Making Marks - A Thousand Half-Truths [12"/CD]

We're finally releasing the debut LP from Norway's Making Marks! It comes on beautiful heavyweight 180g vinyl with a printed inner sleeve of lyrics and pictures and download code, and on a 6 panel CD digipack with full lyrics booklet too. Or you can simply download it from our webshop, iTunes etc.

“There’s a trace of Saint Etienne’s suburban romance to be heard in the superior pop of Making Marks, a Norwegian four-piece whose debut album puts a winning finish of wit and longing on the belts-and-braces indiepop undercoat.” Uncut

“It’s an effective blend, especially with the sad but beautiful vocals of singers Ola Innset and Nina Bø as well as the country twang of Innset’s picking style of electric guitar playing.” Neon Filler

“classic heartwarming indiepop” SoundsXP

“a strong contender for indie-pop album of the year” Inforty

“a summery album to brighten up the current wintery outlook” Scottish Express

“The consistently excellent male/female vocals on show make A Thousand Half-Truths less a smack in the face than a warming, gentle arm around the shoulder. Perfect for these cold winter nights.” Shout4Music

Buy heavyweight LP / digipack CD / download

We've also got all three of their earlier 7" singles available for you to buy alongside the album: Ticket Machine [their debut 7", includes Suburban Kids With Biblical Names remix] Barcodes [their follow up, includes Erik Skantze remix] Uten En Tråd [their Norwegian single, includes a b-side recorded and produced by Darren Hayman]

Stanley Brinks and The Wave Pictures - Orange Juice [7"]

Artist: Stanley Brinks and The Wave Pictures
Title: Orange Juice
Format: 7” orange vinyl
Cat#: Fika033
Release date: 20th January 2014
Bandcamp | Spotify

"Brinks comes over all Modern Life Is Rubbish as he laments life’s disappointments, including a 21st-century ‘Panic’ refrain of “the radio sucks balls, I don’t relate to any of the music they’re playing at all”. The antidote, apparently, is a cocktail of “alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, ephedrine and orange juice”. That out of these it is the healthy option that is chosen for the song’s title shows the whole thing is done with a glint in the eye." For Folks Sake

"sounds like Herman Dune when they were charmingly naïve and elegantly simple, a rock’n’roll strum with an easy rhythm, anthemic chorus and some memorable lyrics... a great, singalong single that promises much for forthcoming album Gin" Sounds XP

"This is massively catchy. You’ll never be able to stop singing it. Over a ramshackle Jonathan Richman style lollop they advise us that basically everything is shit but they’ll get by with alcohol, tobacco, caffeine ephedrine and orange juice." Norman Records [8/10]

"In matching life's hangdog vagaries with love's jubilation, Orange Juice lifts gloom into hard-won glory. It's pure musical joy." Did Not Chart

"this fun little number could be my new theme song for surviving SxSW" Austin Town Hall

"It might sound slightly daft to say that you ‘know’ John Peel would have loved a particular band or song, but given that Stanley Brinks did get support from the legendary DJ before his death, I’m not really being that presumptuous about this." 17 Seconds

"Picking the best track out of the two is something of a challenge, so investing in both is recommended" The Sound Of Confusion

BBC 6 Music session with Marc Riley [broadcast 6th March 2014]

Azure Blue "Beyond The Dreams There's Infinite Doubt"

The new album from Azure Blue is finally out! Beyond The Dreams There's Infinite Doubt is the follow up to the Swedish Grammy award winning Rule Of Thirds (where previous winners have included Fika favourites The Knife, Jens Lekman and El Perro Del Mar).

Here in the UK we're putting out the LP: it comes on delicious maroon coloured semi-transparent 12" vinyl, inside a wonderfully textured reverse card sleeve and includes a download code. Our friends at Hybris are in charge of the CD and digital in Europe, with Matinee Records handling the same duties for North America. Anna Logue in Germany are also issuing a double gatefold edition, containing both the new LP and Azure Blue's debut LP on vinyl for the first time.

Copies of the vinyl LP are shipping now and we'll have copies of the CD shortly. We'll also be taking some copies of the gatefold double LP, which is available to pre-order now; we're expecting to receive this from Germany later in the autumn.

Buy Azure Blue - Beyond The Dreams There's Infinite Doubt

Vinyl LP

Azure Blue

The latest addition to the Fika Recordings roster is Swedish synthpop master Azure Blue, the new project from Tobias Isaksson (Irene, Laurel Music). After his delightful debut album last year, Rule Of Thirds, we're joining the Swedish label Hybris to bring you Azure Blue's sophomore album Beyond The Dreams There's Infinite Doubt on 12" maroon vinyl. Matinée Recordings will be releasing the CD in North America, while Anna Logue Records will be releasing a double LP featuring both the Rule Of Thirds and Beyond The Dreams There's Infinite Doubt LPs.

Listen to the singles from the upcoming album below, and then pre-order the new album on vinyl here

Beyond The Dreams There's Infinite Doubt is out September 30th 2013.

Azure Blue has grown into the hearts of music lovers around the world with his debut album Rule Of Thirds and a promotional tour of 10 countries. His debut received critical praise, winning a Swedish independent grammy award, Manifest, (previous winners include The Knife, Jens Lekman and El Perro Del Mar) for the best pop album in 2012.

"Nostalgia fuelled pop harking back to the heyday of Factory Records, Isaksson's material is deeply romantic with a deft production slight of hand that can single-handedly break your heart and indeed heal it in one fell swoop." The Line Of Best Fit (UK) "The best electro-pop record in recent memory." Blurt Magazine (USA) “His touch is tender and light, and the album’s best songs always swing to the sky, riding up on decades of learning from drum machines and tangled relationships” The Fader (USA)

Released today

Barcodes, the second single from Making Marks, is released today on 7" vinyl and download. There's a bonus track too, in the form of a Barcodes remix from Skantze Tanzen.

Also out today is the debut LP from Victoria and Jacob, in a gorgeous die cut sleeve on heavyweight 12" vinyl.

Victoria and Jacob's Cry Baby - out now!

Victoria and Jacob - Copyright- Heloise Faure 2013 - 2303SMALL

After a stunning acoustic set complete with a string section at the Union Chapel in London last weekend, Victoria and Jacob release Cry Baby, the second single from their upcoming debut album today. It is available as a download from iTunes, Spotify and the like, and direct from the Fika shop too. The single comes complete with all 8 of the remixes, from talented folk such as Darren Hayman, Antwerp and Cosines amongst others.

Their debut album is available to pre-order now on both CD and LP - the latter in particular looks absolutely stunning, coming in a die cut sleeve on heavyweight 180gsm vinyl.

Darren Hayman & The Short Parliament - Bugbears [12"/CD]

Artist: Darren Hayman & The Short Parliament
Title: Bugbears
Format: 12” album on heavyweight vinyl | digipack CD - both with illustrated lyric booklet
Cat#: Fika024LP | Fika024CD
Release date: 15th July 2013
Bandcamp | Spotify

An album of songs from the English Civil Wars and seventeenth century to accompany The Violence. 

I recently made an album called ‘The Violence’. It concerns itself with the East Anglian witch trials during the English Civil Wars. During my research I started to come across folk songs of the seventeenth century and Stuart era. Two such songs appear on that album: ‘When the King Enjoys His Own Again’ and ‘A Coffin for King Charles, A Crown for Cromwell and a Pit for the People’. 

I didn’t seek to achieve forensic detail when finding these songs, but was keen to have a sense of the flavour of the music of the era. As a side project to the album, I started to record and adapt some of the songs, and now they are collected here. 
Consider this an accompanying volume to The Violence, a scene setter, a spin off. 

Although I did a fair amount of research, these are not meant to be definitive or historical readings of the songs. I have revised, edited and even rewritten in places. 

Thanks to Malcolm Taylor and the library at Cecil Sharp House, and the English Folk Dance and Song Society. 

Darren Hayman, February 2013. 

Press for Bugbears

"Bugbears ends up sounding like a stellar Darren Hayman album. 'The Contented' and 'Impossibilities' are like Hefner at their best, while 'Seven Months Married' is the kind of engaging, unfurling yarn the 42 year old has made his own since going solo. History has rarely been so engaging" The NME [7/10]

"an intriguing, satisfying listen" Record Collector [4/5]

"Pretty poignant ane educational, too" Uncut [8/10]

"Bugbears is a rich and warming curio" Mojo [3/5]

"the freeness of the reinterprations animates the source material all the more effectively" Financial Times [4/5]

"Bugbears is a loving and modern take on the chaotic Civil War period, with his Essex and London accent giving the songs greater authenticity" Neon Filler [8/10]

“Hayman may sing about impossibilities, but with Bugbears, he’s proved that it’s possible to turn the ancient into the contemporary and the fatalistic into the optimistic.” Music OMH [4/5]

“With Bugbears, Hayman stands apart” The Arts Desk

"they no longer sound like musty relics but more an interesting and occasionally informative journey back in time that's seen through modern eyes and is, on more than one occasion, really quite enchanting" SoundsXP

"Musically the band have done a cracking job with the arrangements, and all the songs, featuring lute and violins alongside guitars, sound incredibly authentic. Of course this is a Darren Hayman album so the songs he has chosen tend to the darker side of life, but that's what we love about Darren Hayman, right?" Artrocker

"Hayman recognises the birth of modernity in the social upheaval of that era" The Quietus

"quirkier in concept than performance, like a folk genre idea tackled with an indie band's skillset" Herald Scotland

"These songs could have carried on all day as far as I was concerned: Bugbears is, in every way but superstitiously, utterly charming." For Folks Sake

"he has unearthed a fascinating treasure trove of folk songs and turned them in to a lovingly performed, effortlessly enjoyable collection of songs" Penny Black Music

“The hearts of the songs have been treasured in their time-travelling.” Kyeo [3/5]

“‘Bugbears’ is distinctive album and an intriguing companion to The Violence. Hayman has reached back into the past and picked up a handful of gems.” Drunken Werewolf

“‘Bugbears’ is a collection of lovingly crafted folk songs” Norman Records

Fulhäst - What Do You See?

London's one-man-Gameboy-pop-punk-band Fulhäst has published a new video for the song What Do You See?, the upcoming single from debut album Broken.

The video features members of Durham punk bands ONSIND (Plan-It-X Records) and Martha (Discount Horse Records), as well as Birmingham's Ace Bushy Striptease (Odd Box Records).

What Do You See? is a totally free (or pay what you like) download available from the Fika webshop.

'Broken' comes on yellow vinyl at the end of the month - it's available to pre-order now from the shop. The album also includes a remix of a Your Skin from Darren Hayman... we'll let you hear that shortly!

Victoria and Jacob - Festival

Victoria and Jacob are yet another new signing to Fika Recordings! We first came across them around this time last year when they sent us some sublime demos from their upcoming album. The frantic nature of running a record label alongside a full time day job took its toll, and that particular email slipped down the list of important-things-to-get-done-when-I-get_home-from-work, slightly forgotten. Roll on a few months and to an East London pub, sitting enjoying a few drinks with Trev from Oddbox Records, Darren Hayman and John from WIAIWYA, while we discussed ideas (ridiculous and not-so) and tinkered with Darren's Excel spreadsheets, talk turned to demos received and demos that had slipped through the net from bands that went on to Bigger Things... Several pints later, John and I had decided that we'd be working together on the Victoria and Jacob, having both fallen in love with those early demos tracks and neither of us quite having had time to do anything about it yet!

Fast forward 6 months from that meeting and we're just about ready to release the lead single from their forthcoming debut album. Festival will be out on the 27th of May, from both Fika Recordings and WIAIWYA, joined on the b-side by a cover of The Church's Under The Milky Way.

You can pre-order the 7" right now, with an immediate download of Festival from the Fika Recordings shop.

Not only that, but we're giving away a free remix every Monday right up until the single release date. So far, we've had a Ralegh Long/Alex Pyper remix, one from Gringle and another from Alexander's Festival Hall. There's another five yet to come, and the final two are personal favourites! Keep up to date with the remixes here.

There's also a beautifully summery video for Festival, which you can watch below! Enjoy!

Cosines - Hey Sailor Boy! [7"]

Here's the start of a flurry of new releases during the spring on Fika Recordings! First up, we've got the debut single from Cosines! Hey Sailor Boy! will be out on May 20th as a 7" single/download.

Hey Sailor Boy! is a love song from one girl pirate to her sailor boy. Originally written by Alice for fictional band The Girl Pirates (who's extended membership included unwittingly comedian David Cross and Decemberists singer Colin Meloy), the band never got much further than one drunken rum soaked practice before "Hey Sailor Boy!" was packed away. The song took on a new lease of life with Cosines, with a stomping piano riff, soulful beat and sweet strings (arranged and performed by Elefant Record's A Little Orchestra); comparisons could be made to the classic pop of Camera Obscura, The Beach Boys, The Concretes and The Magnetic Fields.

DSC_0858

Cosines are a mathematical pop band from north London. Simon Nelson and Alice Hubley met on the London Underground after a Stereo Totale gig in 2009. Two days later Simon was round Alice's house unblocking her kitchen drain. Since then Simon has been round and put up two curtain rails, a blind and a shelf.

This unlikely meeting, got them talking and once the DIY was done they started making music together, fusing metronomic pop sensibilities, 60's grooves and krautrock noise. What you maybe would get if you mix Love, United States of America and Stereolab. As a band they are constantly trying to find the perfect meeting point between clean synths and fuzz guitars.

The band's line up was completed by Alice's old Loves bandmates Daniel Chapman and Jonny Drums and A Smile and A Ribbon's Kajsa Tretow.

The band played their first show in April 2012, and since then have played shows with Comet Gain, Shrag and Still Flyin' as well the Indietracks Festival. The band are currently working on a debut album and consequently doing less DIY.

You may recognise Cosines from such other bands as Arthur and Martha, Vermont, The Loves, Brother Francisco, Pocketbooks, The Duloks and One Fathom Down.

Listen to and pre-order Cosines - Hey Sailor Boy!