Bill Botting & The Two Drink Minimums

We've got a last minute addition to our Christmas release schedule! We're dead excited to be bringing you a 4 song EP on cassette and download from Bill Botting & The Two Drink Minimums. You'll know Bill Botting as one half of Moustache Of Insanity, a quarter of Allo Darlin' and a whole lot of awesomeness. He's brought together a right old supergroup of chums to join him on It's Not Christmas Anymore, joined by little sister Hannah Botting of Owl & Mouse, Paul Rains of Allo Darlin' and Tigercats, Darren Hayman and two thirds of The Wave Pictures (Jonny Helm and Dave Tattersall).

<a href="http://shop.fikarecordings.com/album/its-not-christmas-anymore">It's Not Christmas Anymore by Bill Botting & The Two Drink Minimums</a>

We're frantically getting everything together - if all goes to plan we'll have copies to sell at this weekend's Independent Label Market in Spitalfields ahead of the 11th of December release date. We're only making 100 copies of this cassette, so don't wait too long if you're after a copy!

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Bill's no stranger to getting in to the festive spirit for us at Fika either - back in 2011 he contributed two tracks to our advent calendar. Both "Mulled Wine" and "Acting Without Acting" are still free to download if you missed out...

Watch and listen to new tracks from Sunturns' Christmas II album

We've got two new things out now to whet your appetite ahead of the release of Sunturn's second Christmas album in December. Kicking things off, feast your eyes on the video for Would You, recorded towards the end of summer at Silence Studios in central Sweden as Sunturns convened to channel all that summer excitement into a sparkling festive album!

If that's not enough to get you geared up for the approaching holiday season, we've released another track from the album for you to listen to. Sunni is the opening track of Christmas II - starting off as a piano ballad before evolving into a post-rock tune about meeting a girl called Sunniva...

Pre-order your copy of the gatefold double vinyl package or download here.

Sunturns - Would You [Digital]

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Would You is the first single proper taken from Sunturns' new album Christmas II. Written by Einar Stray [Moddi, Einar Stray Orchestra], it's a reflective look back at those teenage emotions swelling and brooding as the clocks go back, the nights draw in and the isolation of winter descends.

Would You appears on the second album from Sunturns - an album I was desperate to make happen, having absolutely adored their debut record "Christmas" from a few years back. They're a band that don't get together very often (one of the hardships that occurs as a result of forming a band devoted to Christmas, those summer festival tours are bloody hard to come by!), and having worked with Ola and Jorgen as part of Making Marks previously, we're slowly plugged away, planting the seeds of suggestion of making a second album until that that email arrived at Fika HQ: "Hey Tom, we're thinking of recording a second Sunturns record, are you in?". It was just like Christmas.

So yeah, we're chuffed this album is happening - and it'll be a real beauty. Two 12" records, one on red vinyl and one on white vinyl, in a gatefold sleeve, encompassing 2011's album Christmas on vinyl for the very first time and 2015's Christmas II. If you prefer your Christmas music a little bit melancholic, a little bit jaded, and really rather gorgeous, then I'm sure you'll love these records as much as I do.

Pre-order your copy of Christmas I & II from the Fika Recordings shop.

Sunturns are a Norwegian super-group devoted to Christmas, featuring members of Making Marks, Moddi, The Little Hands Of Asphalt, Monzano and Einar Stray Orchestra.

Sunturns - Christmas double album

Sunturns

Christmas may still be a couple of months away, but we just can't wait any longer to announce our Christmas release from Norwegian indie supergroup Sunturns! Come December we'll be putting out a double vinyl album featuring their 2011 album Christmas and a brand new album Christmas II.

A follow up Sunturns Christmas album has been on our wish list for a long time; the original album has been a festive favourite alongside those classics from Low, Sufjan Stevens and The Just Joans. If you find yourself putting those on the stereo every year to get yourself through another mince pie and another anecdote from a misinformed and slightly racist distant relative, you'll be in for a treat with this pair of albums.

For those of you who've not come across Sunturns before, you should be familiar with Making Marks from their album A Thousand Half-Truths on Fika back in 2013. Ola Innset and Jørgen Nordby from Making Marks appear as part of Sunturns, alongside Jørgen's Moddi band mate Einar Stray (also of Einar Stray Orchestra), Sjur Lyseid (of The Little Hands Of Asphalt, which also featured Ola, and Eivind Almhjell of Monzano - a true Norwegian indie supergroup. Sunturns are a band devoted to Christmas - they come together annually for some much loved festive shows in December, before disappearing with the hazy memories of glogg fuelled nights for another year...

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So here's a track for you to hear, taken from the new album. It's called The Axial Tilt, and like the band's name, reflects on the the lifting of December's dark despair as the nights get shorter and daylight starts to make a reappearance.

You can pre-order the double vinyl from us here now, as well digital pre-orders for both album or the new album Christmas II. But you'll be wanting the physical really, it comes on red and on white vinyl, in a gatefold sleeve with download code, in a beautiful sleeve designed by Allo Darlin's Paul Rains.

New album from Darren Hayman

Darren Hayman

We're very excited to be able to say we've got a new album from Darren Hayman coming out in November, the first with Fika Recordings since 2013's album Bugbears. Since then he's put out the incredible Chants For Socialists (a stunning album taking inspiration and words from William Morris' pamphlet of the same name) and unveiled a long running project based around Thankful Villages.

Back to the LP in question! It is a beautifully delicate and touchingly honest album simply titled Florence after the city in which it was created. This is his very first purely solo album, featuring no other musicians. It was written and recorded between Christmas and New Year at the end of 2014 in the Firenze flat belonging to Elizabeth Morris (Allo Darlin’) and Ola Innset (Making Marks). Continuing his habit of making incisive, observational and beautiful albums, with Florence Hayman has taken a back-to-basics approach, eschewing his recent collaborative, conceptual approaches for a humble and modest solo effort, entirely recorded and performed in the Italian apparetemento of his hosts.

We'll be putting this out on vinyl and download at the start of November, but to whet your appetite, here's the opening track from Florence, Nuns Run The Apothecary, supposedly Darren's response to Allo Darlin's track Darren!.

Florence by Darren Hayman is available to pre-order on 12" vinyl now

Owl & Mouse - Worst Kiss

You've waited a long time since Owl & Mouse's debut 7" on Fika Recordings a year ago to hear something new. So we're chuffed that we can finally reveal Worst Kiss, the first track from their debut LP "Departures".

The songwriting vehicle for talented young Brisbanite Hannah Botting, which began as a twosome with sister Jen, those early outings have quickly grown into something altogether more fully formed. “The name was kind of silly,” says Hannah, reflecting on the band's early days. “It came from a song I wrote years ago about an owl and a mouse that go to war together. In the beginning it was just Jen and I doing shows and people would always ask who was the owl and who was the mouse,” she reminisces, before adding with a certain dry humour, “we had to grow the band to avoid that question.” And grow the band has, with the addition of Tom Wade (We Aeronauts) and the prolific pairing of Emma Winston and Dan Mayfield (Enderby's Room, Darren Hayman's Long Parliament).

Straight out of the same school of Australian songwriting as The Go-Betweens, Triffids and Courtney Barnett, Hannah's words follow her compatriots' ability to be widescreen and personal at once, infused with an added degree of delicacy and poignancy:

"Worst Kiss is one of my favourites and is probably the newest song on the album, it was only written a few days before we went into the studio. It’s a love song. It sounds a bit like a confession to me, telling someone they’re the love of your life. It’s just about sharing stories and feeling grateful and relieved that you are where you are and you’re with who you’re with. Not kissing idiots any more."

Departures is out on vinyl and CD on the 27th of July. Pre-orders are available here. You can still pick up one of the last copies of their 4 song 7" EP, Somewhere To Go, none of which feature on the new album.

Pre-order Beneath The Hill I Smell The Sea now

Azure Blue

“Beneath The Hill I Smell The Sea” is the final chapter of an ambitious trilogy, emerging from the sombre and introspective earlier chapters of the trilogy to embrace a host of guest vocalists for this finale. In total, seven vocalists join Azure Blue on this record, including Amanda Mair, César Vidal (Caesars) and Per Magnusson (Sportsman).

This time around, Azure Blue produced the album himself over seven months in his Stockholm studio. It has a cleaner sound; it is significantly crisper and more modern than the records that precede it, incorporating textural nuances of both classic hip-hop and dance music in to the lush, analogue escapism that links all three records. Think The Go-Betweens meets Prebab Sprout, dragged kicking and screaming from the depths of New Romanticism in to 2015.

The vinyl LP comes on 12" transparent azure coloured vinyl, in a thick reverse board sleeve and includes a download code. The CD comes neatly tucked in to a gatefold digifile card sleeve. Both are due in shops from the 15th of June. The digital version is available worldwide from May 13th - all physical orders will get an immediate download of the digital album too! For a limited amount of time, you can order both the new album and Azure Blue's previous record Beyond The Dreams There's Infinite Doubt for the bargain price of £18 for both LPs or £15 for both CDs. Pre-order here!

Third album from Azure Blue coming soon...

Azure Blue is back! It's been a year and a half since we released the second record from Azure Blue, Beyond The Dreams There's Infinite Doubt, on vinyl back at the end of summer 2013. And we're really rather excited to be able to announce we'll be working with Azure Blue again.

Take a listen above to Tragedy & Changes, the first track from his third album Beneath The Hill I Smell The Sea.

We'll have a confirmed release date for you shortly, once we've negotiated the increasing turmoil of attempting to manufacture a record within the 6 months either side of Record Store Day (who's bloody buying the tens of thousands of U2 deluxe box sets that's constipating the vinyl pressing plants these days?!)... but put a reminder in your diary for late May to get very, very excited...

Tigercats "Isle Of Dogs"

Tigercats have just released their second album Mysteries today, having fled the Fika nest to join the mighty Fortuna Pop! label. We're taking the opportunity to repress our long sold out vinyl version of their debut album Isle Of Dogs - this time on 180 gram heavyweight black vinyl. They'll be shipping out from mid March, though you can pre-order now and get an immediate download of the album to tide you over. And if you missed out on a copy of the 7" version of Harper Lee, backed with the b-side Cats Run Free, you can add that to your order for a mere couple of quid.

Finally, we're in love with the classic British horror themed video for Sleeping In The Backseat, taken from Mysteries. Enjoy!

The Smittens "Love Record Breaker"

It's finally out! Love Record Breaker is the new 10" record from The Smittens. We've gone all out hand screenprinting six different cover designs, each numbered and limited to just 50.

“The vocal arrangements sound great, the reverb 1950s guitar sound wonderful. There will be no dancing at the indie disco to this and its all the better for it… Arguably their most important album to date.” Neon Filler [8.5/10]

“there is nothing really to compare the Smittens with which is good in itself, so you just have to let you hair down a bit if you have some and listen to the simple sounds, chuckle at the naughty lyrics, pour yourself a dry martini and morph into a whore. Marvellous!” Penny Black Music

Order Love Record Breaker here.