We've been back in the UK for a few days now from our 8 day tour around the East Coast of Canada and the USA with The Smittens, Tigercats and Making Marks. Readjusting to normal life has been somewhat tricky - I'm seriously missing getting on the road and venturing to a new city, stopping off a swim in a river on the way, or just chilling outside the motel until 5am with 14 of the best people I've had the pleasure to work with on Fika. Thankfully, Jørgen, drumer for Making Marks, filmed much of the trip and edited it down to the wonderful video below. Have a look and see what you missed out on. See you stateside in 2014 maybe?
Cosines - Hey Sailor Boy!
Here's the video for Cosines' debut 7" single Hey Sailor Boy!, out on Monday. Inspired by the video for Kellie Marie's "It Feels Like I'm in Love", the videos follows two sailor's drunken debaucheries around central London. The video features prostitution, drug taking and nudity.
The video was shot by Simon Love on one rainy afternoon in April, the band spent most of the afternoon in the pub or running away from HMS Belfast security man Roly. Drummer Jonny slept the whole day so missed the filming. It was directed and choreographed by Simon Love.
On Tour!
In less than two weeks Fika Recordings are heading out on tour across the USA and Canada with Tigercats, The Smittens and Making Marks, ending up at New York Popfest. It's our first venture across the Atlantic, so please tell your friends, come down and have a dance and bring some pocket money to buy some records! Tigercats + The Smittens + Making Marks May 25: Taverne L’inspecteur Épingle, Montreal QC May 26: The Monkey House, Winooski VT May 27: Radio, Somerville MA May 28: Charm City Artspace, Baltimore MD May 29: Clown Can Country Club, Philadelphia PA May 30: Church Of Abraham, Richmond VA May 31: The Velvet Lounge, Washington DC June 1: Spike Hill, Brooklyn NY (The Smittens and Making Marks - afternoon show) June 1: The Bell House, Brooklyn NY (Tigercats - evening show)
Making Marks are also appearing at this summer's Indietracks festival and we're curr Jul 25-27 Indietracks, Derbyshire
Don't worry if you're in the UK though, there are plenty of Fika related shows coming up!
Darren Hayman has announced a monthly residency at the Vortex in Dalston, London. July features Witches and Bugbears; August is Sun Sea and Lidos.
May 25: Now We Are Festival, West Bromwich
July 11: Vortex, London
Aug 8: Vortex London
Victoria and Jacob, the latest signings to Fika, are bringing their lush electronic pop to you as well... May 17: Old Blue Last, London (free show) May 25: Now We Are Festival, West Bromwich June 25: The Portland Arms, Cambridge July 24: 10 Feet Tall, Cardiff July 25-28: Secret Garden Party Festival, Cambridgeshire August 11: The Lexington, London (Album launch show with Azure Blue [SE], Cosines and Hong Kong In The 60s)
Fulhäst isn't going to miss out either, he's playing... June 28: Empty Shop HQ, Durham July 21: Buffalo Bar, London Aug 5: tba, Brighton
and finally Cosines will also be heading off to West Bromwich to join Darren Hayman, Victoria and Jacob, and many many more, after a last minute show with Seapony May 16: The Lexington, London (with Seapony) May 25: Now We Are Festival, West Bromwich
Darren Hayman - Bugbears
BugbearsLPFront
It's happening again! After the sold out screenprinted 10" Christmas In Howarth EP we released for Darren Hayman the Christmas before last, we've another release from him out on Fika Recordings, this time a full length LP! The album has evolved dramatically from our first discussions with Darren about Bugbears and has materialised into one of the most ambitious projects we've undertaken so far. So let's run you through all the important details you need to know!
Bugbears LP vinyl book
Bugbears ...is an album of songs from the English Civil Wars and seventeenth century to accompany The Violence. Here's Darren's explanation of Bugbears:
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.
The Short Parliament Joining Darren on Bugbears are Bill Botting, Dan Mayfield, Dave Watkins, David Tattersall and Johny Lamb.
Formats We'll be presenting Bugbears on 180gr heavyweight 12" vinyl (including a download code) and within a beautiful CD gatefold package. Both formats come with a 16 page booklet of illustrations, lyrics and Darren's notes, interpretations and commentary.
Illustrations Duncan Barrett is the genius behind the sleeve artwork and the booklet design. His artwork has graced numerous Fika releases in the past and hopefully many more to come! The booklet itself features an illustration for each of the 13 songs on Bugbears, from 13 different artists. Among those involved were Pam Berry, Robert Rotifer, Dan Willson and Ant Harding.
The Blog Over the next two months in the run up to the release on the 15th of July, Darren and I will be hosting a blog. Expect to find previews of the songs, videos, interviews from historians and musicians, features of the illustrators and plenty more.
Pre-order The album is available to pre-order from the Fika Recording shop now, shipping in early July.
Bugbears CD and booklet
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.
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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.
Tullycraft - Lost In Light Rotation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrlk82j4NB4 2013 has been a bit quiet on the release front so far for Fika Recordings, but don't panic, we're kicking into gear to bring you loads of exciting new releases over the next few months. First up will be the brand new album from Tullycraft, their first in absolutely ages! We'll be putting out a very limited (100 copies only) handmade cassette version of the album, towards the end of March. Fortuna Pop and Magik Marker Records are handling CD/LP duties in Europe and North America respectively. It's a stunner of an album; just the job to get this year off to a flying start.
So here's the brand new video for the single, Lost In Light Rotation. Enjoy!
Lost In Light Rotation available to pre-order from shop.fikarecordings.com
Distro
We're starting to do a little bit of distribution. Currently, it'll mainly be releases from artists working with Fika Recordings, who've released records previously/simultaneously on other labels. We want to help you explore their back catalogue, save on postage costs and enjoy more excellent music!So far, we've got the debut 7" single from Victoria and Jacob. We've just a handful of copies left of their single With No Certainty / There's A War - once they're gone, they're gone forever. And when they do, you'll need to keep your eyes peeled for their next digital single on Fika in April and their 7" single in May. As well as that, we've an LP and a CD from My Little Pony, who went on to become Making Marks having lost a member of the original band. Pick up a copy of their debut 12" LP Think Too Much, which features one of my favourite songs, and favourite lines:
And she said.. "Your love is like nuclear energy- it leaves a lot of stuff I don't know what to do with. And do you really love me or am I just in your network?"
We've also got a handful of copies of their second album, called Making Marks, available on CD.
Red Shoe Diaries
With great sadness, we can announce that Red Shoe Diaries have decided to call it a day and concentrate on new projects. They were the first artist to release a vinyl record with Fika Recordings, and as such, they'll always occupy a special place in our hearts. It is a beautiful sounding record and a beautiful looking sleeve. "After 4-ish years together, Red Shoe Diaries have decided to bring things to an end.
We are so grateful for all the support we have received from you all, whether it has been coming to gigs, buying our records or generally just being nice to us. We have had some great times.
But far from feeling like an end, this is a new beginning for a lot of us. One of those new beginnings is ‘Seabirds’, a new band featuring members of Red Shoe Diaries. We are very excited about this new venture, and look forward to making more music for y’all!
Seabirds’ first performance will be at the Leicester Indiepop Alldayer on Saturday 23rd March." Red Shoe Diaries
We have the last few copies of their 10" EP, When Will I Find My Heart..., available from the Fika shop for £5.
Making Marks on tour
Making Marks are off on tour around Germany and France supporting Allo Darlin'. Catch them at the dates below below! 17.11.12 – Lido, Berlin (DE) 18.11.12 – TBA, Jena (DE) 19.11.12 - Blaue Fabrik, Dresden (DE) 20.11.12 – Astra Stube, Hamburg (DE) 21.11.12 - Die hängende Gärten, Köln (DE) 22.11.12 - Workshop of Dorian Rollin, Ribeauville (FR) 23.11.12 - L’Internationale, Paris (FR) 24.11.12 - Le Rouge, Lille (FR)
You can buy their debut 7" single Ticket Machine from the Fika Recordings webshop.