***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
***"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
***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
***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 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
05/16/2025
***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