Woo! Yesterday Moustache Of Insanity released the first single from the album we're putting out in conjunction with Pull Yourself Together. Go download Lynn Lowry here and watch the gameboy tastic video for the b-side too!We're taking pre-orders for the album and if you ask us nicely at Indietracks, we'll be able to sell you a copy early, only £7 in person! The album comes with bloody tea of death and a cake recipe for yummies from hell, on blood red vinyl. Each of the 300 also has a unique blood smeared message of terror/fear/insanity on the inner sleeve and unique insert, with photo and scribblings from Bill and Nik on tour... Awesome!
Indietracks Tea Party
Come and join us for fika at this year's Indietracks festival in Derbyshire, where we'll be hosting a tea party in the workshop tent on Sunday afternoon at 3pm. Both Horowitz and Moustache Of Insanity will be playing the festival and we might try and sneak in the odd acoustic performance from some of our other artists too! Drop by and we'll ply you with tea and cakes and music and you'll have the chance to buy some of our releases. There'll be some kind of blind tea tasting/identifying going on too, which means there'll be prizes.... Awesome!
Full schedule for the festival is available here.
Cassettes!
Fika010: Moustache Of Insanity
Moustache Of Insanity
Fika010, will, appropriately, be our tenth release since our launch in February this year.... and it'll be a full length 12" LP from one of our first Fika artists, Moustache Of Insanity.
Album Of Death is a monstrous amalgamation of classic horror movie themes, dancing and, er, dinner parties. If you've seen MOI recently you'll have been treated to a chaotic rendition of a few of these songs, which should put you in good stead for the screaming and jollity on the album. I adore it and can't wait to get this out. It'll be coming out in mid August, but until then, treat yourself to the awesome preview video for Dancing With Emma.
Plus, if you can't wait for this and haven't got round to buying their cassette EP on Fika (we've long since sold out), pop over to the Moustache Of Insanity website where there's still a few copies left!
Fika009: Red Shoe Diaries
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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
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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