Look Blue Go Purple

A couple of weeks ago I uploaded some mildly obscure Look Blue Go Purple mp3s for a friend, but now can't for the life of me remember who it was for. Whoever it was I'm sure s/he has a look around here every now and then so I may as well post them here, then anyone else who's interested can give them a blast too.



I'm not so arrogant as to assume everyone knows who Look Blue Go Purple were so here's some back story. LBGP were formed by five women from Dunedin in 1983, released three EPs, then split up from in 1987. I always struggle to work out what people in New Zealand thought of them, but I sometimes get the impression it wasn't particularly favourable. Their bio on the Flying Nun website is suitably gushing, yet they often seem to get left out of the grand Flying Nun narrative - or just seen as Denise Roughan's band before 3Ds. I, of course, have no way of backing this theory up and considering I was 3 when they split up am not really in a position to theorize. I guess my feeling is based around the fact that, like Sneaky Feelings, they're one of the FN bands that are loved overseas far more than they are at home. I'm sure you'll love them though and recommend the 'Compilation' CD, containing all the songs from their EPs, wholeheartedly.


Anyway on with the mp3s. They're both from the '...But I Can Write Songs Okay' compilation and both fairly rough, but enjoyable, live recordings. The first is "Ralta", which doesn't feature on any of the EPs. It sounds quite different from most of their recordings, but considering it's the only live recording I've heard I have no way of knowing whether it suggested a new direction or is representative of their live show. The second isn't really Look Blue Go Purple; it's The Bats covering one of LBGP's "hits" 'I Don't Want You Anyway". Enjoy.

The School - 'Let It Slip'

Arriving home after a couple of weeks of gelato and pastizzi it was nice to have a pleasant pile of records at my door welcoming me home. On the top of the pile was The School's 'Let It Slip' EP, which I'm extremely happy to find more than delivers on the promise of their first single 'All I Wanna Do'. Given their first single's understated warmth, it's startling to hear the eponymous first track blast off with upbeat soul grooves and girl group harmonies that should be dominating the dance floor of your local club night for the rest of the year. Exclusively recording on a four track in your bedroom my result in mad indie cred, but this EP shows The School are the kind of band who are only going to benefit from high production standards. The passion and diversity they show would only get lost in murky lo-fi production bands are usually forced to use on their early releases.

Despite clearly owing a dept to 60s girl groups The School, unlike so many of their com temporaries, never seem to sink into pastiche. The joy and the melodrama is there, but it doesn't seem to matter if the dresses are or not. Put simply they're not The Pipettes. Instead they came across simply as a band trying to express and share their love of pop music.

They're playing this Saturday at the Buffalo Bar and I would like very much to see them, though since I can't seem to find anyone else interested in going along I'll probably end up piking.

i've got something on my mind...

and I'll tell you why....I can't stop wondering if it's acceptable to call your EP 'Edwyn Speaks Louder Than Kirk' AND at the end of one of your songs launch into the second half of Orange Juice's 'Consolation Prize'? Too Much?

This is the question German pop band Honeyheads are making me consider with their Cloudberry EP. As I see it's okay on one condition, you need to ensure your EP contains at least one song as strong as 'Out Of Marseille'. It probably doesn't suprise you to hear me desribe it as soul informed, jangly guitar pop, though they seem to be much more than OJ sound-a-likes and that's what slightly annoys me about the reference; it encourages people to see them as less than they are. But then part of the appeal of these kinds of bands is their total disinterest on what's acceptable or proper, it's fun upbeat power pop with the occasional German language song I can pick one or two words out of. What more could you want. Listen to 'From A To Be To See You' on their myspace to make up your own mind about the OJ nod, and you can download 'Out of Marseille' from the Cloudberry website - or i could just put a link...

Honeyhead - Out of Marseille

The Andersen Tapes

In an interview with Slumberland Records' Michael Schulman, in the excellent Wrap Yr Troubles in Dreams 'zine, he mentions that his ambition is for the label to reach SLR100. It's these kinds of modest ambitions that make Cloudberry's achievement of over 90 singles in a little over a year seem all the more astonishing. However, one of the problems with such a prolific label is can be easy to get lost among the releases, and often it's the quiet, unassuming releases that get forgotten. I believe part of the reason releases by bands like Manhattan Love Suicides and Pains stand out and are popular is because they are so different from what would be considered the label's 'sound'. Although that theory doesn't really hold water; both those releases also stand out because they're brilliant.


Considering there are so many other bands with a similar sound, The Andersen Tapes' delicately arranged winsome folk-pop is the kind of thing that can be easily overlooked. Although, the difference is they do it better than almost anyone else and they're new single is probably my favourite Cloudberry release so far. I've been thinking recently about what makes the perfect 3" CD single, as opposed to a 7" single or 12" EP, and as I listen to these short subtle pop songs delivered with the most shockingly beautiful voice I've heard in a long time I can't help thinking this is how it should be. It creates a mood and sustaines it for 8 minutes and once it's floated out of my speakers all I want to do is press play again.



The Andersen Tapes - Turn To Speak


off to malta for a couple of weeks this weekend. i doubt i'll find any decent records while i'm there...

new lodger album and why i'm a terrible person

It's fairly common for people to describe a lot indiepop as 'immediate'. I guess it's based around the sense that if you don't notice catchy melodies and clever lyrics the first time you hear something then when will you? While I can understand why some people feel this way, I feel it's completely off the mark. I find it's music like this that takes me a while, and a bit of effort, to work out whether I think it's inspired or contrived. Very few of my favourite popsongs grabbed me the first time I heard them, rather they tend to knock me on and fifth and sixth listen. By contrast I remember how much I enjoyed my first listen of Panda Bear's 'Personal Pitch' album from last year, yet I don't love it anymore now than I did then. People often talk about how the internet, and myspace in particularly, encourages a disposable attitude to music where a band is evaluated by one song before the listener moves on to the next. It's something that seemingly everyone agrees is bad, but then everyone does themselves. In fact I'm arguably guilty of worse; usually when I'm listening to a new band through last.fm or something I'm at work, I've just got one earphone in, battling with a book scanner and keep having to stop to unjam photocopiers.

In my last post I mentioned how I had ignored Pants Yell! for quite a while after listening to them in the kind of situation mentioned above; well I'm sorry to say I've done it again with The Lodger. I quickly dismissed them the first time I heard them for reasons I can't understand, but after picking up their album 'Life Is Sweet' on a whim this weekend I'm absolutely smitten. Once again it took me a while. When I first put it on I thought it was 'too much', but then listening to it on my way to and from work for the last few days I enjoy it more every time I hear it. The herky jerky soul rhythms of songs like their first single 'Good Old Days', points to bands like Orange Juice and Comet Gain, although the mix and frantic pop punctuated with tender string led melancholy suggests a similar spirit to The Lucksmiths. It's quite an intense sound that can be a little bit jarring if played a background music, but wandering around listening to them on my minidisk (yeah I'm stuck in the nineties) has made me appreciate late buses and train delays more than ever before.

Pants Yell!

12th of May has been a pretty eventful day in Chris' life, but one thing that will stand out is it was the day that after about a year of casual interest I finally fell for Pants Yell! Well I say I fell for Pants Yell! but so far it's really more of an obsession over one song, Two French Sisters.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who was always a little bit disappointed with Wyatt's Aisleirs Set songs, well this song seem to be everything I ever wish they were. Andrew's vocals (I'm pretty sure he's the singer) are so perfectly bored and emotional and I can't understand why I didn't recognise it only only a week ago. I'm not usually a fan of meta-indie but that moment where he goes "I was looking for a job", and then a whole The Smiths songs runs in my head is magic. Maybe it's because I keep thinking about how much I hate my job at the moment, though more likely because I've had Alex telling me how she loves them for the last few days. Why I keep thinking about the Aislers Set I don't know but the great John Peel quite about them (“If you were in one of your difficult moods you could argue that there are lots of bands making that kind of noise particularly in the United States of America. And you'd say well, why are Aislers Set better than any of the others and I'd have to say, well I don't know they just sort of are") seems to apply perfectly.

It's a been an eventfull day I spent from 4am to 6am walking past sleepy lambs trying to get home from ATP (me not the lambs), was over joyed to find a copy of Henrys Dress' 'Bust 'Em Green' at Flash Back and was unable to speak properly for most of the day but now listening to this song over and over again seems perfect.

So if you want to listen go here, in fact listen to the whole album. I'm sure you'll think it's no big deal. Right now I need to go to sleep, typo's and grammar errors can be fixed tomorrow. In fact this whole incredibly earnest post will be probably be deleted.

Of all the places I'd like to be it's in the room with no tv/ An open window and company

instant nostalgia

I can remember very few of my 'firsts', but one I can is the first time I heard a mixtape. I was in the car of my older brother's friend and a then popular song was playing and was followed up by another popular song from a completely different record. I remember being pretty startled at learning you could create your own 'albums' and over the next five years was making a new mix weekly. I didn't, however, realise at that time that mixtapes are intended to be traded and strangely it was around the time that I started meeting people I could have potentially made mixes for that my productivity went into decline. In fact one of my constant New Years resolutions is to make more mixtapes, or maybe just to make mixtapes in general. My tape player back home eventually died and never got replaced and buying one here suggests a level of stability I'm not ready for yet. So I've sadly made the gradual move to CDs which are obviously inferior as they don't require the maker to listen to is as it's being made and the listener has the ability to skip songs therefore limiting your ability to enforce your taste on them; surely the whole point of the process. I've also got into the habit of making playlists on i-Tunes for my girlfriend to listen to on her i-Pod, possibly the most unromantic thing ever.

I may now be inserting false memories but I'm almost certain that the two songs I heard were Thorazine Shuffle's 'An Affair' and Bailterspace's 'Splat'. They were both released in 1995 so that would make me 11 or so when I heard them which seems about right. One of these songs is very the good another is very 1995. As I've been making a few mix-cds recently I have felt the strong urge to include 'Splat' as a sort of in joke that the listener wouldn't get, but I guess that's part of what it's all about.