Lost Summer Kitten - Not Another Sad Song

Artist: Lost Summer Kitten
Title: Not Another Sad Song
Format: handmade cassette tape
Cat#: Fika002
Release date: 12th February 2011
Bandcamp | Spotify

Not another sad song

LSK Cassettes

Believe it or not, but this is actually a serious attempt of writing not-so-deppressive songs. Lost Summer Kitten had been a duo for quite a while, and we wanted to do something more, something still melancolic, but not as quiet as usual. We brought in drums (Lars Diurlin). We brough in cello (Johanna Hydén), accordion (Amanda Nordin) and mandolin (Petter Seander). We tried to make it a bit bigger, a bit louder and a tiny bit faster.

In the end, we realised we didn't like the fast songs. Or the loud ones. So it turned out to be and EP that contains all the things you usually get from Lost Summer Kitten. Just better!

Lost Summer Kitten

Lisa Bouvier - Indien är Död

Artist: Lisa Bouvier
Title: Indien Är Död
Format: handmade cassette tape
Cat#: Fika001
Release date: 12th February 2011
Bandcamp

The first time I met Andreas, he was late. It was my first lesson in acoustic physics, and I was quite surprised by seeing the ex-drummer of Quit Your Dayjob suddenly open the door and quite unsuccessfully try to sneak into the classroom without being noticed.

As the term went on, we explored our mutual love of weird indiepop over the gross excuse for coffee you could buy for 20p at the cafeteria. I listened to his solo project Allt Ar Musik on his Ipod and instantly liked his twisting and turning swedish lyrics. I’d had the idea of swedish indiepop songs about swedish indiepop for quite some time, and Andreas was the perfect partner for this project.

We translated our favourite namedropping songs and wrote some of our own (as you might have noticed, the song Andreas is a cover of my song Andrew, I thought I was quite witty when I came up with it).

LisaBouvier cassettes

I can’t remember who played what when and where, but I have a strong memory of Andreas playing saxophone in a hearing test room in the basement of our school, and I know I was quite happy with my bass playing somewhere at my work one late night. Does it really matter? We did it together, with a little help from Lars Diurlin and Emmy Hogstrom-Tagesson. Thank you!

Three years later, Fika president TomA dug up these tracks and we could finally release them properly. I still think they’re quite good.

//lisa

You can buy Lisa's EP at our shop.

One Week To Go

We've been extremely busy cutting and folding cassettes over the past few weeks. With 400 to make we're not quite there yet, but we're confident everything will be ready for the launch party next Saturday (although there could be a few late nights and many more paper cuts first!). Later in the week, we'll be featuring each of our four initial artists with a preview of the finished cassettes, but here's a quick taster...

Launch Gig! Feb 12th @ The Wilmington Arms, London

...with Horowitz, Moustache Of Insanity, Lisa Bouvier and Lost Summer Kitten.

To celebrate the announcement of our launch gig, we've made the whole of Lisa Bouvier's debut EP for us available to stream on last.fm. You can go here to listen to it in its entirety.

This is the launch party for the new diy indiepop cassette label, Fika Recordings. All four of our launch artists will be releasing a cassette EP tonight, so come along, there'll be cake!

Horowitz [UK] Horowitz are “the sound of the indiepop underground”. The two piece have penned some of my favourite pop songs over the past years, with both I Need A Blanket and Popkids of the World Unite guaranteed to get me shuffling my feet at any disco. After releases on indie staples Cloudberry and Thee SPC, we’re very proud to be releasing their next EP. http://www.myspace.com/horowitzband

Moustache Of Insanity [UK] I love this band. Over the past 18 months or so of seeing Moustache Of Insanity across the UK and Sweden, no other band has made me grin like a buffoon, jump about so much or make me feel quite so alive. Shambolic, adorable and utterly essential. http://www.moustacheofinsanity.com/

Lisa Bouvier [SE] Lisa Bouvier took the brave leap into the pop world 2007, having grown tired of compromises in various band formations. She quickly made a name in southern Sweden as its most frisky popstar with handclaps, vocal harmonies and a bloodied guitar that could get any pop club or living room dancing along to her catchy songs. This is Lisa's first solo show (though she'll be joined by her backing band of exceptionally talented Swedes) in the UK, before playing Oddbox and Big Pink Cake night's later in Feb and March. http://lisabouvier.se/

Lost Summer Kitten [SE] Lost Summer Kitten was born late in Lund, Sweden, sometime around December 2005. The duo have since been joined by friends to perform their tales of bittersweet heartbreak. This is their very first UK show! http://www.myspace.com/lostsummerkitten

Tickets are £5 advance from http://www.wegottickets.com/event/103538 Tickets will be available on the door (£6, £4 unwaged). Doors at 8, LSK on at 8:30pm.

For more details see http://fikarecordings.wordpress.com/ and here for the facebook event,

Fika003 & Fika004

We're rather excited to be able to announce our next two artists as Horowitz and Moustache Of Insanity. Both are complete indiepop legends and we're rather chuffed to be able to release new material from both. Yay! They'll be joining Lisa Bouvier and Lost Summer Kitten to play at our launch gig in London on February 12th... we'll be announcing full details very shortly.

Fika001 & Fika002

We're very excited to be able to announce our first two releases will be from two of my favourite Swedish artists: Lisa Bouvier and Lost Summer Kitten.  Lisa's EP is chock full of cracking energetic pop songs; Lost Summer Kitten have a delightful EP of downtempo wintery songs. Both will be released in February at the same time as cassettes from two of my current favourite UK artists - one are indiepop legends from the potteries, the other closely connected to a band who have made my favourite album of 2010... we'll be announcing names shortly, along with details of our launch party. We'll be showcasing all four artists, there'll be cakes and some indiepop tunes after to dance well into the night.

Prototype #1

This weekend I've been playing around with the design for the cassette sleeves, having received a stash of lovely 100% recycled manilla card. The goal was to hand make all the cassettes and stay away from messy glues, so the origami skills honed during my childhood have come in rather handy. The results are above. There's still things to develop - we'll have the Fika logo on the front and back (once we get this back from our wonderful Swedish designer) and I've a few ideas to refine the box a touch further. The cover art will stay as a slip in, colour, square photo, though I'm tempted to go down a gloss route rather than the matte I've used above. We'll see.

The on-cassette artwork still has a little way to go as I experiment with various acrylic paints and permanent markers. The "a" proves very difficult to cut out and stencil from card, so I'll look into getting a sturdier perspex stencil made up, which should give us a more reliable and slightly neater result. Having said that, I do like the idea that the above is a little diy, a little messy and very individual - each cassette will have their own flaws. Remember, we're making these by hand; and remember, that our artists have painstakingly written and recorded their music with endless care and attention - we're not into shiny, over produced "perfect" sounding stuff here.

Next step will be to select cassette colours from the rainbow available below. Any preferences folks? Should every artist have their own colour, or should every release come with a range of colours?

Fika Recordings

Welcome to Fika Recordings! We're an indiepop cassette label, launching our first releases in February 2011. Keep an eye on the website for details. Additionally, we'd love to hear from you if you're in a band, if you're a web designer, illustrator, graphic designer, or just fancy sitting in a pub in north-east London helping us put together tapes over a pint of bitter.