releases are coming thick and fast. Our eighth cassette release will be from Ed Greene, a 5 piece alt-country band from Sweden. I stumbled upon them through the wilds of the internet and fell in love with the second track on this Fika EP, Love (She Tells Me There's A God Above). These four tracks are all beautiful: from the delicious country drawl on the melodies of the title track and all that optimistic bitterness that I love about "country", to the lush sound of What We Never Were We Will Never Be. And have listened to these tracks extensively over the past few months, Simon Edgreene's voice still has the power to send shivers down my spine. This may not be our most "indiepop" release, but I'm sure you're going to enjoy it...

Pre-order and listen here.

Petter Seander - Destroyer

DESTROYER

If you haven't heard of Petter Seander, you are 1. not interested in swedish pop music or 2. not very observant. While touring with swedish pop stars, DJing at cool clubs, fronting countryish popbands (I haven't stopped listening to this song for three years! It's also my favourite video ever) and writing for hipster magazines, he also managed to produce a solo album last year. It involved recording vocals in someone elses wardrobes and dressing up like a bird in a museum. You should listen to it, it's brilliant.

Anyway. This post is not about the past. It's about the future!

Petter moved from Gothenburg to Stockholm and picked up a drum machine somewhere on the way. While (most presumably) eating hazelnut cookies in his countryside cottage in his new hometown, he created this lovely little EP for us (and for you!). It doesn't involve dressing up like a bird unfortunately, but it involves elderflower tea and dancing with a destroyed heart. Dressed up like anything you'd like.

Pre-order and listen here. You get the cassette when I've folded the sleeves properly.

Slottet - Servants

Slottet Servants

Our releases are coming thick and fast now, with the 6th cassette from Fika Recordings released shortly... which will be a new EP from Sweden's Slottet, called Servants.

Swedesplease have been exceptionally quick off the mark in spotting this release... here's what they had to say

If everybody could pull off the sound made famous by The Postal Service we would have a lot more pretenders like Owl City. But I guess it’s more difficult than it seems to combine easy beats with soft synths and chilled out vocals. So when I say that Slottet recreates that sound I mean it as at least a back handed compliment. “I Know” and “Agnostics Nightmare” are the closest things to Postal Service outtakes as you’re likely to find. As a fan of that band and that sound I really like these two.

You can pre-order and listen to Servants here. Pre-orders will be shipped in May when the EP is released, and you'll get the a digital download of the tracks straightaway. Go!

Fika005: Amida

img037

Our next cassette release, Fika005, more about will be from Manchester's indiepop gems Amida. The Spite House Plot is due sometime in May. We'll be previewing tracks from the EP on the website shortly, where you'll be able to pre-order the cassette and get the download immediately for your listening pleasure.

Side A Mid Week Debauchery A Month Of Sundays Black Balloons

Side B Oleander Box Office Poison Victor Spoils

Reviews

Lisa Bouvier "On “Hans indievärld” you can hear references to Shout Out Louds, My Darling You, Mixtapes Are Cellmates, Firefox AK, Those Dancing Days, and many more. The soaring trumpets and coy female vocals make this an almost perfect slice of indie pop." Swedesplease.net

Lost Summer Kitten

"I can't tell if the pitch on this is a bit wired because of the duplication process or if it is supposed to sound so wonky, regardless I like the ultra low fidelity of this. These guys/ladies have somewhat of an infectious bittersweet and melancholy pop sound which I find rather endearing. Handmade cassette to be listened to while eating cake (recipe supplied) and drinking tea (teabag also supplied). Come with digital download to... Ah bless them, they've thought of everything." Norman Records

Horowitz

"The three songs on 'The Knitwear Generation' are joyous. The title track is the best song I've ever heard about cardigans, but can we just skip onto 'Summer Promised Me Too Much', please? Because it's probably the best, most affecting song Horowitz have ever written. Lying somewhere between the heartbreak of Brighter and the sonic beauty of early Ride or Pale Saints, it's the sort of song that you'll play ten times in a row without realising it. And just when you think it's dying away, it takes off spectacularly again, before leaving you hanging onto a shimmering chord. I'm just about to play it again. Oh, yeah, and 'Play Me Your Song' is pretty good, too. A straight down the line pop romp, with some Pavement-y bits thrown in for good measure." A Layer Of Chips

Moustache Of Insanity

"This is part of a series of tape releases from Fika records that all come with a Christmas tea bag, a cake recipe, a pin badge and a free download. As you can imagine it's as cute as it sounds and oozes power nerd indie pop cool. Moustache Of Insanity have entered my radar before and i think they are a very charming entity. They mix classic strum-a-long indie pop cuteness with odd synth noodlings and cut up bits of found audio all performed on cheap (and most likely broken) casio's. Their recording quality could be improved (this tape is a double quiet affair) but it doesn't effect the overall enjoyment of the songs, in fact it enhances the twee appeal ten-fold. Like Television Personalities playing at the end of a long tunnel." Norman Records

Buying our releases

There's all sorts of places you can buy our releases at the moment. Let us know if you'd like to stock our cassettes or are struggling to locate them in a shop near you. And you can still buy our releases direct from us, just click on the album artwork to purchase via paypal. Plus, if you're looking to get your hands on a copy of Moustache Of Insanity's Moustache Dammit!!! EP, be quick, there's only SEVEN copies left!

Norman Records

Rough Trade East

Pebble Records

Horowitz - The Knitwear Generation

Artist: Horowitz
Title: The Knitwear Generation EP
Format: handmade cassette tape
Cat#: Fika085LP | Fika085CD
Release date: 26th February 2021
Bandcamp

Horowitz and cassettes have a long history. Back in the early 2000s, Pete was a member of Trilemma, a self-professed “glo-fi” outfit headed up by Rob Jones (Venus Beads/Exit Condition). Most of the Trilemma stuff, including their amazing Crowded Wilderness 7” EP on Kitchen Records, was recorded on a Tascam 8-track cassette machine.

Horowitz Cassettes

At the time, I was playing in a punky new wave band called The Mittens. The Stoke indie scene was and still is microscopic, so it was inevitable we’d get together at some point and start making music. Who else in Stoke understood D.I.Y aesthetics? Only the handful of souls who came along to the one decent night the city had to offer back then – John Owen’s Music Room. At the Talbot Hotel, we saw glitch electronica followed by math-rock, psychedelic pop (Of Montreal before they became Prince-aping sex monkeys were particularly good), jazz, grindcore – the lot. All the bands and artists were united by the common thread of D.I.Y. Amongst the multitude of records bands would be selling, I remember a fair number of cassettes on the merch table. Including my own. Influenced first by Trilemma and then the heady days of the Music Room, I started bashing out as many songs as I could on a 4-track cassette recorder. These were then dubbed onto more cassettes and distributed to whoever would listen.

Fast-forward to 2004 and the first Horowitz EP. 30 cassette copies. We just couldn’t let it lie. I wonder if anyone still has one? If you do, let us know! Anyway, we hope you enjoy this record as much as we enjoyed making it. A lot of love has gone into the Fika recordings project – a passion that mirrors our own love for cassettes – and we think it shows. Tack Tom & Lisa!

The Knitwear Generation

Fittingly, this song was on the first cassette album I ever put together back in (I think) 2002. The lyric probably sounds a bit twee, but I’m sure if you’re able to make out what I’m going on about underneath all the fuzz, you’ll see the humour! I love the chugging rhythm we managed to achieve using a drum preset on a Casio keyboard and some shaker and tambourine overdubs. Crunchy!

Summer Promised Me Too Much

Another old song from the cassette years (see what we’ve done here?) with one or two different words and guitar parts. I’m really proud of this. We were going for a Thames Valley vibe, specifically early Ride. We’ve never used an echo pedal on a Horowitz record but I think it works well, particularly at the end of the song when it really takes off. You might hear more of this sort of thing from us in future.

Play Me Your Song

A little pop song. Couldn’t resist doing some Malkmus guitar bits in the verses (all improvised on the spot, btw.) Went for a snotty vocal delivery and I’m glad – I think it fits well in the noisy chorus. Might do this one live :-)

Moustache Of Insanity - Moustache Dammit!!!

Artist: Moustache of Insanity
Title: Moustache Dammitt!!!
Format: handmade cassette tape
Cat#: Fika003
Release date: 12th February 2011
Bandcamp | Spotify

Moustache Cassettes

Bill and me started writing songs together back in April 2008. Back then, we would meet in his flat after work, drink beer and record songs on his laptop. More often than not, they would be written, recorded and published on myspace the same day. It worked pretty well and we eventually had enough songs to put on a CD. This became the self-released 'Knock Knock…Who's There?' EP, which we started selling at shows at the end of 2008. We tried to keep up this way of recording for the subsequent releases, but occasionally we've had to admit defeat. Our self-titled WeePOP! EP was originally recorded in Bill's living room, but then we decided to re-record it. It was just too rough and was peaking all over the place. So, we went to a studio and recorded it…well, we still recorded it straight into Bill's laptop, but at least we had a proper mic and a soundproof room. The Postcards EP was also recorded in a similar way, but in various rehearsal rooms, rather than in a studio.

When Tom and Lisa asked us to make a cassette for them, we decided to really go back to basics. We had just finished recording our yet-to-be-released album in a proper studio and Bill had done a lot of recording with Allo Darlin', so we wanted to see if we could still do it like we used to. Giving ourselves a month to think about material, we picked a weekend in January and decided to record the cassette in my spare bedroom over the two days. In total we probably spent about fifteen hours making it.

recording

The songs on the cassette are a bit random. I like to see it as a one-band mix tape.

Just Try To Be Nice was actually written in 2009 at some point when I had been listening to a lot of chiptune stuff. I had played it Bill before, but he was always hesitant of putting any electric guitars on it. I didn't want it to be just my own Garageband experiment, so it was shelved. It was brought back for the cassette and I forced Bill to put guitar parts on it. I think it works really well. The lyrics are completely nonsensical as usual. I guess it's just about doing your best, seizing the day and just trying to be nice. I've never really been good at metaphors.

I wrote the lyrics to What's The Point? at some point last year. I also had a rough melody in mind. I think it was definitely inspired by listening obsessively to the last Japanther album, Rock n'Roll Ice Cream. Again, it's very self-explanatory. I like dancing, but mainly when it's to songs I can get excited about. This explains why I don't dance very often and is why I never really go to clubs these days. They all seem to play the same songs and not much that's new and exciting.

<bleep><boom><magic> is just a snippet from some experiment in Garageband.

My Favourite Memory was written on the Sunday morning, just before the second day of recording. My girlfriend Elizabeth had asked me about my favorite memories for one of her songs. I couldn't give her one and I think I told her she had to think of one herself. Then I sat down and wrote the lyrics. They're all 100% true. There's not much to the melody. Very straight-forward.

One Minute of Pure Inspiration (aka Boys With Toys) was the first thing we recorded on the Saturday. We'd been sitting around doing nothing for an hour and decided to just make some noise, using everything that was in the room. It's totally stupid and annoying. I think there's about ten tracks on top of each other – vocals, guitar, various casios, Korg Monotron, tambourine, garageband, iphone music apps etc.

Moustache Bleep Dammit is, again, just a snippet of something I had done in Garageband, with some online text-to-voice tool on top.

The music to Jad Fair Drew Me A Duck was created on my iphone over the Christmas holidays. I had just downloaded the Nanolop app and was learning how to use it. I wrote the lyrics later, on the Saturday evening after Bill had left. I picked a positive experience from my past, and tried to make the words fit to the music. I convinced Bill to add some guitar parts to it. Again, it's all true. We should really have put that duck drawing on the cover. Jad Fair is amazing.

This Is Not What I Planned was written on the Sunday morning. I had a rough melody in mind by the time Bill got to my flat and then we just recorded it. Both this and What's The Point could do with some better vocals. It's hard to give it all that you got when you're in a flat. I have no desire to upset the neighbours too much. The lyrics are pretty stupid and hastily assembled. I guess it's about dreams dying, working shitty jobs and trying to do something about it. One day, I'll be a ninja.

Apparently Bill wrote Let's Get Married on the bus on Sunday morning. I like it, but I don't really understand it. This is quite normal when it comes to Bill's lyrics. He is married himself, so obviously people do get married. And, surely, "nobody ever gets married" is a pretty bad reason for getting married. I'll ask him to write you a letter explaining his song :)

That's about it really. I hope people find something on there that they like.

//nik

You can pre-order Moustache Dammit!!! now at http://moustacheofinsanity.fikarecordings.com