A DIY INDIEPOP VINYL & CASSETTE LABEL

Adam Ross - I Get It Wrong EP [Digital]

Artist: Adam Ross
Title: I Get It Wrong EP
Format: digital
Cat#: Fika099SG4
Release date: 20th September 2024
Bandcamp | Spotify

Following the release of Littoral Zone, the second solo album from Randolph’s Leap frontman Adam Ross in May 2024, comes a digital only EP with live recorded and demo versions of two tracks lifted from the album.

“I Get It Wrong is quite a key song to the album, thematically. The album title, Littoral Zone, refers to coastlines and this song is about the sea. I relocated to a coastal village in 2021 and spent a lot of time walking around the cliffs and beaches while writing lyrics. Life was moving fairly slowly around that time and the barrenness of the landscape and the gradual movement of the tides seemed to reinforce that feeling, hence the lyric about time moving in “different directions”.

It's a song about over-reflecting on mistakes and personal insufficiencies but also seeing the person you love going through those same thought processes. There’s some religious imagery in there (not for the first time on the album) which I suppose is linked to the idea that you can’t completely escape your upbringing even if your beliefs change. The song is also a bit about wild swimming.

The live version came from some video sessions I recorded in Glasgow with my live band. The album itself was painstakingly layered up and mixed one instrument at a time so it’s fun to approach the songs in a looser, more spontaneous way when playing live. There are some great people in the band: Andrew Wasylyk on bass, Owen Curtis Williams (Withered Hand, eagleowl) on drums, Pedro Cameron (Man of the Minch) on violin and Gillian Fleetwood on piano.”

Littoral Zone is a heavily lyrical collection of warped 70s-esque indie-folk ballads inspired by Adam’s relocation to the coast. The album is produced by multiple Scottish Album Of The Year Award nominated composer and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Wasylyk and released on London record label Fika Recordings. Arts bodies Creative Scotland and Help Musicians have supported and funded the album.

The writing of the album saw Adam move away from guitar and onto piano, having bought a slightly battered upright piano from a local antiques warehouse as a first priority after moving house in 2021. Chords, melodies and musical ideas were recorded on Adam's phone before lyrics were slowly built up during his walks on the beach and clifftops around the village of St Cyrus where he now lives. 

I Get It Wrong pays tribute to the natural beauty and mystery of coastal landscapes, while he album's darker edges can also be discovered in Ego which dwells on aging and self-doubt.

* * *

Tour dates

22nd September - Glasgow, Gathering South Sessions
29th September - Findhorn Bay Festival (with band)
1st October - Montrose Playhouse (with band)
2nd October - Stirling Tolbooth (with band)
3rd October - Edinburgh Sneaky Pete’s (with band)
4th October - Glasgow Hug & Pint (with band)
5th October - London Two Palms (supporting Withered Hand & Kathryn Williams)
9th October - Coventry The Tin
10th October - Nantwich Applestump Records
12th October - Aberdeen, Lemon Tree (supporting Kirsten Adamson)
16th October - Manchester Yes Basement (supporting Roddy Woomble)
17th October - Liverpool St Michael’s Church (supporting Roddy Woomble)
9th November - Rainham The Oast
10th November - Sheffield Dorothy Pax
14th November - Kirkcaldy Acoustic Music Club
15th November – Linlithgow St Peter’s Church

Adam Ross is a songwriter based in north-east Scotland. He has led the cult indie band Randolph's Leap for over a decade, releasing music with independent labels Fika Recordings, Olive Grove Records and King Creosote and Pictish Trail’s Fence Records and Lost Map Records. He released his debut solo album 'Staring At Mountains' in 2022. He is known for his intricate, storytelling lyrical style which often blends humour and poignancy.

* * *

May 2024 saw the release of a brand-new solo album produced by multiple Scottish Album Of The Year Award nominated composer and multi-instrumentalist Andrew Wasylyk and released on London label Fika Recordings.  Arts bodies Creative Scotland and Help Musicians have supported and funded the album in recognition of what is shaping up to be one of the most exciting musical collaborations of 2024.

Adam has a track record of playing at venues and festivals across the country such as Green Man, Celtic Connections, Belladrum and The Edinburgh Fringe. His reputation as an engaging, witty, storytelling performer was further cemented by his role in ‘The Isle of Love’, a country-wide touring theatre show inspired by his songs.

His music has received regular airplay on BBC Radio Scotland and BBC 6 Music including various singles and albums of the week. He has also received excellent press in newspapers such as The Herald and The Scotsman.

“One of Scotland’s most talented singers and songwriters” – Folk Radio
“Ross’s storytelling and songwriting is still second to none” – The Skinny
“Sheer class” – BBC Radio Scotland

Fightmilk - That Thing You Did [Digital]

Artist: Fightmilk
Title: That Thing You Did
Format: digital single
Cat#: Fika104SG3
Release date: 17th September 2024
Bandcamp | Spotify

Hot on the heels of announcing their third album, DIY power pop quartet Fightmilk are unleashing its third single, “That Thing You Did” on 17th September 2024..

The track sees Fightmilk return to their vicious and riff-heavy best, as singer and lyricist Lily Rae explores trying (and failing) to forgive someone after a bad relationship.

Rae explains that the song’s origins came from one of the band’s regular discussions about cover versions. “That Thing You Did started with the title. Alex wanted us to cover That Thing You Do for a show, and I liked how putting it in the past tense made it sound so much more ominous and vengeful. So I wrote the song from the viewpoint of somebody who’s just trying to move on from a bad relationship, but the ‘souvenirs’ in this case just won’t leave. As we were writing it, the meaning started oozing out without realising.”

“It’s about refusing to forgive somebody.” Lily adds. “Just because somebody says sorry, it doesn’t mean you have to accept it.”

Talking about the song’s creation, guitarist Alex Wisgard says: “We kept banging our heads against That Thing You Did for about eighteen months, because we were trying to be too clever about it - we’ve lost a lot of good songs that way, but we all had faith in this one. The version you hear was maybe the fifth or sixth time we’d played it, recorded about half an hour after we nailed the arrangement. Lily came back with a whole new chorus the next day, and that was that - the only time we’ve ever finished a song in the studio. And I still want to cover That Thing You Do.”

The track is taken from the band's upcoming third album No Souvenirs, A riotous combination of riffage, pop hooks, angst, heartfelt emotions, wit, and wisdom crashed out with infectious, gleeful abandon, the new album will be released on 15th November 2024 via Fika Recordings (Mammoth Penguins, Fortitude Valley) and new kids on the block INH Records.

Three years in the making, the 12-track album is preceded by  third single ‘That Thing You Did’, released 17th September 2024, with the album also available to pre-order now.

Following swiftly on from the success of the album’s well-received first two singles ‘Summer Bodies’ and ‘No Souvenirs’, which explored issues of body imagine and death respectively, Fightmilk are increasing the tempo as they build toward the album release which is to be marked with a headline show at London’s Paper Dress Vintage on 15th November 2024 with a full tour to follow.

Having relished in the visceral pleasure of playing together and live on stage again post Covid, the band’s new sound reflects that joy, the abandonment in doing what you love and the catharsis of doing so. Moving on with their third album and embarking on a more intuitive and collaborative style of writing, the band have embraced their influences and gone with their instincts.

The new single demonstrates how well they have achieved those ambitions, and how making a screaming racket in front of people can be both elemental and fun, sensitive and muscular within the span of moments. 

“As a songwriter, I’ve disciplined myself to keep to ‘first thought best thought’ more, and not overwork lyrics and melodies into the ground,” says Lily of the new approach. “We’re more secure in keeping weird shit in and not adding or cutting things because it feels like we’re supposed to.”

New single ‘That Thing You Did’ is released 17th September 2024 via Fika Recordings/INH Records

Fightmilk is Lily, Alex, Healey and Nick - a London-based four-piece who write sweaty, loud, shouty pop songs. Formed in the beer gardens of South London in 2015, the band quickly drew attention with their debut album Not With That Attitude (Reckless Yes, 2018) - singled out by Drowned In Sound for its “package of massive, Godzilla-heft hooks” and “crack–like melodies.” Gaining support from 6Music and Radio X, the band swiftly hopped in the van to play shows with the likes of Art Brut, Desperate Journalist and Nova Twins, as well as touring Germany.

Not letting a seismic global clusterfuck stand in their way, the band released their second LP Contender in 2021 via Reckless Yes. Described as “a joyous riot from start to finish” by Kerrang, it was an album with something to prove, adding stacked harmonies, analog drum machines and even heftier riffs to the band’s arsenal, while still remaining decidedly true to the band’s spiky indiepop sound. As soon as they were released from lockdown they began a near relentless gigging schedule, taking in multiple trips around the UK, support slots with Johnny Foreigner, mclusky and Problem Patterns, plus a sold-out 2022 headline slot at Norway’s Indiefjord Festival, where a sweat-soaked Fightmilk crowdsurfed their way offstage at midnight only to find it was still light outside.

The band’s eighth year in action has seen them writing and recording their third album, to be released in late 2024 on Fika Recordings & INH Records. Fightmilk have turned the distortion up and the indiepop down with rougher and rawer songs about body image, death, and being fired from bridesmaid duty.

Live Dates:

15.11.24 - London - Paper Dress Vintage (album release show)
16.11.24 - Cambridge - Indie Pop All Dayer
27.11.24 - Sheffield - Sydney & Matilda (with Slash Fiction)
28.11.24 - Glasgow - Stereo (supporting Slime City)

New album ‘No Souvenirs’ will be released 15th November 2024 via Fika Recordings/INH Records

New Starts + Carla J Easton at The Lexington

Tuesday 10th September
The Lexington
Tickets from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings

New Starts 2200:2300
Carla J Easton 2100-2145
tba 2015-2045
Doors 1930

NEW STARTS

New Starts are a spikey, fresh sounding band recalling the poppier ends of new wave and angular guitar rock. Their influences include The Cars, Breeders, Bay City Rollers, The Velvet Underground and ZZ Top.

Lead singer Darren Hayman has his own long career running from the late 90s with John Peel faves Hefner to his more recent thematic and historical albums dealing with the English Civil War, William Morris and forgotten rural idylls.

“I wanted a band again,” says Hayman, “and not a band that just backed me up and played my old songs. When we form our first bands in our teens we just find some friends and work through the musical differences. I usually look for players who play in a way I’m used to. This time I looked for variance and was led by people’s personality.”

Guitarist Joely Smith [of South London’s noise-pop adults and recently DIY-punks Fresh] was recommended by a mutual friend who said, ‘She makes everything better’. Hayman and Smith shared a coffee and agreed on the correct number of guitar pedals and decided to proceed without an audition.

“There is a tendency for me to make my chords too pretty. Joely cuts against that and plays in the opposite direction.” Hayman is a fan of rules and constraints and employed a new, oblique strategy on this record. “Even though I wrote all the songs, I wanted the songs to belong to everyone during arrangement. I decided that I would say ‘yes’ to every suggestion from the band, regardless of my instinct.”

This made the songs warp and bend into new shapes and ensured that the record was the product of four individuals. Bassist Giles Barrett and drummer Will Connor come from funky afro beat influenced band Tigercats. “Pretty much the only rhythm I use, left to my own devices, is the ‘road runner’ rhythm. Will takes to care to find where the drum beat can be and we always end up somewhere I didn’t expect.”

CARLA J EASTON

Carla J. Easton is an award nominated singer-songwriter, releasing 4 critically acclaimed solo albums. She is also a member of TeenCanteen and Poster Paints, and has written songs/music for Belle & Sebastian, BMX Bandits, Hen Hoose & National Theatre Scotland. Championed by BBC6 Music, she has performed at festivals across the UK and internationally (SXSW, Pop Montreal, The Great Escape, Celtic Connections, Indiefjord and Pop Cologne) touring the UK with Camera Obscura, The Vaselines and Kim Richey.

In 2018, she released the SAY Award Shortlisted 'Impossible Stuff’, produced by Howard Bilerman (Arcade Fire/British Sea Power/Leonard Cohen) which featured singles that achieved Record of the Day, Guardian Track of the Week and BBC Scotland Single of the Week.

Her third album 'WEIRDO' was released in 2020 via Olive Grove Records - a record that Bandcamp Daily described as “all volume needles buried in the red, glitter bursting from every chorus.” The Line of Best Fit praised its “maximalist” tendencies while hinting that Scotland has found its own answer to the pop titans Carly Rae Jepsen and Taylor Swift and Pitchfork called it “bubblegum pop [with] the scrappy glamour of a homemade theatrical production”.

Her latest project Poster Paints was formed with Simon Liddell (Frightened Rabbit) during 2020. Their critically acclaimed self titled debut album was released by Ernest Jennings October 2022.

Her fourth studio album ‘SUGAR HONEY’ will be released 20th October via Olive Grove Records and features the singles ‘One Week’, ‘Blooming 4U’ and the album title track ‘Sugar Honey’.

New Starts - What I Specifically Love [Digital]

Artist: New Starts
Title: What I Specifically Love
Format: digital single
Cat#: Fika102SG4
Release date: 4th September 2024
Bandcamp | Spotify

What I Specifically Love is the latest track to be taken from the debut New Starts album [More Break-Up Songs, out in August 2024].

As I get older the balance between my art and my music becomes more balanced, they each take up 50% of my time and my mind. As such I’m often looking for ways to make them integrate and compliment each other.

About a year ago I started painted pictures in the length of time of a song. i would paint George Harrison’s guitar during one listen of Taxman.

The video for ‘What I Specifically Love’ is an attempt to draw the band and instruments with a kinetic energy that matches the song, using sharp angular lines to match the sounds and energy of Joely’s spiky guitar. Making the ragged curls of Giles hair bounce In sympathy with his bass line.

I hope you enjoy this video, it was lots of fun and cost 0p to make.

The language of love can be vague and general for a reason, we are not necessarily blessed with a precise and accurate language for all to these situations.

In this song someone has said ‘I Love You’ but been met with ‘yes, but what? What specifically do you love?’ And so this song is the result.

It’s been a long time since i wrote a truly two chord song. I wanted the relative complex and wordy narrative to have an express train running underneath it. Me and Joely play harmony guitars. It’s very hard and you have to be very exact. This song is hard to play. 

New Starts are a spikey, fresh sounding band recalling the poppier ends of new wave and angular guitar rock. Their influences include The Cars, Breeders, Bay City Rollers, The Velvet Underground and ZZ Top.

Lead singer Darren Hayman has his own long career running from the late 90s with John Peel faves Hefner to his more recent thematic and historical albums dealing with the English Civil War, William Morris and forgotten rural idylls. 

“I wanted a band again,” says Hayman, “and not a band that just backed me up and played my old songs. When we form our first bands in our teens we just find some friends and work through the musical differences. I usually look for players who play in a way I’m used to. This time I looked for variance and was led by people’s personality.”

Guitarist Joely Smith [of South London’s noise-pop adults and recently DIY-punks Fresh] was recommended by a mutual friend who said, ‘She makes everything better’. Hayman and Smith shared a coffee and agreed on the correct number of guitar pedals and decided to proceed without an audition.

“There is a tendency for me to make my chords too pretty. Joely cuts against that and plays in the opposite direction.” Hayman is a fan of rules and constraints and employed a new, oblique strategy on this record. “Even though I wrote all the songs, I wanted the songs to belong to everyone during arrangement. I decided that I would say ‘yes’ to every suggestion from the band, regardless of my instinct.”

This made the songs warp and bend into new shapes and ensured that the record was the product of four individuals. Bassist Giles Barrett and drummer Will Connor come from funky afro beat influenced band Tigercats. “Pretty much the only rhythm I use, left to my own devices, is the ‘road runner’ rhythm. Will takes to care to find where the drum beat can be and we always end up somewhere I didn’t expect.”

Fightmilk - No Souvenirs [Digital]

Artist: Fightmilk
Title: No Souvenirs
Format: digital single
Cat#: Fika104SG2
Release date: 20th August 2024
Bandcamp | Spotify

Acclaimed indie foursome, Fightmilk announce their long-awaited third album. Entitled ‘No Souvenirs’, it’s a riotous combination of riffage, pop hooks, angst, heartfelt emotions, wit and wisdom crashed out with infectious, gleeful abandon, and will finally escape the studio on November 15 2024.

Three years in the making, the 12-track album is preceded by its second single and title track ‘No Souvenirs’, released 20 August 2024, when the album will also be available for pre-order.

A poignant, stirring and personal paean to coping with losing a loved one, the new single is a big-hearted quasi-epic, deftly navigating the fine line between remembering and moving on.

Vocalist Lily says: “This is a song about surviving a loved one’s death and what you do with the leftovers. In 2013 a close friend of mine died and it messed me up for a really long time. It took ten years to write about it in a way that felt right, because I kept trying to articulate him and couldn't get it down on paper.

“So instead this song is about that balancing act of honouring a life whilst also trying to hold onto little bits of it. I kept everything - notes, letters, texts, even a packet of instant flan mix he sent me once as a weird joke - but at the back of my mind is the knowledge that it's just stuff that I've given power. Souvenirs lose their meaning over time. The memory of him is really the only important thing.

“It's a sad song about death but I wanted it to sound huge and final, like I'm putting something to bed.”

Guitarist Alex observed: “It might be the best song we’ve ever written. It’s definitely Lily’s best set of lyrics. The second we finished it, there was no question the album was going to be built with that song at its foundation.”

Following swiftly on from the success of the album’s well-received first single ‘Summer Bodies, Fightmilk are increasing the tempo as they build toward the album release which is to be marked with a headline show at London’s Paper Dress Vintage and a full tour to follow, as they enjoy having signed to Fika Recordings (Mammoth Penguins, Fortitude Valley) and new kids on the block INH Records. 

Having relished in the visceral pleasure of playing together and live on stage again post Covid, the new sound reflects that joy, the abandonment in doing what you love and the  catharsis of doing so. Moving on with their third album and embracing a more intuitive and collaborative style of writing, the band have embraced their influences and gone with their instincts. 

The new single demonstrates how well they have achieved those ambitions, and how making a screaming racket in front of people can be both elemental and fun, sensitive and muscular within the span of moments. 

“As a songwriter, I’ve disciplined myself to keep to ‘first thought best thought’ more, and not overwork lyrics and melodies into the ground,” says Lily “We’re more secure in keeping weird shit in and not adding or cutting things because it feels like we’re supposed to.”

With international acclaim from the likes of STEREOGUM, Kerrang! Magazine, The Quietus, DIY Magazine, Brooklyn Vegan and The Line Of Best Fit already under their belts, and having sold out headline gigs across the UK, in addition to sharing stages with bands such as Art Brut, Yawners and Problem Patterns, Fightmilk look set to build on their reputation as one of the DIY scene’s best loved bands in the run-up to their much-anticipated third album.


New single ‘No Souvenirs’ is released 20th August 2024 via Fika Recordings/INH Records

Fightmilk is Lily, Alex, Healey and Nick - a London-based four-piece who write sweaty, loud, shouty pop songs. Formed in the beer gardens of South London in 2015, the band quickly drew attention with their debut album Not With That Attitude (Reckless Yes, 2018) - singled out by Drowned In Sound for its “package of massive, Godzilla-heft hooks” and “crack–like melodies.” Gaining support from 6Music and Radio X, the band swiftly hopped in the van to play shows with the likes of Art Brut, Desperate Journalist and Nova Twins, as well as touring Germany.

Not letting a seismic global clusterfuck stand in their way, the band released their second LP Contender in 2021 via Reckless Yes. Described as “a joyous riot from start to finish” by Kerrang, it was an album with something to prove, adding stacked harmonies, analog drum machines and even heftier riffs to the band’s arsenal, while still remaining decidedly true to the band’s spiky indiepop sound. As soon as they were released from lockdown they began a near relentless gigging schedule, taking in multiple trips around the UK, support slots with Johnny Foreigner, mclusky and Problem Patterns, plus a sold-out 2022 headline slot at Norway’s Indiefjord Festival, where a sweat-soaked Fightmilk crowdsurfed their way offstage at midnight only to find it was still light outside.

The band’s eighth year in action has seen them writing and recording their third album, to be released in late 2024 on Fika Recordings & INH Records. Fightmilk have turned the distortion up and the indiepop down with rougher and rawer songs about body image, death, and being fired from bridesmaid duty.

New Starts - More Break-Up Songs [12"/CD]

Artist: New Starts
Title: More Break-Up Songs
Format: 12” vinyl | digifile CD | digital
Cat#: Fika102
Release date: 16th August 2024
Bandcamp | Spotify

New Starts are a spikey, fresh sounding band recalling the poppier ends of new wave and angular guitar rock. Their influences include The Cars, Breeders, Bay City Rollers, The Velvet Underground and ZZ Top.

Lead singer Darren Hayman has his own long career running from the late 90s with John Peel faves Hefner to his more recent thematic and historical albums dealing with the English Civil War, William Morris and forgotten rural idylls. 

“I wanted a band again,” says Hayman, “and not a band that just backed me up and played my old songs. When we form our first bands in our teens we just find some friends and work through the musical differences. I usually look for players who play in a way I’m used to. This time I looked for variance and was led by people’s personality.”

Guitarist Joely Smith [of South London’s noise-pop adults and recently DIY-punks Fresh] was recommended by a mutual friend who said, ‘She makes everything better’. Hayman and Smith shared a coffee and agreed on the correct number of guitar pedals and decided to proceed without an audition.

“There is a tendency for me to make my chords too pretty. Joely cuts against that and plays in the opposite direction.” Hayman is a fan of rules and constraints and employed a new, oblique strategy on this record. “Even though I wrote all the songs, I wanted the songs to belong to everyone during arrangement. I decided that I would say ‘yes’ to every suggestion from the band, regardless of my instinct.”

This made the songs warp and bend into new shapes and ensured that the record was the product of four individuals. Bassist Giles Barrett and drummer Will Connor come from funky afro beat influenced band Tigercats. “Pretty much the only rhythm I use, left to my own devices, is the ‘road runner’ rhythm. Will takes to care to find where the drum beat can be and we always end up somewhere I didn’t expect.”

More Break Up Songs is a collection of 12 Break Up songs because Darren broke up with someone. Again. “I suck’, he says, “But it’s never anyone’s fault. It makes me very sad but I do have to work through these things in song and there’s always something to learn. I try to make songs about breakups that could be understood by both parties. I’m not interested in nasty songs.”

Opening song ‘Little Stone in my Heart’ blisters along with Joely’s wildest guitars. The protagonist will do anything to make things right, but nothing ever is.

‘Under the Striplights’ has driving, choppy, incessant riffs, and is about the need to be anywhere but somewhere other than here. We could be under the moon or under the strip lights as long as we have each other.

Another barely kept rule that Darren instigated on this album was that each song would be a tonal equivalent to one from The Velvet Underground’s third album. To that end ‘Don’t Need Persuading’ is this record’s ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ with the narrator being unable to break free of a vortex, knowing they will stay the night against all better judgment. 

‘I’ve had a long standing distrust of the guitar,’ says Darren, ‘despite it being my primary instrument for twenty years. I thought it was time I made a record with two guitars and drums and bass. I wanted it to be bright, immediate and young sounding, despite the fact I’m old. We recorded it in four days and I think this might be the record a lot of my audience has wanted me to make for a long time.’

“The songs are vintage Hayman at first glance. And right from the start of ‘A Little Stone’, the Hefner crew will be delighted. But there’s an edge here that comes with the band arrangements. Dissonance, driven bass, and thudding toms. There’s an energy here that feels like a band in the right gear. There are lovely slow moments, too. The ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ of the album, ‘Don’t Need Persuading’, is up there with Hayman’s best songs.
It’s a great new project from one of our best songwriters. Spend some time in a sad, but upbeat world.” The Quietus

“He has fashioned an album overtly nodding to The Velvet Underground’s third - the dynamic flow is shared, as is the sound. The title lays out the subject matter, with songs as candid and sometimes equally wince-inducing as Hefner’s. But boy, does he sound reinvigorated.” Mojo [3/5]

“Darren Hayman weaves a personal mythology of love and loneliness…the results are sometimes humorous, sometimes tear-jerking, and never less than entertaining.” KLOF

“Tease the Corners and What I Specifically Love are classic Hayman” Scottish Express

“the clash between the former leader of Hefner and the guitarist Joely Smith, linked to noise pop, is striking, giving the compositions a more urgent and electric air” El Pais [Spanish]

“Darren Hayman was, before embarking on a versatile solo career, figurehead of Hefner. Here he diversifies even further, uniting with a band that offer fascinating parallels to his own style. Guitarist Joely Smith makes the most brilliantly caustic of combos against Hayman's own melodic playing, while the rhythm section of Giles Barrett and Will Connor add exuberance with their afrobeat background.” Norman Records

“It feels like those hazy summer days when you’re young, and things feel like they’re falling apart, but the sun’s beating down onto the tarmac and you’ve at least you’ve got yourself for company. There are moments where the record sounds like Pavement, maybe a little too much at times, with Hayman’s voice roaming freely with the same occasionally-unpolished charm as Stephen Malkmus.” Far Out

“ if songs of this quality are the expectation of Darren Hayman at this point in his career, that’s a very good thing” Add To Wantlist

“fresh, edgy sound harks back to the more poetic extremes of new wave” TV6 [Italian]

Stanley Brinks and Freschard at SJQ

Sunday 21st July at SJQ (Servant Jazz Quarters), Bradbury Street, Dalston, N16 8JN.

Fika Recordings presents Stanley Brinks and Freschard

Doors open 1930
Music from 2000 - 2200

Tickets £15 + bf from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings.
Some £8 concessions are available for those on no- or low-incomes (no questions asked).

Stanley Brinks is renowned for his unique anti-folk style: both playful and suggestive, insightful and entertaining. Brinks was born in Paris, France, in 1973. He studied a bit of biology and worked as a nurse for a while. Half Swedish, half Moroccan, strongly inclined to travel the world, he soon began spending most of his life on the road and developed a strong relationship with New York. By the late 90s he’d become a full time singer-songwriter – André Herman Düne – as part of three piece indie-rock band, Herman Düne. Several albums and Peel sessions later and after a decade of touring Europe, mostly with American songwriters such as Jeffrey Lewis, Calvin Johnson and early Arcade Fire he settled in Berlin. The early carnival music of Trinidad became a passion, and in the early 21st century he became the unquestioned master of European calypso, changing his name to Stanley Brinks. Under this moniker he has recorded more than 100 albums, collaborated with the New York Antifolk scene on several occasions, recorded and toured with traditional Norwegian musicians, and played a lot with The Wave Pictures.

Freschard grew up in a farm in French Burgundy. Aged 18 she moved to Paris, where she baked pies and cakes in a cafe. There, a local musician and regular customer called Stanley Brinks wrote a few songs for her to sing. Homeless in Paris, she saved up just enough money to get herself a ticket to New York. There she found an old electric guitar and started writing her own songs. In 2004 she moved to Berlin, where she recorded her first LP, "Alien Duck". Her second album, "Click Click", recorded in 2006, features electric guitar by Stanley Brinks. On her third album, she plays the drums herself. On her fourth “Shh...” she also plays the flute. For this year’s “Boom Biddy Boom” she also plays the washboard.

 

New Starts - A Little Stone [Digital]

Artist: New Starts
Title: A Little Stone
Format: digital single
Cat#: Fika102SG3
Release date: 17th July 2024
Bandcamp | Spotify

A Little Stone is the latest track to be taken from the debut New Starts album [More Break-Up Songs, out in August 2024].

I said the phrase “A Little Stone” unthinkenly one day to a friend to describe my mood. ‘I’ve got a little stone in my heart’. Not heart broken, not devastated it’s just heavier than it should be and feels wrong. This is my favourite guitar part from Joely. It’s ferocious. 

Video shot and edited by Fraser Watson, Foliage Films.
Rolling ball artist Rory Buckley.

New Starts are a spikey, fresh sounding band recalling the poppier ends of new wave and angular guitar rock. Their influences include The Cars, Breeders, Bay City Rollers, The Velvet Underground and ZZ Top.

Lead singer Darren Hayman has his own long career running from the late 90s with John Peel faves Hefner to his more recent thematic and historical albums dealing with the English Civil War, William Morris and forgotten rural idylls. 

“I wanted a band again,” says Hayman, “and not a band that just backed me up and played my old songs. When we form our first bands in our teens we just find some friends and work through the musical differences. I usually look for players who play in a way I’m used to. This time I looked for variance and was led by people’s personality.”

Guitarist Joely Smith [of South London’s noise-pop adults and recently DIY-punks Fresh] was recommended by a mutual friend who said, ‘She makes everything better’. Hayman and Smith shared a coffee and agreed on the correct number of guitar pedals and decided to proceed without an audition.

“There is a tendency for me to make my chords too pretty. Joely cuts against that and plays in the opposite direction.” Hayman is a fan of rules and constraints and employed a new, oblique strategy on this record. “Even though I wrote all the songs, I wanted the songs to belong to everyone during arrangement. I decided that I would say ‘yes’ to every suggestion from the band, regardless of my instinct.”

This made the songs warp and bend into new shapes and ensured that the record was the product of four individuals. Bassist Giles Barrett and drummer Will Connor come from funky afro beat influenced band Tigercats. “Pretty much the only rhythm I use, left to my own devices, is the ‘road runner’ rhythm. Will takes to care to find where the drum beat can be and we always end up somewhere I didn’t expect.”

Fightmilk - Summer Bodies [Digital]

Artist: Fightmilk
Title: Summer Bodies
Format: digital single
Cat#: Fika104SG1
Release date: 27th June 2024
Bandcamp | Spotify

Fightmilk Return With New Single ‘Summer Bodies’ Critiquing Patriarchal Beauty Standards

London “strop-pop” quartet Fightmilk are returning to action with raging new single ‘Summer Bodies’ released 27th June 2024, their first new material in three years.

Angsty and uplifting in equal measure, it’s an instantly catchy singalong anthem, combining the band’s trademark tongue-in-cheek wit with a swirling energy and gritty raw emotion.

Commenting on the track, vocalist Lily says: “It's about how women and femmes are constantly bombarded with media telling us how to be our best and most beautiful selves, or, bluntly, how to bully your mind and body into an image set by constantly moving goalposts—straight teeth, white skin, feminine but not girly, cool but not threatening, skinny waist, snatched jawline. Products that promise to shrink you in the guise of 'wellness'. And if you don’t look like that, you’re supposed to hate yourself until you do. No thanks. Our favourite bit in this song is where we all take turns unleashing a big scream.”

The first taste of their much-anticipated third album, the band recently signed to Fika Recordings (Mammoth Penguins, Fortitude Valley) and Insert Name Here, with further details and news to be revealed over the coming months.

New single ‘Summer Bodies’ questions patriarchal society’s ridiculous and ever-changing expectations of women’s bodies and the futile quest to ‘be sexy’, with Lily’s dead-pan commentary weaving between buoyant harmonies and gloriously scuzzy hooks.

A fierce ode to self-love in the face of the onslaught of damaging beauty standards that we are constantly bombarded with, it also sees Fightmilk flirt with a heavier side to their sound than fans may be used to.

So, as the warmer weather approaches, wear whatever makes you feel comfortable, pay no mind to the incessant Instagram ads about fad diets or corrective procedures, and know that you look great - whatever size, age or gender you may be. As bassist Healey summarises: “life's too short, do whatever the f*ck you want, do no harm and take no sh*t."

With international acclaim from the likes of STEREOGUM, Kerrang! Magazine, The Quietus, DIY Magazine, Brooklyn Vegan and The Line Of Best Fit already under their belts, and having sold out headline gigs across the UK, in addition to sharing stages with bands such as Art Brut, Yawners and Problem Patterns, Fightmilk look set to build on their reputation as one of the DIY scene’s best loved bands in the run-up to their much-anticipated third album.

Taking influence from a broad spread of artists including Sharon van Etten, The Beths, Charly Bliss, Bully, Speedy Ortiz, Liz Phair, The Lemonheads, Japanese Breakfast, and that dog., FIGHTMILK are the perfect soundtrack to your “why can’t I adult like everyone else my age?” life.

The band formed in the beer gardens of London in 2015 when Lily and Alex decided to turn their then-recent respective breakups into FIGHTMILK, creating an indiepop soundtrack by which to navigate millennial life. Their first two EPs – one self-released in 2016 (The Curse of Fightmilk), and the next (Pity Party) put out through uber-indie label Fierce Panda – strode ahead of signing to Reckless Yes for the release of their first album.

Their 2018 debut LP Not With That Attitude was released on limited edition pink vinyl, CD and digital, gaining a fan in Steve Lamacq (BBC 6Music) as well as praise from Echoes and Dust, Drowned in Sound, and Louder Than War Magazine, appearing in many end of year picks.

Now sold out (but still available digitally of course), their debut is well loved by listeners and critics alike who recognised a perfectly written set of alt-rock tunes capturing the chaos and shambles of relationships wrapped in anthemic power-pop riffs.

While the band planned to take their time crafting forthcoming second album Contender, they hadn’t factored in a global pandemic and the delays it would cause. Marking a maturing of their sound the record also sees a step-change in their writing and recording, as they welcomed new member Healey (formerly of Wolf Girl) on bass, and took a more collaborative approach than past efforts.

Like the writing process, recording also took more time, again thanks to Covid-19. Recorded in two sessions a year apart at Dean Street Studios in London, the band saw plans for a UK tour suddenly pulled as the release of the first single from the record, ‘I’m Starting To Think You Don’t Even Want To Go To Space’, coincided with the first lockdown in March 2020.

While waiting to be able to return to the studio and complete work on the project, the band took creative detours throughout 2020 with home-recorded Christmas (Fightmilk and Cookies) and cover (The FME EP) EPs raising money for Girls Rock London and The Trussell Trust.

Fightmilk released their second album Contender in May 2021 to a surge of international press support, with enthusiastic coverage from Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, The Line of Best Fit, The Quietus, Kerrang! Magazine, DIY, Louder Than War and more, with radio spins from Tom Robinson and Steve Lamacq at BBC 6Music, John Kennedy at Radio X, and a host of specialist and regional support.

New Starts - Asbestos Roof [Digital]

Artist: New Starts
Title: Asbestos Roof
Format: digital single
Cat#: Fika102SG2
Release date: 12th June 2024
Bandcamp | Spotify

Asbestos Roof is the second track to be taken from the debut New Starts album [More Break-Up Songs, out in August 2024].

I have written a few songs about getting older but they are often an internal solution to the situation. In this song anything is possible if eyes are closed and the imagination is used. We can be young, we can be anywhere, we can be anything. 

New Starts are a spikey, fresh sounding band recalling the poppier ends of new wave and angular guitar rock. Their influences include The Cars, Breeders, Bay City Rollers, The Velvet Underground and ZZ Top.

Lead singer Darren Hayman has his own long career running from the late 90s with John Peel faves Hefner to his more recent thematic and historical albums dealing with the English Civil War, William Morris and forgotten rural idylls. 

“I wanted a band again,” says Hayman, “and not a band that just backed me up and played my old songs. When we form our first bands in our teens we just find some friends and work through the musical differences. I usually look for players who play in a way I’m used to. This time I looked for variance and was led by people’s personality.”

Guitarist Joely Smith [of South London’s noise-pop adults and recently DIY-punks Fresh] was recommended by a mutual friend who said, ‘She makes everything better’. Hayman and Smith shared a coffee and agreed on the correct number of guitar pedals and decided to proceed without an audition.

“There is a tendency for me to make my chords too pretty. Joely cuts against that and plays in the opposite direction.” Hayman is a fan of rules and constraints and employed a new, oblique strategy on this record. “Even though I wrote all the songs, I wanted the songs to belong to everyone during arrangement. I decided that I would say ‘yes’ to every suggestion from the band, regardless of my instinct.”

This made the songs warp and bend into new shapes and ensured that the record was the product of four individuals. Bassist Giles Barrett and drummer Will Connor come from funky afro beat influenced band Tigercats. “Pretty much the only rhythm I use, left to my own devices, is the ‘road runner’ rhythm. Will takes to care to find where the drum beat can be and we always end up somewhere I didn’t expect.”

“there’s an undeniable freshness here, that slightly off-kilter collision of ideas that’s at the heart of all the best bands, the propulsive rhythm creating a base for the guitars to play off against one another, Darren’s driving melodies battling against Joely’s choppier, against the grain style, reminiscent of Graham Coxon’s playing on Blur’s spiky self-titled album. An intriguing introduction, New Starts feels more than just a name, by digging back into their earliest musical memories, they might just have created a blueprint for where these talented bunch of musicians are going next.” For The Rabbits

“it’s a supergroup of what’s cool in the UK underground scene. They hold the song in these jagged bouncing chords, while Hayman delivers his traditional idiosyncratic lyrics across the tune; this particular tune seems to be bleeding with notes of confessional, which makes sense as this is another album filled with break-up songs. Pop songs with great punch? I’m betting New Starts have it in loads” Austin Town Hall

“fuzzy as heck and wouldn't seem out of place dropping in the late-70s” Thats Good Enough For Me

“Fresh spiky pop that fuses with lonely guitar rock and a desire for simplistic love, but most of all they just want us to like them, and we do.” Freak Magnet

Brooklyn Vegan