Godsmania Release Free Download Single

indie mp3 faves Godsmania have released a free 2 track download single via Spanner Records today. If you like your indiepop of the vintage 1980-ish variety then you can’t go far wrong with this lot especially on the “a” side Stupid Lies which is an absolute belter.

You can download it from here.

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The Cavalcade

I saw The Cavalcade last night and to be honest they blew me away with their jangle pop tunes. The band sound like they should be on one of those Cherry Red compilations from the 1980’s such as Pillow and Prayers. In fact they sound like a cross between Felt and a less wimpy Electric Pop Group. It’s a shame that there was hardly anyone there to see them – who knows it could be another 100 club moment! The Pains were the last band to excite me in such a way and I think these three lads from Preston will be doing the same to one and all very soon! They have already made ripples of delight on the Anorak and Talent Is A Vampire forums.

The band have so far released an EP off their own back titled Meet You In The Rain. The title track and another EP track Voices appear on a split single with Boa Constrictor which is currently out on Cloudberry Records. The band will then see another EP, For You, released consisting of three brand new songs at the beginning of August on Edition 59 Records. This is limited – get your order in fast.

The Cavalcade – Meet You In The Rain

You can stream the Meet You In The Rain EP from here.

You can stream the For You EP here.

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Wake Up! It’s A New Album From Afternoon Naps!

The Afternoon Naps will be releasing a new album in September on Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records or HHBTM for short! It’s called Parade and will be the follow up to Sunbeamed which I have raved about on indie mp3 previously.

It will be released in both vinyl and CD formats including special editions that feature a pillowcase (geddit?) whilst the ltd LP will have a silkscreen design.

A mp3 from the new album is available. It’s called Mitten Fingers and the bands sound now sounds even better. It’s much more spacious for one.

Afternoon Naps – Mitten Fingers

Orange Paw was one of my favourite tracks from Sunbeamed.

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Vivian Girls Not Going Anywhere!

The Vivian Girls have made available as a free download a track from their forthcoming album Everything Is Wrong. It’s called When I’m Gone and they certainly won’t be if they continue producing cracking stuff like this.

Download from here.

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indie mp3 needs you

indie mp3 is after an extra contributor or two to write about indie pop, shoegaze, electro pop etc.  You can write reviews of records/albums you have brought, gigs you have been too or your latest my space discovery so long as it relates to the remit of the site. Additionally you will get CD’s or mp3’s to review that we receive as well as the chance of going to free gigs in your area when offered by labels etc.

If you are interested in contributing one to two articles a week contact me at 2007NOSPAM@indie-mp3.co.uk deleting the NOSPAM bit.

Kelman Call It Quits

Indie-mp3 faves Kelman have announced that they are splitting. They state:

“Well, after 2 albums and a handful of singles we’ve decided to call it day in order to concentrate on Other Projects while still loitering in the general vicinity of “youth”. We’re going to finish off recording a Final Mini-Album of all the songs written since the last CD and have organised a Farewell Gig on Saturday 8th August at our favourite London venue, The Notting Hill Arts Club. We’ll be playing a longer set than usual in order to play our favourite songs one last time & I’ll be back with more news and a proper Last Word nearer the gig – but until then please note: this break-up is annoyingly amicable so please don’t come along on the 8th expecting to see fists flying and guitars getting trashed and all that.”

Hopefully I can catch them that one last time. We put the band on twice under the Lostmusic banner. They will be sadly missed.

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Their Hearts Were Full Of Spring – How I Wasted My Youth

What we have here is a pot of mellow gold. It’s dreamy heartbreak pop from this gang of seven South East Londoners. Instrumentally it’s busy but without ever feeling cluttered and you find yourself being carried off on a carefree trip over the clouds.

The harmonies are neat and infectious and at times quite haunting. There are hints of The Sundays’ wistfulness, tinged with a gentle whim more akin to The Divine Comedy. Few of the songs become over complex, yet when they do, on tunes like My Big Test, it’s perpetrated artfully and grazes across Elbow territory.

Highlights here are A Question Of Trust and Record Breaker both of which a less malicious Morrissey could have written! Then there’s A Long Time Ago In A Galaxy Far, Far Away which has a merrier swagger to it, betraying the lyrical plea to “tell me you love me…don’t”.

A splendid bundle of tainted joy then and, right now, you are unlikely to find a more engaging yet understated piece of work. Something to suitingly escort you through the warm summer days, should we get any! Beautiful, languid and somehow very innocent.

Released 10th August on Strange Torpedo Records.

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Art Brut Added To Indietracks Festival Headliners

Flamboyant art-punk superstars Art Brut have been announced as an additional Sunday night headliner for this year’s Indietracks festival. The festival takes place at the Midland Railway in Ripley, Derbyshire on July 24-26.

The band will join headliners Teenage Fanclub, Camera Obscura, Rose Elinor Dougall, Emmy the Great and Au Revoir Simone at this year’s festival. Over 50 bands will play across four stages, with other bands playing including BMX Bandits, Lucky Soul, Frank and Walters, Help Stamp Out Loneliness, Butcher Boy and Manhattan Love Suicides.

Art Brut are fronted by the charismatic and controversial Eddie Argos, once described by the NME as “Britain’s best post-Jarvis pop star”. The band lit up the music world in 2004 with classic pop singles ‘Formed A Band’ and ‘Good Weekend’, and recently released their third album, the confident and confrontational ‘Art Brut vs Satan’, produced by The Pixies’ Frank Black.

Helene, described by ex-Cocteau Twins and Bella Union head honcho Simon Raymonde as the ‘greatest lyricist in Britain right now’, and acclaimed Berlin electro-rock duo Stereo Total have also just been added to the bill. The full band timetable and stage times can now be viewed here.

This year, the Indietracks festival will also introduce its ‘Workshop Wigwam’, hosting a wide range of fun activities. Festival-goers will have the chance to make jewellery with the cult label Tatty Devine, write a song with The Smittens’ Colin Clary, get crafty with the Craft Guerrillas and The Bunty Collective, find out about making clothes with Eithne Farry, and win some serious prizes in the poptastic pop quiz! You can view the workshop timetable here.

This is the third ever Indietracks festival, which is being held at the Midland Railway in Ripley, in the heart of the Derbyshire countryside. The site houses a whole range of lovingly restored steam diesels and locomotives. Festival goers are allowed to have unlimited rides on the steam railway over the weekend and full access to other railway attractions including a farm and museum.

This year, Indietracks is teaming up with legendary Elefant Records as part of the indiepop label’s 20th anniversary celebrations. The Madrid-based label, which was launched by Luis Calvo in 1989, has picked a number of bands to play on a special Elefant stage over the course of the weekend.

Weekend tickets cost £55, day tickets cost £30 and both are available to buy from Ticketweb or by calling the railway direct on 01773 747 674.

The Pete Green Corporate Juggernaut

This has popped into my inbox from The Pete Green Corporate Juggernaut:

“To celebrate our forthcoming appearance at the 2009 Indietracks festival, The Pete Green Corporate Juggernaut have just released our jaunty and highly popular train song ‘Hey Dr Beeching’ as an mp3 download. Woooo-wooooo!

The song features not only yer obligatory train noises and onomatopoeic drums but also samples of the notorious Dr Beeching himself, speaking in 1963 about his disastrous plans to ‘reshape’ Britain’s railway network (which basically meant closing huge sections of it down). The narrator of the song travels back in time on a magic steam train to assassinate Beeching, saving hundreds of stations and thousands of miles of track, for the pleasure and convenience of travellers back in the 21st century.

It’s free to download the song but we’re asking everyone who does to consider making a small donation to the Lincolnshire Wolds Railway – a small heritage line near where Pete grew up, on a section of the former main line closed as a result of the Beeching report.

We all think the song sounds chuffing ace (heh, geddit, chuffing? No? Never mind) so go to sparklemotion.co.uk/beeching to download your copy and donate to help turn back the Beeching Axe!”

All aboard!

Scared To Dance – 26/06/09 Playlist

As previously mentioned Scared To Dance is a new club night myself and Paul, who runs the indie pop group on facebook, have put together. Our first night was towards the end of June and it went far better than we hoped. Below is what was played by myself, Paul and our guest DJ Ray.

Pictures of the night can be found here.

Our next night will be on the 31st July 2009 and will be a post indie tracks special! More details soon.

Planet Gear – Squarepusher
Shadows – Au Revoir Simone
The Only One – The Cure
Super Group – Shonen Knife
Asleep On A Sunbeam – Belle And Sebastian
Perspex Icon – Wire
Danger Signs – Penetration
Police On My Back – The Clash
Map Ref – My Bloody Valentine
500 – Lush
Chainsaw Boogie – The Vincent Razorbacks
Valley Hi! – Stereolab
Big Rock Candy Mountain – Motorcycle Boy
Way Behing Me – The Primitives
Draging Me Down – Inspiral Carpets
Frozen – Curve
Sixteen Again – The Buzzcocks
Now Is Now – Band Of Susans
West One – The Ruts
Caledonian Road – The Shop Assistants
Believe That I Understand – Magazine
Re Hab – Magnapop
Whole Wide World – The Soup Dragons
Stay Beautiful – The Manic Street Preachers
New Order – Procession
Scars – All About You
Siouxsie And The Banshees – Mirage
Adam & The Ants – Kick!
Wire – Outdoor Miner
Buzzcocks – Breakdown
Vaselines – Molly’s Lips
The Pastels – Comin’ Through
Camper Van Beethoven – Take The Skinheads Bowling
Fire Engines – Discord
The Primitives – Stop Killing Me
Heavenly – So Little Deserve
Navvy – Disco
Gang Of Four – Contract
Crystal Stilts – Love Is A Wave
Go Betweens – Lee Remick
Orange Juice – Blue Boy
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – Young Adult Friction
Helen Love – Debbie Loves Joey
Jilted John – Jilted John
The Fall – Theme From Sparta F.C.
Stereolab – French Disko
The Smiths – Girl Afraid
Lodger – The Good Old Days
The Concretes – You Can’t Hurry Love
Heikki – Former Hero
The School – Let It Slip
Girls At Our Best – I’m Beautiful Now
Je Suis Animal – Secret Place
Northern Portyrait – Empty Hotel
Clouds – Get Out Of My Dream
The Seven Inches – To Boldly Go
The Fall – How I Wrote ‘Elastic Man’
My Bloody Valentine – Thorn
The Undertones – Teenage Kicks
Pocketbooks – Footsteps
New Order – Temptation
Joy Division – Love Will Tear Us Apart
Mccarthy – Way Of The World
The Smiths – Headmaster Ritual
Belle And Sebastian – She’s Losing It
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – Contender
The Jesus And Mary Chain – Never Understand
The Shop Assistants – Train To Kansas City
Primal Scream – Imperial
Talulah Gosh – Talulah Gosh
Camera Obscura – French Navy
The Wave Pictures – I Love You Like A Madman
Butcher Boy – Carve A Pattern
The Cure – Just Like Heaven
David Bowie – Boys Keep Swinging
The Velvet Underground – There She Goes Again
The Fall – Lost In Music
R.E.M. – Radio Free Europe
The Shins – Turn On Me
Lloyd Cole And The Commotions – Rattlesnakes
Camera Obscura – Lloyd, I’m Ready To Be Heartbroken
The Modern Lovers – Roadrunner
Neutral Milk Hotel – Song Against Sex
Joy Division – Transmission
Gang Of Four – Damaged Goods
Wire – Map Ref. 41°n 93°w
The Slits – I Heard It Through The Grapevine
The Vaselines – Sex Sux (Amen)
Orange Juice – Falling And Laughing
Talking Heads – And She Was
Cats On Fire – Tears In Your Cup
The Wave Pictures – Strange Fruit For David
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart – Come Saturday
Hefner – Hymn For The Cigarettes
Voxtrot – The Start Of Something
Belle And Sebastian – Lazy Line Painter Jane
The Smiths – There Is A Light That Never Goes Out

If you have Spotify many of these songs have been compiled into the Scared To Dance 26/06/09 playlist.