The Carousel - I Forgot To Remember To Forget (Vinyl Japan, 1993)

The Carousel were a twee-ish British band, featuring Elizabeth Price from Talulah Gosh and Gregory Webster from Razorcuts. I Forgot To Remember To Forget is a compilation of all their singles between 1989 and 1991.

Someone from a recently deceased fan-page described their music quite elegantly: "Elizabeth’s idea was to fuse old English tunes and imagery with indie pop sensibilities. The songs were laid bare, no bass or drums, just vocals and guitars ringing and chiming as if recorded in a cathedral to give a pure and religious feel. The lyrics invoked days of yore, scenes from the village green and a time when people died regularly from broken hearts. The songs bordered on nursery rhymes for disaffected teenagers. All are steeped in sadness and inevitable loss."

The Carousel's sound is pretty ethereal with Elizabeth's wispy harmonies being the center point, so if you enjoyed that about Talulah Gosh's early singles or if you just enjoy cute music in general, I heartily recommend this. Plus it has Amelia Fletcher playing the recorder, which everyone needs in their music collection right?

Listen Here

Hearts and crap, me

Zombina & the Skeletones - Staci Stasis 7" (Ectoplastic Records, 2005)

7 and a half minutes of gloriously silly sci-fi themed bubblegum horror-rock 'n roll-surf-abilly from one of my favorite active British punk bands. All these songs plus 7 more that are just as good appear on a compilation they put out called Monsters On 45 which is a pretty good starting point if you're interested in hearing more.

listen here

If you like this, let me know and I'll upload some of their really old stuff.

Fangs and crap, me

Indian Summer - Hidden Arithmetic CD (futurerecordings, 2006)

indian summer were a punk/post-hardcore/reel skramz dude! band (depending on who you ask) from the mid-90s. "hidden arithmetic" is a collection of live recordings from their fairly brief existence released in 2006.

the first 5 songs were recorded from a show they did at pitzer college in california circa 1993, which you can watch on youtube if you're interested. this show hadn't seen the light of day before this release. the second 7 songs were recorded from a radio session they did on KZSU and were previously released as the "live in the blue universe" LP.

the songs are pretty badly recorded, especially the pitzer college show and a lot of the lyrics are different but i prefer this release to their discography cd. the band that you hear on this album, for me, couldn't really be recaptured in a studio. everyone that's ever written about this band will always go on about the sheer energy and knife-edge emotion they play with but that's because it's what stands out so much more than anything else. strip it away and all you have are some guys with badly tuned instruments screaming disjointedly about anti-depressants and people's trains that may or may not be leaving but with it you have something really special.

this will stand out most on tracks 5 and 13, which are both recordings of, arguably, their best loved song woolworm/angry son (depending who you ask) which is an intense seven minute number full of shifts from soft twinkly guitar parts and brooding spoken lyrics to a cacophonous distorted chorus with a frantic yelped refrain that's hard not be be a little awed by. the pitzer college version descends into complete intelligibility, like the band were focusing on how much they could unnerve/move their audience more than hitting the right notes. the version at the end of the record pushes 17 minutes, with countless extra improvised verses, guitar parts and lyrics and sounds like a band that want to bare everything they possibly could with one song before never playing together again, which for all i know could've been the case.

listen

a little while ago indian summer were selling re-pressings of their discography, if you're interested hit up: www.myspace.com/indiansummersongs

hearts and crap, me

Rocket Hanabi

Blog starts here, I'm excited :)

Rocket Hanabi - Tujiko Noriko

Hearts and crap, me.