| So, no newsletter for two months and then two in a week, what’s that about?
Well, for one thing we’d like your help. Tender Trap’s new single “Do You Want A Boyfriend?” is up for this week’s Rebel Playlist on the BBC 6music radio station and if they win they get played on EVERY show on 6music next week, which would be pretty amazing! If you could take a minute before midnight on Sunday to vote for them here that would be very much appreciated. Thank You! Check out the ace new video for it on our homepage.
As well as the begging, we do actually have some new news. For instance, the new video for “Say No To Love” by The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart has just gone up on Stereogum website, which is just as exciting for us as it is you cos we hadn’t seen it either!
Thanks to everyone who came out on Tuesday to celebrate the release of Allo Darlin’s album, it was a really special night. Allo Darlin’ fans in London can see them again on July 21st (tickets here) and they’re also John Kennedy’s artists in residence on XFM radio every night next week, Monday to Thursday at 10pm. You can listen to the shows after they’re broadcast using the Listen Again feature on the XFM website. There’s a nice inteview with them on Subba-Cultcha website too.
You might also want to know that the excellent support act on Tuesday, Standard Fare, are playing again next Wednesday at the Barfly in London, tickets here.
OK, here are the headlines:
– Tender Trap, the band led by indiepop goddess Amelia Fletcher (Talulah Gosh / Heavenly) release a new 7″ single “Do You Want A Boyfriend?” on limited edition white vinyl this Monday, followed by an album “Dansette Dansette” as a CD digipak and a vinyl LP + free MP3 download on July 12th. You can order both from us now. Trap fans in the US of A and Canada are directed towards that damn fine label Slumberland Records to make their purchases.
– Allo Darlin’ have released that album, the one that everyone’s been saying is the indiepop album of the year for months but you haven’t managed to get your grubby mitts on yet. You can now make it yr very own in the form of a CD digipak or as a vinyl LP + free MP3 download.
– Tickets are now on sale for Allo Darlin’s next London show at The Luminaire on Wednesday 21st July. It’s an Indietracks Festival warm-up with support from American indiepop bands The Smittens and Antarctica Takes It!. Get yours here.
– Our next Basement Scam club night in London is next Friday (25th June), with King And The Olive Fields + Lucky Delucci + Andrew Churchman (Pants Yell!) + Spirit Of Play and dancing and drinking till the early hours with guest DJs Upsidownia. Tickets here.
– The Pipettes are back with a new single “Call Me” on July 12th. Another superbly catchy slice of utterly infectious pop perfection, it’ll be available as limited edition blue vinyl 7″ with an exclusive B-side “Over Heels” and as a digital download with a bundle also including an Operator Please remix of “Call Me” and “My Heart’s A Bomb”. Pre-order the 7″ now here.
– The Pipettes will also be playing at The Lexington in London on the 19th July, with support from Welsh 60s popsters The School and A Little Orchestra, a 13-strong, well, orchestra led by The Pipettes’s very own Monster Bobby. Tickets here.
– The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart are back! back!! back!!! with a brand spanking new 7″ single (on sea foam green vinyl no less!). “Say No To Love” b/w “Lost Saint” is released on July 5th and singer Kip Berman reckons it’s “a perfect summertime single full of fuzz and feelings”. You can buy the vinyl 7″ + free MP3 download direct from us now. Again fans in the States and Canada are asked to support their local indie record label Slumberland Records.
– Later in July The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart play dates in the UK and Spain, including Indietracks Festival alongside Allo Darlin’ and The Loves (tickets here) and a headline London show on Thursday 29th July at Heaven (tickets here and selling fast).
Finally, a public service announcement. Last week’s mailout precipitated a huge number of record orders, so if you have ordered a record from us please be patient, the Fortuna POP! elf is working through them and all current orders have either gone out or will go out in the next two days. We really appreciate you ordering directly from us, we see a lot more moolah that way. Alright!
Read on for way too much detail on everything above…
TENDER TRAP – NEW SINGLE + ALBUM, UK TOUR DATES, GENERAL ROCK’N’ROLL MAYHEM
Tender Trap release a new 7″ single “Do You Want A Boyfriend?” on limited edition white vinyl on June 21st, followed by an album “Dansette Dansette” as a CD digipak and a vinyl LP + free MP3 download on July 12th. You can order both from us now. Trap fans in the US of A and Canada are directed towards that damn fine label Slumberland Records to make their purchases.
The single “Do You Want a Boyfriend?” taken from the album, is a perfect chunk of pop, but it’s not as innocent as it seems – it celebrates the girl-pop phenomenon, but deconstructs it, too. Amelia Fletcher sings in response to new guitarist Elizabeth Morris of Allo Darlin’ and new drummer Katrina Dixon’s increasingly intimate questions about boyfriends, and her answers stray well outside the standard girl-group territory. The punk-rocking flip side “The Sum and the Difference” is the closest Tender Trap have come to Talulah Gosh; while guitars and drums rush by in a blur, the girls in the band harmonise sweetly, contemplating whether to kiss or kill another unreliable partner.
As for the long player, “Dansette Dansette” kicks of the record in fine fashion, morse feedback bleeps leading into a melodic ode to the bedroom record player. “Girls With Guns” and “2 To The N” are more punk-inspired, hearkening back to Amelia’s Talulah Gosh roots. Slower tunes like “Suddenly” and “Counting The Hours” give plenty of room for Amelia’s vocal interplay with Elizabeth and Katrina, and “Capital L” wraps up the album in epic fashion, a tambourine-driven slow-dance which builds to a glorious crescendo. With two extra girl voices the band now combines the harmonies, oohs, ahs and sha-la-las of classic girl-pop with the stripped down beats and dirty guitars of The Shop Assistants and The Vaselines.
The band have some UK shows coming up in July to coincide with the release of the album:
Jul 3 The Hope, Brighton tickets
Jul 9 The Library, Leeds
Jul 10 Mello Mello, Liverpool
Jul 13 The Wheatsheaf, Oxford tickets
Jul 14 Rough Trade East Instore, London FREE
Jul 22 Jamm, London tickets
ALLO DARLIN’ RELEASE ALBUM, BREAK AMERICA, PLAY GIGS
It’s the news you’ve all been waiting for, the album of the summer is finally released. No longer will your so-called-friends who picked it up at a gig be able to taunt you, now you can have a copy of your very own. And not only is it released as a CD digipak but it also comes as a vinyl LP + free MP3 download, a technological marvel few would have thought possible. It runs the spectrum from joyous, breezy, punky, jump-around pop with fabulous harmonies to sparse ukulele and steel guitar heartbreakers and contains among its ten amazing songs the singles “The Polaroid Song” and “Dreaming”. Snap up your copy now.
Allo Darlin’ have just finished a tour of the US of A including an appearance at New York Popfest which led to them being reviewed on the front page of the NY Times website no less as “terrific, witty and heartfelt, like a less moody Belle & Sebastian”. The band’s next London show is an Indietracks warm-up on July 21st at The Luminaire with The Smittens and Antarctica Takes It!, followed by Indietracks itself and a European tour.
21 July The Luminaire, London tickets
23 July Indietracks Festival, Derbyshire tickets
27 July L’Internationale, Paris France
28 July Cologne, Germany
29 July Hamburg, Germany
30 July Ostopol Dresden, Germany
31 July Copenhagen Denmark
1 Aug Malmo, Sweden
2 Aug House of Win-Win, Gothenburg Sweden
3 Aug Maja’s, Varberg Sweden
4 Aug Jonkoping, Sweden
5 Aug Cosy Den Festival at Landet, Stockholm Sweden
KING AND THE OLIVE FIELDS + LUCKY DELUCCI + ANDREW CHURCHMAN (PANTS YELL!) + SPIRIT OF PLAY
Fortuna POP! presents Basement Scam
Friday 25th June 8pm
Buffalo Bar, 259 Upper Street, London N1 1RU
Nearest tube : Highbury & Islington
Advance: £5 from We Got Tickets/Door: £6
FREE ENTRY AFTER 11PM
KING AND THE OLIVE FIELDS
Philip Serfaty and a rotating cast of friends play swoonsome, literate indie pop festooned with ukuleles, cellos, banjos and the like. For fans of early Magnetic Fields, The Wave Pictures and Herman Dune.
“They take folk-pop at a gentle pace, allowing Serfaty’s captivating lyricism to be the main attraction. His voice is also one that demands attention, pitched between Jeffrey Lewis’s thirsty drawl and Calvin Johnson’s drowsy bass. Their final song, in particular, sounds like a Hidden Cameras 7” might if you pressed ever so gently upon it with a finger, reducing it’s r.p.m. to 38/39ish.” (Vanity Project)
http://www.myspace.com/kingsongs
LUCKY DELUCCI
Cardiff six-piece Lucky Delucci recently released their debut single ‘December 1986’ on Bubblewrap Records. They play uplifting, folk tinged indie-pop songs all wrapped up in intricate four part harmonies with modern arrangements that ebb and flow towards rhythmic climaxes.
“Their sound is loose and relaxed and will appeal to fans of Gorkys and Sufjan Stevens” (City Life)
http://www.myspace.com/luckydelucci
ANDREW CHURCHMAN (PANTS YELL!)
A solo performance from the singer-songwriter of one of America’s most loved (and now sadly deceased) indie bands. Pants Yell! formed at a Boston art school in 2003, the trio a vehicle for Andrew Churchman’s modestly proportioned but perfectly realized songs, his two- and three-minute marvels drawing power from restraint and poetry from plainspoken observation. Alison Statton, the third Pants Yell! album, brought the band unprecedented critical and popular success internationally, before the band called time with their swansong for Slumberland Records, Received Pronunciation.
“Indie pop formalists… following in the tradition of wordy, tuneful, earnest underdogs from Small Factory and the Trashcan Sinatras to the Lucksmiths” (Pitchfork)
http://www.myspace.com/pantsyellmusic
SPIRIT OF PLAY
Spirit of Play mysteriously came into being in the middle of 2008, after a long period of idle talk and ineffectual body language. Like snowflakes, no two SOP songs are the same, and many are quite different even from themselves. Their credentials are dubious, although their MySpace page suggests kinship with The Divine Comedy, The Go-Betweens and Belle & Sebastian.
“Upbeat folky-pop featuring clever lyrics and intricate vocal harmonies. Their songs deal with quirky topics from ranging scholarly love affairs and the wave vs. particle state of light through to the possibilities of parallel universes” (Lablit)
http://www.myspace.com/spiritofplay
plus DJs playing indiepop, northern soul, post-punk, alt-rock, French pop and 60s psych till late
Guest DJs: Marina and Serena (Upsidownia)
THE PIPETTES – NEW SINGLE AND LONDON GIG
The Pipettes release the second single from their eagerly awaited second album “Earth Vs The Pipettes” on July 12th and it sees the now London-based six-piece in full-on disco-tastic power pop overdrive. ‘Call Me’ is as catchy as anything The Pipettes have ever done, which is saying something, given their knack for serving up slices of utterly infectious pop perfection.
Hot on the heels of the band’s ebullient comeback ‘Stop The Music’ (“the sort of chorus that makes you go a bit wobbly and misty-eyed” – Popjustice) this disco-tinged follow up is undeniable proof that there’s something different about The Pipettes. Thanks to a change of line-up and a hop, skip and jump into 2010, they’ve reinvented themselves as a big shiny pop group, leaving behind the realm of the three female harmony girl-group and moving towards the sounds of Chic-inspired seventies disco and eighties chart music.
The single will be available as limited edition blue vinyl 7″ with an exclusive B-side “Over Heels” and as a digital download with a bundle also including an Operator Please remix of “Call Me” and “My Heart’s A Bomb”. You can pre-order the vinyl 7″ now here.
You should know too that The Pipettes will be playing at The Lexington in London on the 19th July, with support from The School and A Little Orchestra, a 13-strong, well, orchestra led by The Pipettes’s very own Monster Bobby. Tickets here.
SUMMER OF PAINS – NEW SINGLE + UK & SPANISH DATES
We thought they’d gone away, but they’re back! back!! back!!
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart release a brand spanking new 7″ single (on sea foam green vinyl!) “Say No To Love” b/w “Lost Saint” through Fortuna POP! on July 5th. In singer Kip Berman’s words it’s “a perfect summertime single full of fuzz and feelings”, adding, “The song is about rejecting hyper-serious adolescent romance that imprisons you and inhibits your ability to become the person you want to be and do the things you want to do. It’s about a girl telling an emo boy to go grow a pair.” On the B-side is another new track, Lost Saint, which is “about growing up, going to Catholic School and insubordination.”
You can listen to the A-side on our website, and if you take a trip over to Drowned In Sound website you can hear the B-side too! Or you could just buy the 7″, which comes with a free MP3 download of both tracks.
In other exciting Pains news the long lost video for “Higher Than The Stars” has magically found its way into the world. Watch the Pains infiltrate the secret world of the furries below. Please note, only real furries were used in the making of this video!
The band follow the release of the “Say No To Love” with a string of dates in the UK and Spain in July, including an appearance at the best festival of all and surely the Pains spiritual festival home, Indietracks.
Sun 18th July Latitude Festival, UK (tickets)
Tue 20th July Playa Club, A Coruna, Spain
Thu 22nd July Teatro Lara, Madrid, Spain
Fri 23rd July Contempopranea Festival, Alburquerque, Spain (tickets)
Sat 24th July San Sebastian Festival, San Sebastian, Spain (tickets)
Sun 25th July Indietracks Festival – Midland Railway Centre, UK (tickets)
Wed 28th July Brighton, UK – Concorde 2 (tickets)
Thu 29th July London, UK – Heaven (tickets)
Thanks for reading. And don’t forget – VOTE TENDER TRAP!
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