***Fazed on a Pony is the alt country / indie rock recording project of New Zealand songwriter Peter McCall. swan is his second full-length album. On swan McCall sings with emotional immediacy, warmth, and wit about living honestly in the face of inevitable uncertainty and disappointment. McCall’s mix of wry humour, sincerity, and melodic instinct has drawn comparisons to MJ Lenderman, David Berman, and Sparklehorse. However, Fazed on a Pony lives within its own antipodean aesthetic and sound.Sonically, swan sees Fazed on a Pony expand from the Pavement-esque tuneful indie rock of previous releases to include pedal steel, fiddle, drum machines, and synthesisers. While there is a diversity of style, the album is rooted in the hallmarks of McCall’s music: uplifting and catchy guitar lines that serve the song, paired with arrangements that feel both comfortable and surprising. Where the lyrics tell a sad story, the music betrays that it might just be okay in the end.
LP $20.85
01/30/2026
***Since 2022, The Wesleys have been delivering the kind of unapologetic, “straight to the heart” rock ’n’ roll that sticks with you. Their songs channel love, heartache, anxiety, and all the sharp turns life throws your way. Wrapped in unforgettable hooks and melodies that linger long after the last chord rings out. Hailing from Montreal, Henry Girard, William D'Amours, Quentin Chisholm, and Pablo Garcia pull from garage, jangle, pop, and punk, but never stay in one lane. Their new release, Explosive Device, pushes their sound forward with fresh tones, new textures, and the same raw energy that’s become their calling card. Featuring four dynamic new tracks with Girard, Chisholm, and Garcia each taking turns at the mic, Explosive Device captures the band at their most collaborative and adventurous. Recorded in Montreal with Monty (Pre-Occupations) and mixed by Adrian Popovich (Tricky Woo, American Lips, Physical Congas), the EP shows the band in full command of their craft. The vinyl edition of Explosive Device comes paired with Outside Voices (2022), marking the first-ever physical release of The Wesleys debut EP. Together, these records tell the story of where the band started and where they’re charging full speed ahead. Pressed on transparent green vinyl.
LP $22.25
11/07/2025
***Strange Passage is a band stuck twofold: locatively, being split between Boston and New York; and trajectorily, embracing the past while barreling toward the future.The group formed among the shadows of Boston in the pale, early days of 2016 and has been delighting listeners and confounding expectations since. Immediate comparisons were made to Felt, the Feelies, and the Church. The band quietly hammered out an EP (Shine and Scatter) and LP (Shouldn’t Be Too Long) both released on Syncro System Records, and toured extensively throughout the United States, sharing the stage with contemporaries like Tony Molina, Dummy, En Attendant Ana, and Chain of Flowers along the way. Proof that artists could work in relative social media reclusion, eschewing the brain-numbing content churn of the billionaires' nightmare machine.A Folded Sky on Meritorio Records is Strange Passage’s second album, which crystallizes the band’s sound and ethos. The album showcases the band’s signature sense of melody while incorporating influences like from the motorik beats of NEU!, the psychedelic sounds of Velvet Underground, and the political sensibilities of McCarthy and Zounds.The band features Greg Witz on guitar, Ricky Hartman on drums, Andrew Jackmauh on bass, and Renato Montenegro on guitar and vocals. Stalwarts of the East Coast music scene, members have played in The Spatulas, Invisible Rays, Missionary Work, Bummed, Sap, Austerity, Magic Circle, and Cut the Shit, among many others.Pressed on coke bottle green vinyl.
LP $22.25
12/12/2025
***Creative Writing is the latest musical endeavor from members of Huevos II, Luxor Rentals, Sore Eros, Jeanines and Estrogen Highs. Formed in late 2023, the group builds upon their previous experiences with songs that buzz, roar, and chime in ways that anyone of any gen—X or otherwise—with an ear for indie guitars would plead nolo to.Their first full length, Baby Did This presents ten songs that vary widely in mood and intensity, from the opening track "I Love You," an ode to solidarity in dark times, to the lucid dreaming of "Rain" which closes the album. In between we find allusive examinations of alienated mundanity "Memory Light," "Sister," "Feel" and "Glass Days" each cover this territory in their own offhand ways. Nelson's songs "Hallway" and "Slice & Dice" enter darker areas of surreal angst, altogether. "Can't Thank You Enough's" Chilton-esque chords chime over a loping rhythm section and backing harmonies that spread like sunshine on an open highway.Self-recorded by the band and engineered/mixed over a span of 18 months by guitarist Jeff Morkeski, the album emphasizes structure and discipline over more spontaneous gestures.
LP $20.25
10/17/2025
***Glasgow’s Dancer return with More or Less, their second full-length album and a bold leap forward for the band. The album features 12 new tracks, adding fresh energy and dynamics to the group’s signature blend of art-rock, post-punk and lo-fi charm. Originally titled More, the band reimagined the name after discovering a high-profile act had used it first resulting in More or Less, a fitting reflection of the album’s theme: every thing's the same, but every thing's different. The record finds Dancer pushing into brighter, more refined sonic territory without losing their raw, scrappy edge. Lead singles "Happy Halloween" and "Just Say Yes" showcase the band’s most immediate and catchy material to date, while tracks like "Getting It Wrong Every Time" and the contemplative bookends "Legend" and "Calm Down" highlight their growing emotional and musical range. Recorded at Chime Studios in Glasgow with engineer Ross McGowan, More or Less was born during a winter of personal and political turbulence—marked by bereavement, illness, and grim weather. In response, Dancer offer a record that chooses daydreams over despair, and energy over entropy.
LP $20.50
09/12/2025
***The High Water Marks is a transatlantic indie rock project founded in 2003 by Hilarie Sidney and Per Ole Bratset. Their collaboration began through an exchange of musical ideas via international mail, leading to their 2004 debut LP, Songs About the Ocean, a vibrant fuzz- pop release on Eenie Meenie Records.Sidney, co-founder of Elephant 6 and longtime Apples in Stereo drummer, met Bratset at an Oslo concert. Drawn to his melodies and dynamic guitar work in Palermo, she recognized a kindred spirit. Distance didn’t deter them, and Bratset eventually relocated to the U.S. Following Songs About the Ocean, they released Polar (2007) on HHBTM Records before pausing to focus on family and academic pursuits. Their passion for music reignited in 2019, spurred by friend Logan Miller. Returning to the U.S., they recorded new songs, later enriched by Trondheim musician Øystein Megård. Logan and Øystein became permanent members in the band, adding a new and exciting dimension to their sound. Despite the global pandemic, The High Water Marks thrived, releasing Ecstasy Rhymes (2020), Proclaimer of Things (2022), and Your Next Wolf (2023), marking a prolific new era. They also launched 6612 Tapes, a boutique cassette label embracing 1990s DIY aesthetics.
LP $20.35
05/30/2025
***Exploding Flowers are a Los Angeles quartet who have crafted their own universe of guitar- based pop, with its flourishes of piano, organ, synthesizers, vibraphone and glockenspiel on top of a foundational rhythm section. Led by Sharif Dumani who has worked with a variety of artists which include Alice Bag, Cody Chesnutt, Sex Stains, the Moon Upstairs, Classics Of Love, Nick Garrie, Jowe Head, Nikki Sudden, Silver Apples and many more, the quartet is comprised of members Josh Mancell (the Moon Upstairs, Cell\Borg), Happy Tsugawa-Banta (Lassie Foundation, Ray Barbee), and Mark Sogomian (the Moon Upstairs). With two previous albums and an EP released, they have been compared to everything from Big Star to the Soft Boys, and L.A.’s Paisley Underground to New Zealand’s 1980s-era Flying Nun Records guitar pop roster (such as the Chills, the Bats, etc.). Watermelon/Peacock is Exploding Flowers third release packed with analog production, poetic lyricism, and the same strong melodies and hooks we’ve now come to expect from a band that prioritizes its songwriting with smart left turns. Joined on this release by indie veterans Rachel Love of seminal pop legends Dolly Mixture, and Jowe Head of D.I.Y. legends Swell Maps and post-punk/mod/psychedelia legends Television Personalities, this is a release that has something for everyone to enjoy. Album artwork by artist and musician Jill Emery (Hole, Mazzy Star).
LP $20.25
04/04/2025
***Out From Underneath is the new album from Prism Shores, Montreal janglers with one foot planted in ramshackle C86-indebted indie pop and the other in the shimmer of early English shoegaze. While their sound is reminiscent of perennial genre reference points (Sarah, Creation, Flying Nun), the band leaves their own idiosyncratic stamp. It is contemplative and chockfull of emotional depth; a nighttime album that channels self-reflexive melancholy into some form of catharsis.
LP $20.25
01/31/2025
***Grey Eyes, Grey Lynn is a record that could only come from inner-city Auckland and is an open window into Jim Nothing's world. Created during a time of isolation, Jim reflects on his immediate surroundings, finding beauty in the ordinary and noting the eccentricities of everyday life. Jim Nothing's songwriting has matured, showing a refined narrative which pulls from lived experience. Themes and scenes of local pubs, open roads, psychedelic summers and deep melancholia. This is antipodean life at the edge of the world. Written on walks through the neighborhood with a notebook and pen. Recorded between The Audio Foundation and Jim's own garage. The amalgamation of spaces further blurs the line between a “demo” and a final recording, as buried within the songs are the initial moments of weird magic and intimacy. This new album retains the crystalline nature of early recordings, offering a feel very much immediate and genuine. Sonic experimentation of acoustic instruments, layered guitar drone and catchy pop hooks create a palette both heady and new. Influences from New Zealand's past can undoubtedly be heard (The Clean, Snapper, LBGP) but the world contained within Grey Eyes, Grey Lynn is a world of Jim's. Both a slice of life and a moment in time.
LP $20.25
11/08/2024
***Hamilton’s, Canada, five-piece returns this fall with their sophomore album, Sounds Like a Place. This twelve-song record has been a long time coming, with the initial recording at Toronto’s Union Sound Company back in the summer of 2022. Sounds Like a Place bears a mix of the industrial, electric hum of Capitol’s hometown of Hamilton and the shoegazey dream-pop that they’ve been leaning into since their debut single, 2017’s “English Girls”. This time heavily inspired by alternative indie artists of the 90s/00s and still tinged with a dash of 80s New Wave, the album weaves in and out of genre and decade. Though it retains the signature music-out-of-time abstraction that has pervaded their previous work, it is also defined with a new level of clarity. Just as every song is written as a memento of a moment or a feeling, Capitol hopes each new listen will become tethered to a time and, of course, to a place.
LP $20.25
01/10/2025
***NZ power poppers Best Bets present their second full-length album The Hollow Husk of Feeling. Recorded in Ōtautahi Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand from late 2023 to early 2024, their sophomore album comes from a spiritual place that will be familiar to those who have absorbed the lyrics of Olly Crawford Ellis and James Harding through their work in Best Bets, and garage punks Transistors. The musical palette is expanded this time through the addition of songs penned by primary bass player Joe Sampson (Salad Boys, T54)—who also recorded, mixed and mastered the album in his signature style. But where Best Bets’ first album On An Unhistoric Night was a kaleidoscopic jaunt that intertwined obscure references with musings on life, their second album places at the forefront a feeling one suspects many know well. Sure, it wouldn’t be a Best Bets album without nods to things like Australian reality television of the early 90s, Mortal Kombat (1995), apocalyptic novels, Seinfeld, and automotive history. Even so, there’s an undeniable feeling permeating the album that a threshold has been crossed – be that out in the world, or perhaps even closer to home. As purveyors of guitar-driven power / jangle / fuzz pop, familiar sonic touchstones abound—think The Replacements, Teenage Fanclub, Redd Kross. Yet things spill over in all directions and the album is tinged with elements of post-punk, glam and indie rock.
LP $20.25
10/18/2024
***San Francisco’s Sad Eyed Beatniks are back with their new album Ten Brocades. With the help of Mike Ramos (Tony Jay, Flowertown) and Karina Gill (Cindy, Flowertown), Kevin Linn creates a new passage into their incredible sound world. The songs on Ten Brocades explore encounters in short moments in time, fading memories, friendships, and relationships; all from personalities whose stories seem to interweave with one another. The title Ten Brocades is the literal translation of a Cantonese chop suey-like dish, subgum, which means “numerous and varied.” The merging of multiple identities and the image of many silken adorned fabrics helped guide which tracks ended up on the album. The songs on Ten Brocades explore encounters in short moments in time, fading memories, friendships, and relationships; all from personalities whose stories seem to interweave with one another. “When I was a kid, I would spend the summers with my father and stepmother at their apartment in a suburb just north of Stockholm. Most mornings, I would wake up to the smell of burning incense, the sounds of recorded shamisen & koto ensembles, and the sounds of my dad tending to his extensive orchid collection. One summer my dad gifted me a number of graphic novels that were translated and heavily adapted versions of classic Chinese novels for young readers; Journey To The West and Outlaws Of The Marsh were my favorites. The vast casts of characters, mythical adventures, and humorous situations that take place in these historical settings allowed me to...
LP $20.25
08/02/2024
***Stephen's Shore from Stockholm, Sweden brings you a new EP called Neptune. The four tracks were recorded live by the band during a hot September day in Stockholm, together with Fredrik Swahn (Dungen, Melodys Echo Chamber). What inspires these songs is the love for summer nights, nature, and the joy of creating music together as a band. Stephen's Shore have released two EP ́s (Green in 2022 and "Brisbane Radio in 2020) and one album (September Love in 2018) on indie label Meretorio Records. Their debut single "Ocean Blue" was released on New York's indie label Cloudberry Records 2016. In 2022 They feature on a Creation Records Tribute, released by Crafting Room Records with a cover of Biff bang pow's "Miss California toothpaste 1972". The Stephen's Shore Live in Hamburg cassette is a self-released live recording from the small (now closed) legendary venue, Astra Stube in Hamburg in the summer of 2023. Pressed on blue vinyl.
12" $20.25
05/24/2024
***Following an enthusiastic response to their 2021 album, RF—JanglePopHub’s AOTY no less—fuzz-loving jangle duo Rural France returned to their Wiltshire garage with a new confidence. Together, Tom Brown (of slacker indie punks Teenage Tom Petties) and Rob Fawkes have self-recorded a follow-up that’s a little wilder, a little more unpredictable, but just as wonderfully melodic and heart swelling. Exactamondo! takes the Teenage Fanclub, Lemonheads and GbV influences that informed RF and twists them into something more distinct. Driven by bombastic drumming and Fawkes’ distinctive Mascis-esqe guitar lines, each lo-fi gem pulls you in with tunes that make you smile, before Brown’s lyrics give you a little dig in the ribs. Pressed on pink vinyl.
LP $20.25
05/24/2024
***Irish band Oh Boland is back with Western Leisure. The record marks a progression in Oh Boland’s sound with the familiar garage squall tempered by Wyatt-esque psychedelics, New Wave skronk and Bakersfield country all buoying personal songs of rural inertia and the dark edges of parochial life. Western Leisure, the dynamic third record from Oh Boland, is not just an enthralling document detailing the darkened corners and unseemly characters you often hear tell of in forgotten parochial towns of the past, but it marks the beginning of an exciting chapter in the band’s story. Oh Boland’s sound has been described as having a “rare potency”, one that exists in their live shows and two records, their 2016 debut Spilt Milk which featured in Pitchfork’s “Best Underground Garage Punk Albums” of that year and its equally visceral successor, Cheap Things. Over the course of the Tuam-via-Dublin-based band’s lifespan, Oh Boland has existed in several guises and their forthcoming third record heralds a compelling new phase as the solo project of founding member, Niall Murphy. The self-produced Western Leisure (mixed and mastered by Mikey Young of Eddy Current Suppression Ring and Total Control) signifies a electrifying artistic evolution spurred by Murphy’s unwavering musical curiosity which hears him experiment with wistful Country motifs alongside Oh Boland’s synonymous noise-rock tendencies. Pressed on red vinyl.
LP $20.25
07/12/2024
***Glasgow based band DANCER present their debut full length album, 10 Songs I Hate About You. The album came about somewhat effortlessly, piecing together old and new songs and striving to evoke the influences of the group: Life Without Buildings, Elastica, Owls, The Cardigans and Altered Images, into one swaggering debut dipped into a condiment of emotion and good humor. Written throughout 2023 and recorded over a weekend in August of that year, Dancer returned to Green Door studio and recorded this debut LP live to tape with Ronan Fay, as with their 2 proceeding EPs. Looking to strike the perfect balance between these previous extended plays and something more, they attempt to truly define a Dancer sound in the long play format. The 10 songs in question push, pull and then elaborate on former characteristics—only now they are skewed into greater pop forms; caressed by jittery rhythms and searing guitar-isms that dive into passages of melodic wool and warmth. All using an energy that even the band themselves are surprised to muster. Once again, this heaving audio mass is structured beneath the awesome vocals of Gemma Fleet, whose narrative and lyrical savvy paints a hundred colorful pictures in words. Examining and exhuming fragmented memories of the '90s, the technological breakdown of our modern age and the simplicity of love in a time of madness, all with a trademark panache and a voice like no other.
LP $19.95
04/05/2024
***The Maureens: the perfect soundtrack for a late summer night, though the band gives you that feeling just as easily on a sunday afternoon in February. The band is a Dutch four piece founded in 2012. Originating from the central Utrecht music scene, the band nowadays operates from the rural east of the Netherlands. It hasn’t changed the sound of The Maureens: the melancholic songs of Hendrik-Jan de Wolff exude love of melody and harmony. The band's fourth album, Everyone Smiles, features 13 sparkling pop songs recorded with legendary Dutch producer Frans Hagenaars in Studio SSE-Noord.
LP $19.95
03/08/2024
***From Austin, Texas, The Infinites started as Dan LeVine playing guitar loops while Jared Leibowich sang songs on top of the loops about imaginary people. They eventually asked Ian Rundell, Miles Kelley, and Sam Jordan to join, and the band released their first album in 2019, with each song being a short story about an imaginary person. Album two continues the theme of short stories for each song, but instead of imaginary people, each song explores a certain kind of archetype. The band's name, The Infinites, is influenced by both the never-ending loops that are the foundation of each song as well as the infinite universe that the band is trying to create, filled with a continuous array of unique characters.
LP $19.95
03/08/2024
***Seattle’s Model Shop returns with ‘Easy Winter’, the lead single from their upcoming Check the Forecast EP, and the follow-up to the pop trio’s acclaimed debut LP, Love Interest (2022), which was heralded as “a masterpiece full of sparkling melodies and rainbow-colored harmonies,” and “one of the finest indie pop albums of the year.” Love Interest garnered fans and spins across the globe, pages of rave reviews, and appeared in rotation and on the charts at legendary KEXP 90.3. Formed in 2019 by descendants of indie pop darlings Math and Physics Club, Model Shop spins shimmering melodies and acrobatic pop hooks that probe the ether of love and longing, evoking lost ages and still-luminous possibilities. Their music is “a joyous slice of indie pop that takes heavy artillery to any lingering grey clouds,” and evokes “that feeling of being suddenly knocked out of one's heart.”.
7" $10.50
11/10/2023
***The Brights are a Sydney, Gadigal based band who write folk and alt-country leaning indie rock. After two greats EPs. they are back with their first LP ‘Oyster Rock!’ Their debut album is another DIY effort gem boasts soothing jangly guitars and infectious melodies. "The Sydney band offers up a lived-in and laconic slice of jangle-pop goodness. Sauntering slow, 'Waiting' winds out of the speakers with a delightfully unhurried air. Cedar-sweet strums mingle with background vocals and just a slight touch of twang for a song that’s never showy, but can’t help but spread a slow smile across the face. A perfect accompaniment to summer’s glow."—Raven Sings The Blues
LP $19.95
01/12/2024
***"Wurld Series are back with a new LP of curly rock miniatures and overgrown roadside curios. The Giant’s Lawn stretches the band’s reach, embracing new forms and figures, living corridors and side-quests. Where past worx borrowed from the literate heart of American indie, here, Luke Towart & Co. investigate earthen psychedelia, off-grid community folk, and highly bookish, antipodean snock. There’s always been a fantastical bent to Wurld Series’ unspooling jaunts—2021’s What’s Growing threw a little Canterbury scene in with the Christchurch sound—but The Giant’s Lawn goes deeper down the rabbit warren; a boy named frog dreams of escape, established trees are recognised for their contributions to humanity... 'Rearing Wesley' marries schoolboy imagery with golden flushes of Richard Thompson inspired fretwork. 'A Private Life' plays like a field recording of the morning after the carnival—cats yeowl, empty tents billow, gaudy excess sours in the clear light. British psych-folk lends gentle, omnipresent guidance throughout, but early influences still hit; 'Resplendent Fortress,' 'Lord of Shelves' and 'Illustrious Plates' bounce and buckle like Flying Nun faves 3D’s; compact vehicles for Towart’s Renaissance-era flash broadcasts. So it’s not that Wurld Series have turfed the wooly tube-fuzz of the sonic South, they’ve simply dragged their amplifiers from the pavement to the creek bed, where the air’s lighter and there’s room to spread out."—Matt Hellreigel. Pressed on lime green vinyl.
LP $20.25
12/08/2023
***From Madison, Wisconsin, Red Pants are back with their new album Not Quite There Yet. Waves of static guitar sounds, spirited pattering of drums, pensive keyboard drones, and intimately whispered vocal melodies make up the noisy indie rock of Red Pants’ Not Quite There Yet. The music seems to fit perfectly into the visual world that exists around Red Pants: vibrantly colored nostalgia collages, pen and ink portraits showing domestic scenes, and slightly silly stop-motion videos. There’s a kind of homely wonder to the work that is then countered by a splash of color or a subject with two sets of eyes. Like the visual art, the music washes fuzzy guitar tones next to moments of sonic destruction and pairs it all with catchy pop murmurs. Red Pants are the duo Jason Lambeth and Elsa Nekola from Madison, Wisconsin. The two have been making music together for the last five years, with Elsa mostly on drums and Jason on mostly everything else. On Not Quite There Yet, nearly all of the songs are sung by Jason, but Elsa branches out to singing lead vocals and adds other instrumentation wit Jason’s noise pop arrangements.—Kevin Linn. Pressed on blue vinyl.
LP $20.25
11/10/2023
***In 2013 Tristan dreamt George Harrison and Tom Petty were on motorcycles circling one of those huge roundabouts in Canberra. Their long hair was blowing as they sang "You can't hide in time". The Small Intestines play spare room rock'n'roll with a penchant for three-piece harmonies. They formed in Melbourne, Australia in 2016 while Matt and Rob were taking some downtime from Chook Race and Tristan was on the tail-end of his solo project, Peach Happening. Hide In Time is their debut album. For fans of The Go-Betweens and The Bats and any genuine big-hearted knockabout indie jangle with sweet sing-along group vocals and simple pared-down arrangements.
LP $20.25
10/27/2023
***Swedish duo Fort Not are back with their sophomore album Depressed For Success. With eternal love for indie-pop and bands like Half Japanese, Tiger Trap and Pavement, they always aim to find that imperfect pop song with beautiful melodies. Fort Not are getting ready for the Major Leagues. They are back with an album full of songs about love, sex and success. This time they have a couple of lo-fi ballads, perfectly served with the taste of your lovers lips. Love and respect one another and find someone that treats you as good as your new indie darlings Fort Not is treating you. If you don’t like it slow, no worries! There are also some pop songs for you to dance your ass off to. And to make everyone happy, a handful likeable mid-tempo tunes, best enjoyed with a cold drink.
LP $20.15
07/28/2023
***Following a self-recorded debut EP, Manchester’s Sumos drop their first album for Meritorio Records called Surfacing. This LP is energetic, a great catchy fuzz-noise pop album full of sweet summer harmonies that tend to stick in your mind. Sumos are a scuzz-pop band from Manchester, UK. They began as a bedroom recording project between Joel Sloan (guitar, lead vocals) and Kyle Tarbuck (lead Guitar, backing vocals) after a hiatus from playing together in a previous band. They then became a four-piece adding Kyle's sister Siobhan Tarbuck one bass and Andy Kilroy on drums. Pressed on blue vinyl.
LP $19.95
05/26/2023
***Whitney's Playland is the pandemic-era project of Inna Showalter and George Tarlson, longtime friends and veterans of the music scene (Grandma’s Boyfriend, Blades of Joy, Modern Charms). Having grown up in and around San Francisco and inspired by their experiences, their music is about the usual things in life: love and loss, sometimes with a wry and sardonic angle. The result is a dreamy pop landscape reminiscent of Yo La Tengo, Guided by Voices, the Sundays, and Dinosaur Jr. The band expanded into a four-piece in late 2022 with the addition of Evan Showalter and Paul DeMartini.
LP $19.95
04/07/2023
***Following on from 2021's The Ballad Of Doug LP, San Francisco’s The Telephone Numbers are back with a brand new 7inch entitled 'Weird Sisters.' "I often feel like I can only write one song over and over. 'Weird Sisters' was a conscious attempt of reconciling myself with this sense. To me the song is a grab-bag of many of the songwriting tricks I’ve picked up over the years and a celebration of my limitations."—Thomas Rubenstein (The Telephone Numbers).
7" $10.25
02/24/2023
***"There’s always good music in San Francisco, you just never hear about it till someone somewhere else finally pays attention. The Telephone Numbers and contemporaries live in the tiny spaces between row houses in the outer districts of San Francisco. You can hear them earnestly strumming through cheap practice amps choked with probably too much reverb and trying to craft ambitious sounds with no career ambitions and few resources. These bands were rarely invited to play the bigger venues in their own hometown when it mattered. They had their own intimate shows wherever they could beg for space, and that’s maybe more fun. Thomas Rubenstein is 100% from this subculture of record geeks and renters, haunting bedrooms studios and fog-damp garage practice spaces. He writes tragic love songs that pull from classic power-pop and 80s/90s indie. He does in fact have a Teenage Fanclub tattoo and is rarely not listening to Prefab Sprout or some other over-the-top heartbreaking pop on the way to earn his hourly wage. He recruited a whole host of pals to help him make The Ballad of Doug, which may or may not be a concept album about the rise and fall of the Gin Blossoms. The touches of violin, layers of guitar and soaring backing vocals make this seem bigger than just a DIY record, and it is. These tunes are worthy of some historic festival slot or hit parade appearance, but for now you can dream with the vinyl on your deck or the...
LP $19.95
04/07/2023
***SPICE WORLD are a 4-piece band formed on Whadjuk Noongar Boodja (Fremantle, WA) for a one-night-only performance in early 2021 before their drummer JULIA had to rush back to Melbourne a few days later. This performance was surprisingly well-received and so Spice World continued with occasional shows, sometimes in a more soft-edged trio format. When Julia returned to Perth for a Christmas visit in 2021 they decided to capture the sound of the band in full. But time was running out before Julia had to leave again—so, they set up for a day of recording in their living room. With little knowledge of recording a band, this ten-track album was recorded all completely live in just 5 hours. Endearingly scrappy, Spice World perform DIY, ad-hoc pop music that is sometimes sad and sometimes silly, but always offered in earnest. They bring a punk mindset and laissez faire approach to sun-drenched kitchen table music. Join in whenever you want!. Pressed on purple vinyl.
LP $20.35
02/17/2023
***Rising from Seattle's indie pop and rock scenes in 2019, Model Shop was the natural next step for longtime friends and bandmates Kevin Emerson and Ethan Jones, who played together in indie pop darlings Math and Physics Club. Over the years, they had crossed paths with bassist Jen Fox, and bonded over their love of melodic, effervescent pop music. After playing their first shows just before the pandemic, the band tracked their debut LP, Love Interest, mostly in their separate rooms, before coming together to finish vocals and mix with Martin Feveyear in the fall of 2021. Combining sparkling melodies, iridescent harmonies, and breezy, wistful guitars, Model Shop’s tightly crafted pop songs frame modern stories of love and longing through a nostalgic lens, evoking lush summer drives and luminous city nights.
LP $19.95
12/02/2022
***"THE SMASHING TIMES, psychedelic twee freakbeat from a Baltimore basement, are back with Bloom their sophomore album, where they explode with a sound that’s pulling from ‘60s jangly guitars, kiwi poppers and paisley underground revivalists all at once. Instruments played by humans, bare feet touching the ground. Wrinkled button downs, sweaters filled with holes, music audibly and sometimes visibly made by humans. Can you change the strings on your guitar? Maybe, can you buy me dinner? Lock up your Rickenbackers, Thee Jasmine Monk is coming to town, can they stay on your couch?."—Ferd Merkin, Summer 2022. Released by Spain's Meritorio and pressed on green vinyl.
LP $19.95
12/02/2022
***Christchurch/Auckland DIYers JIM NOTHING are back with their debut album In The Marigolds. The sound of the album has strong roots in the classic '80s and '90s indie rock of the land it was born in, but other influences can be heard—especially the likes of The Go-Betweens, Breeders and Guided by Voices. It’s a varied, but cohesive album that brims with pleasantly scuffed, quietly considered charm: slightly-delic, all-out-rockers, reflective numbers and quirky perspectives, pitting JAMES SULLIVAN's salty vocals and jangling guitar against ANITA CLARK's candied vocals and violin. But also this album has at its core a feeling of homeliness, an understated dedication to DIY music making and the kiwi tradition of tinkering away in the garage. Songs nod openly to the South Island sounds-of-yesteryear without feeling hamstrung by nostalgic whiff. Rather Jim Nothing implement the rickety gallop of The Bats (Seahorse Kingdom) or chug-a-chug moves of 3D's (Yellow House) as a bed to bud their own groggy-headed guitar-steez. "Never Come Down" sports the kind of spring-loaded chorus Tamaki Makaurau futurist P.H.F. might mess around with, while "Borrowed Time" pits power-pop urgency against the easy thrum of Melted Ice Cream alumni, Salad Boys. Released by Spain's Meritorio and pressed on white vinyl.
LP $19.95
10/21/2022
***"The five members of STEPHEN'S SHORE (Sweden), arguably one of Europe’s finest janglepop bands of today, share a love for California, skateboarding, moody pop songs and jangly guitars. You can tell from their sound that pop music is in their DNA—kind of a common theme in the country of Sweden. Stephen’s Shore play a special kind of pop though. The band’s newest release is a 4-song EP called Green, which follows the Brisbane Radio EP (2021) and the September Love LP (2018). To be fair, I loved the Brisbane Radio EP and would have been happy if the band had just kind of copied that EP song-for-song. But now that I’ve heard the Green EP, I’m amazed by the growth of the band. Stephen’s Shore sound more confident, patient and in fuller posession of their powers than before. Unafraid to let their strong melodies simmer and their guitars jangle, Stephen’s Shore will slowly break down your defenses and let their songs find a permanent home in the reward centre of your brain. The first song to find its way? Probably Ocean’s Calling, which I think is the best Stephen’s Shore song to date. I could play that one all day, and immediately feel like I’m taking a beach walk during a gorgeous sunset."—Niek, Add To Want List. Pressed on green vinyl.
12" $17.00
07/15/2022
***SLACK TIMES is a Birmingham, AL-based jangle pop band featuring CHRIS MCCAULEY (guitar, vocals), WILL STEWART (guitar, vocals), and STUART NORMAN (guitar). They craft melodic, guitar-driven songs that draw from a range of shared influences including early Athens, Georgia pop. This new release features six brand new songs, along with eight songs from the band's previous EPs from 2021, all released on vinyl (red) for the first time.
LP $19.95
07/15/2022
***SEMI TRUCKS, created, fronted, and curated by California bred BRENDAN SEPE, are a "magic school bus"-esque escapade on track to bring art pop to the top of the charts. The duality of Sepe’s teenage-esque, yet cosmopolitan song writing charms to the point of blushing all listeners—with me being no exception. You may know Sepe from his prior engagement to the band the PESOS. This led him to get his foot in the door in the dank, dark music scene of Los Angeles. Los Angeles, where dreams are chewed up and spit out. Fortunately, Sepe has no dreams. He tells me all he truly wants is to be heard by kids twenty years from now in hopes to inspire them. He’s a man of the future. Laying tile by day, and laying tile by the next morning, Sepe aches to create and has done so immensely with his debut Vs, California. The Semi Trucks are like eating your favorite American meal laced with sincerity, struggles, love, freedom and euphoria. Semi Trucks, in the words of Brendan Sepe to you, 'thank you, for being there.'”—Noah Nash. Pressed on blue vinyl.
LP $19.95
07/15/2022
***"Claudia's Ethereal Weaver doesn’t have too much of a cohesive story to it, but it encompasses a good amount of my last year and a half: flipping through old Life and National Geographic magazines, taking long walks through San Francisco, and playing SAD EYED BEATNIKS live for the first time. Thanks to MIKE RAMOS, KARINA GILL and KATI MASHIKIAN, we were able to play through a number of these songs before I sat down to record them. Prior to this, most Sad Eyed Beatniks recordings were the first or second attempt at me writing and performing the song. Suddenly, I had to remember both the words and chords and played tracks like 'Hysterical Rooters,' 'Who’s That,' and 'Oh Hallo' well over ten times; which is pretty unheard of in SEBs history. Fortunately, these are paired with impromptu tracks like 'Free Composition Number 6' and 'Ring Around Annie;' as first takes are often the best takes." Pressed on green vinyl.
LP $19.95
07/15/2022
***RURAL FRANCE—a collaboration between TOM BROWN and ROB FAWKES that began in 2017 as they both adapted to leaving London for the greener climes of Wiltshire, UK. Armed with a bunch of jangly demos, roughly hewn in numerous bedrooms and garages, they made their first album Two Drink Maximum in 2018, released on legendary Australian label Half a Cow. After releasing the follow-up Damp Spirit EP, the duo decided to forgo the studio to make their next record in Rob’s garage. Inspired by the hissy ‘if it sounds good it is good’ aesthetic of Guided By Voices, they set about recording a batch of songs that refracted the Beach Boys, GBV and Teenage Fanclub through the cynical lens of getting older. With its dry lyricism, warped fuzz guitars and buzzing synths, RF is the sound of Rural France distilled; an ode to both the pop nuggets of the 60s and the collective shoulder shrug of the 90s. Tom says: “The songs were mostly written during the heatwave of 2018, spurred on by Beach Boys bootlegs and a World Cup. Half-drunk on the sun and Brian Wilson’s genius, I’d make the short journey from the garden to my guitar to try and get down some vague ideas that were forming in the haze of that sweltering suburban summer.” Pressed on yellow vinyl.
LP $19.95
07/15/2022
***Proudly part of Hamilton, Ontario’s rising indie music scene, CAPITOL's eclectic sound fuses '80s New Wave with modern alternative and dream pop. The follow-up to their debut 2019 LP Dream Noise is an upcoming 4-song EP, All the Rest of My Heads. Pressed on milky clear vinyl.
12" $17.00
07/15/2022
***BEST BETS are a power pop band from Aotearoa, New Zealand. Formed by OLLY CRAWFORD ELLIS and JAMES HARDING (TRANSITORS), they released their first EP, Life Under the Big Top, in 2018, with James’ brother LUKE and MATT PHIMMAVANH rounding out the lineup. JOE SAMPSON (SALAD BOYS, T54) joined afterwards. Their debut album, On An Unhistoric Night, could perhaps be described as a series of homages; a bunch of ballads, some tearjerkers, with a few earworms thrown in. On An Unhistoric Night talks about New Jack Swing artists who were formerly Olympic athletes; 11th century monarchs; Italian sports cars (and car salesmen); Open Polytechnic ads of the late 90s; Whose Line is it Anyway?; Subbuteo champions and Elvis impersonators. It explores hubris, hopelessness and purpose in life, pop culture detritus and everyday ennui underpinned by humour, guitar heroics and catchy bloody hooks. The album is a hi-fi effort by producer BRIAN FEARY, who notably has worked with a number of excellent Christchurch bands—Wurld Series, Salad Boys and The Dance Asthmatics to name a few. You might like this album if you appreciate bands like The Replacements, Teenage Fanclub, Buzzcocks, Big Star and The Go-Betweens. Pressed on orange vinyl.
LP $19.95
07/15/2022
***Whitney’s Playland have returned with Long Rehearsal, a short and sweet three-song 7” EP set to be released in Summer 2025 via Dandy Boy Records (Oakland, CA) and Meritorio Records (Madrid, Spain).After the 2023 release of their debut full-length LP Sunset Sea Breeze (Meritorio / Paisley Shirt), which was recorded as a duo, the Bay Area band took a brief hiatus. While these new songs recall the first album’s distinct style, they diverge from their bedroom pop introduction. Long Rehearsal sees the full band performing together for the first time on a record since expanding into a four-piece. The trio of tracks bridges the divide between jangle-pop and crunchy 90’s alt rock, plumbing the depths of tonality and mood. The whole thing is anchored by Inna Showalter’s delicately determined voice, which might help you forget about your trials and tribulations for a brief moment. The result is a more polished production but still keeps in touch with the band’s lo-fi roots. All three tracks were recorded at the band members’ San Francisco, El Cerrito, and Santa Rosa home studios.
7" $12.00
06/27/2025
MP3 $1.98
06/27/2025
FLAC $2.49
06/27/2025
***Seablite is a four-piece pop band from San Francisco inspired by 80s/90s indie and shoegaze. Seablite was formed in 2016 when Lauren Matsui (vocals / guitar) and Galine Tumasyan (vocals / bass) bonded over a mutual appreciation of early 90s Britpop and UK underground music. The pair began writing songs and soon after Jen Mundy (ex-Wax Idols) joined on second guitar and Andy Pastalaniec (Chime School) would eventually join on drums. They have released an LP (2019’s Grass Stains and Novocaine) and 7" single (“Breadcrumbs” c/w “Ink Bleeds”) via Emotional Response Records and a 10" EP (High-Rise Mannequins —recorded and produced by Alicia Vanden Heuvel of the Aislers Set) in conjunction with Spain’s Meritorio Records. The band is among San Francisco’s current indie pop renaissance and have opened for the likes of Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Charlatans and Ladytron upon their recent Bay Area visits. Seablite has finished their sophomore album, Lemon Lights. Recorded over the summer of 2022, Lemon Lights contains 12 dreamy pop tracks showcasing the group’s continued growth and maturity and marks a strong progression from their debut album. After recording basic bed tracks with Robby Joseph, the band finished overdubs in their practice space and Lauren's apartment. The freedom of home recording allowed them to experiment, resulting in an organic and intuitive manifestation of the band's emotions and creativity - a sonic inkblot of unfiltered pop appreciation. One may hear Manchester undertones on "Hit the Wall" and “Melancholy Molly”, or the feminine noise-pop of Lush on...
LP $17.75
09/29/2023