I mentioned Glo-Worm the other day and hey, here is another band that reminds me of their style of introverted indiepop. The Kitchenettes are an indiepop supergroup from the San Francisco scene that also brought us bands like The Telephone Numbers. They released their first ‘proper’ record earlier this year, a three-song 7” (on – where else? – Slumberland), of which this sounds most like it was sung by Pam Berry herself. If that sounds like a huge compliment, that is because it is. But it is very true.

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Does anyone remember Six Cents and Natalie, the lo-fi side project of Tullycraft’s Sean Tollefson? Listening to Fishboy’s latest album (his eighth, but the first one I pay close attention to), I am reminded of that project, if only because Eric Michener from Denton, TX, who is Fishboy, has a voice that sounds similar to Sean’s, while his songwriting (and lyrics with a lot of inner rhyme) also reminds me of Neutral Milk Hotel’s Jeff Mangum. Those are pretty big references, but I’d say that especially on this song Fishboy lives up to the comparisons.

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A theme of this blog is finding pop music in pretty much every genre. Today’s pop is hidden inside rather blunt garage punk, more particularly a song called Cock It! By Salmon Sisters, a new five-piece from Melbourne, Australia. The song is full of raw energy and the lyrics are, as you can guess from the title, even more raw than that. And that is actually in its own way kind of cute.

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Last year, I saw Jeffrey Lewis (and band) play live in Paris. It was a fun show: Jeffrey, who is part of the same NYC anti-folk scene that also brought us The Moldy Peaches, is an entertainer as much as he is a singer-songwriter (and comic book artist) and he really engaged with the audience. He didn’t play my favourite song, this Roll Bus Roll, which I found myself singing in my head the other day as I booked myself some bus travel. So here it is. “Roll bus roll, take me off / A rolled sweatshirt makes the window soft”.

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‘Twee pop’ is sometimes derogatively described as music for children. That is unfair given the very adult lyrics by a band like Heavenly, but some twee pop is really written for children. Such as Miss Melody Sunshine, a project by Laura Elizabeth Stone who, with collaborators from around the world, just released an album with very happy “sunshine-soaked indie dream pop for little daisy dreamers”. I haven’t been a child for decades, but I am a twee popper at heart and I cannot resist singling along to songs like this incredibly cute Grasshopper Hop. For children of all ages.

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The only way you can get me to write about Coldplay is by some band having a song with that title, which is what alternative hip hop duo Coco & Clair Clair (from Atlanta, Georgia) did. I won’t go into the rest of the lyrics as young kids may be reading this, but the song is extremely catchy and exactly the kind of sketchy hip hop I like a lot. Heck, I throw in the term “laptop twee” too as I feel that genre has the same vibe. If the duo is quite popular, it’s because kids these days are alright.

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There is a subgenre of indiepop consisting of extremely intimate bedroom pop that almost makes you feel too embarrassed to listen to it and where a lo-fi recording adds to the intimacy. Think The Cat’s Miaow, The Autocollants or, as suggested by another blog, Glo-Worm. It’s in that box that I gladly place Ready Ave, a new band from Baltimore who just put out an album full of intimate indiepop. It’s music so fragile that I worry writing about it might break it. Just listen to it for yourself. Quietly and on your own. It is really, really good.

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I understand that seven albums into their career, Barcelona’s Mujeres are reasonably popular in their native Spain. I don’t know why they aren’t better known outside the country, at least in the international indiepop community. The community that at the beginning of the century embraced Spanish bands like Vacaciones and Juniper Moon and that is what songs like this Alucinante remind me of: uptempo happy indiepop with a bit of punk mixed in that is very hard to sit still to. And, despite me not speaking any Spanish, hard not to sing along to either.

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“She’s a ridiculous / pop phenomenon / I don’t know why people / put her records on”. The moment I read Dagger Zine’s throwback to Push Kings’ 1997 debut album, I had Pop Phenomenon stuck in my head. It is still incredibly catchy and I see why back then I put it on many mixtapes: simple perfect pop by four white dudes who on the album cover look perfectly groomed. If that sounds like the Beatles then that is because the music does too. And in this case, I get why people put their records on.

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I have written variations of “I had to double check this wasn’t recorded in 1989” several times on this blog, but in the case of The Catburgers the music really was recorded back in 1989, by some Edinburghers who got together after seeing The Television Personalities play. It is thanks to Slumberland (who else?) that a nine-song record of original recordings will soon be released. The band’s music does fit the 1980s Scottish indiepop mold quite well, though this I’ve Got a Friend, pre-released as a teaser, also reminds me of early Lucksmiths and yes, that means I love it.

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We’ve been dealing with heatwaves in this part of the world, but in Oakland they’re obsessed with summer’s nearing end. After Twin Bloom’s Summer’s Gone, fellow Oaklanders The Goods are slightly more hesitant by singing that Summer’s Almost Gone, on a new single preceding their second album Goodbye Summertime. Season jokes aside, I really dig the band around Rob Good, who also plays with personal favourites Joel Cusumano and Yea-Ming and the Rumours. Compared to earlier work, this is slightly less 60s pop and more standard American indiepop (Math And Physics Club, anyone?). Which I love in any season.

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If there was ever a better song recorded about social awkwardness than The Moldy Peaches’ Nothing Came Out I wouldn’t know. 25 years ago, the awkward and confused person that I was (“without 40 oz. of social skills”) would play their just released self-titled album non-stop because it felt so relatable, this song particularly so. It still does and I’m very happy Kimya and Adam are still playing the occasional gig. They’re hugely influential today and actually got reasonably big because of a soundtrack, but even without all that, the world is a better place thanks to The Moldy Peaches.

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There is a loud punk band from Cleveland, Ohio called Cruelster. Minus one member you get The Carp. More melodic, but still too loud for my taste. Except for this one song, I Crave The City, which is pure feelgood pop. It is so simple (and also very catchy) that I struggle to write close to 100 words about it. Think of the kind of song a punk band would write for a family gathering. And I crave that kind of music.

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Has anyone ever written better breakup songs than Lush with Ciao! and Hypocrite? Maybe not, but the same sarcastic energy I also hear in Amelia & The Housewives’ Shattered: “I took a leap of faith ‘cause you seemed sorted / You sold a myth to me and I just bought it”. Less shoegaze-y than Lush but equally British – the band is from Brighton – and a really good song. “It doesn’t matter / Everything’s been shattered” and that may be true but – and that’s easy to say when it’s not my own relationship – how lucky we all are that it led to this song.

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A compilation of songs recorded in Olympia, WA’s Yoyo Studios had a huge influence on me. I lost my physical copy many years ago, but I still get warm fuzzy feelings from reading the tracklist. Pat Maley owned Yoyo Studios and while I believe they have closed, she is still making music in various bands, including the duo Guidon Bear. They have released a few albums and Animal Child is my favourite song: simple pop with an Olympia garage-y feel to it, that to me serves as a great tribute to the many contributions Pat made to alternative pop music.

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I don’t think in musical absolutes, but if someone were to tell me that Freezepop’s Duct Tape My Heart is the best electropop song ever recorded, I am not going to argue with them. And yes, it does help that the song was released during my musical formative years more than 20 years ago and not part of the band’s latest record (which isn’t bad at all!), but still. How can I not be in love with “You’re so dreamy, you’re so sweet / swept completely off my feet”? I’m so lucky Freezepop was around when I was forming my taste.

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I am a big fan of Slumberland and Skep Wax, the two labels who released Foglights’s debut EP, and of The Cords, half of whom is also half of Foglights. So I had to look up Stone Anthem, the alter ego of Archie Ingram, who is the Foglights’ other half and whom I wasn’t familiar with. He makes psychedelic songs (soundscapes?), which mixed with the pure indiepop of The Cords gives us this very dreamy, introverted pop song. I absolutely love it and I can’t wait to hear the EP’s other songs. On August 21st, I will be able to.

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I’m really into Fakemink these days so I had started looking for other artists from the British underground rap scene. This is how I discovered Fimiguerrero, the alter-ego of British-Nigerian Fimihan Uthman Akinola. On his latest mini album he not only collaborates with Fakemink but also included a song recorded with laptop twee heroes Bassvictim. That makes sense. This Loser is a pure rap song, albeit with the sketchiness that I think is typical of UK underground rap, while the techno-y alarm bells that push the song forward also make it very pop. And that’s what I happen to like.

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“Let’s try more interesting things / You could be the person that sings”. The Simple Present are Cathrin and Sabine from Stuttgart, Germany. They just released a short album full of calm, unpretentious indiepop borrowing from four decades of the genre’s history. The whole album makes for some really pleasant listening, with this Let’s Write A New Hit my favourite, as it reminds me of The Bartlebees: the simple production and also, let’s be honest, the soft German accents. “If it helps I could get us some drinks / It’s easier than you think”.

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The musical influences of Sugar World – Katryn and Ryan from Los Angeles – go back all the way to Black Tambourine, who in the early 1990s hid their plain indiepop behind layers of fuzzy shoegaze. I love Black Tambourine – who doesn’t? – and I’m really in love with Sugar World’s latest single White Noise (a pre-release of their upcoming album Supercassettevision). Compared to Black Tambourine, the song is both more twee and noisier, a combination that works really well in practice. I look forward to that full album that Sunday Records will release later in the year.

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