“Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you” said Alexander Graham Bell to Thomas A. Watson over the telephone, exactly 150 years ago today. Telephone numbers wouldn’t come into use until 1879, but the telephone’s anniversary is a good moment to post the theme song (from 2025’s Scarecrow II, on Slumberland) of San Francisco’s The Telephone Numbers. “Pure pop for sad people” they describe their own music. Which I guess applies to a lot of American indiepop, but hey, I like it, and The Telephone Numbers (who share a member and a sound with The Umbrellas) are particularly pure.

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I only recently learned that Washington D.C.’s Unrest started out as a hardcore punk band in the 1980s, with a sound more befitting the band’s name, which I had always assumed to be meant ironically given the uniquely clear pop sound of their later and better known albums. It’s still a fun name. The sweet love song I Do Believe You Are Blushing, from their 1992 album Imperial f.f.r.r., is one of the best examples of that sound and with its catchy guitar line, probably my favourite song of theirs. 

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Three-quarters of Railcard were Born in ‘62, which makes them old even for me, so here we have people in their sixties who just started an indiepop band. Of course, with age comes a lot of experience, in the case of Railcard’s members in British indiepop bands such as Dolly Mixture (Rachel Love), Heavenly and Would-Be-Goods (Peter Momtchiloff, both), with the baroque pop their new band makes closest to the latter. This song is my favourite from their recently released self-titled debut album which, cheap ageism aside, I did really enjoy listening to.

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It doesn’t get more legendary indiepop than releasing albums on Sarah Records and Reading’s Blueboy released two albums there – and one at Sarah-successor Shinkansen. Then the band broke up in 1998 but, like so many bands from that era, recently reformed. With a new line-up (co-founder Keith Girdler passed in 2007) the band put out a new album, A Life In Numbers, last year. Which is noisier and more shoegaze than their previous work (if you’re unfamiliar, check out So Catch Him) which took some getting used to, but I really enjoyed this Black Tambourine-like Figure of Eight in particular.

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I seem to fall in love with one power pop band every month. This month it is Sweet Reaper, a three-piece from Ventura, California, who sound like early Superchunk with some garage punk blended in. Or sometimes really just like early Superchunk, as in this Sick n Tired, from their latest album Still Nothing (the band’s fourth if I correctly counted releases on Bandcamp). Early Superchunk makes me very happy and so does Sick n Tired.

One downside of modern recording technologies is that there are so few bands that sound truly lo-fi, like The Mountain Goats, Refrigerator, Tall Dwarfs and so many others did in the mid 1990s, when young me in my bedroom found the barely produced two- or four-track recordings made the bands somehow more relatable. So I was glad to discover Healing & Peace (Alex Mussawir from Columbus, Ohio) who sounds old-fashionedly lo-fi like the aforementioned bands and, because there is a small dose of blues in his songs, a bit like Railroad Jerk, too. Which is fun.

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Silk Daisys is a band (or ‘project’) from Atlanta, GA which helpfully list a lot of British 1980s musical references on its website (including Lush, Cocteau Twins and The Primitives), as if the music itself didn’t make it very easy to find that box to put them in. Even the design of their self-titled debut album, released late last year, looks like it comes out of the 4AD catalog. To those references I add Ride (whose Mark Gardener mastered the album) and, especially on this song, Razorcuts. If that’s your box, you’re going to enjoy this too.

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I have previously written about ‘shatta’, the dancehall variant that originates in the French-speaking Caribbean, and the island of Martinique in particular. Meryl (née Cindy Elismar) is also from Martinique and also fits that box to some extent, though feels a bit more hit parade-catchy. I can’t claim to know the subtle differences between all the reggae-linked musical genres of the African diaspora, but facts are: 1) Meryl is pretty popular, especially in the French speaking world (and too big for Bandcamp, apparently) and 2) I really like this Paparazzi, sung together with Swiss-Congolese Theodora.

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Maria Somerville released her latest album Luster on 4AD last year and I think that is a label that in both senses of the word is fitting: Somerville’s music matches a lot of the 4AD back catalog. Dreamy, shoegaze-y, sometimes folk-y with a bit of post-punk thrown in. To accompany that album (which I can recommend you listen to), there is now an EP with six remixes of the album. All six are worth listening to, but I particularly like this slightly darker electronic remix of Corrib by oscar18 and Asa Nisi Masa.

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Today is Burns Night, where people, especially in Scotland, celebrate the life and work of Scottish poet Robert Burns, born 267 years ago. So why not post one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite Scottish bands, which happens to be a Burns poem. Camera Obscura doesn’t need an introduction, I assume. It is, incidentally, the first band I ever interviewed in person, when I spoke to then new keyboard player Carey Lander in London in 2002. It was also, I believe, her first interview. Carey sadly passed away in 2015. This song is also for her.

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One possible reason behind the current wave of shoegaze/dream pop bands – that I’m certainly not complaining about – is that with modern technology you don’t need a full band to create a full dreamy sound. Melbourne, Australia’s Rocket Rules is yet another example of this. With one singer (Rachael) and one multi-instrumentalist (Baxter) they released a debut album (Dearden’s Number on Shore Dive Records) filled with great fuzzy pop songs that occupy the space between early Lush (but less dark) and Trembling Blue Stars (but noisier). There are many good songs among them, but Chapel St is my current favourite.

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Songs like this are why I have this blog. The bulk of the songs of Welsh-Australian singer-songwriter Stella Donnelly are not really my thing. Decent indie folk, but too rock for me. Which is fine, I don’t judge artists because they make music for other people. But this quiet, piano-led Year of Trouble, in which Stella sings about a broken relationship (or is it a friendship?) is so beautiful and hits me right in the feels every time I play it. This is why I blog. “Gradually wе both lead different lives / Wish I could hear about what you like”.

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Mandy, Indiana is a four piece from Manchester whose French singer Valentine Caulfield, according to a 2023 interview, was expecting to fully settle in Berlin. I don’t know if she ever did (at least her French passport would have helped), but in any case the band is still around and is about to release its second album URGH. This Cursive was released as a single ahead of it and even more than on other songs, they sound like an industrial version of Chicks on Speed. Which I guess makes sense, given the geographical references.

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“The bands we loved are dead” the Just Joans reminisced back in 2008. But look, 18 years later, the Joans are still very much alive and have evolved into a full band that is about to release a new album (Romantic Visions of Scotland, coming out this Friday on Fika Recordings). Of the three singles preceding the album, this Limpet is my favourite. It sounds less tongue-in-cheek acoustic indiepop than their early songs (becoming a parent is a rather serious subject, lyrically) and reminds me of fellow Glaswegians Camera Obscura, especially with Katie singing rather than her brother David.

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I mentioned Cub the other day and guess what, Come Out Come Out, the 1995 second album of the Vancouver, BC three-piece was just remastered and re-released to honour its 30th anniversary. That’s great, as Cub remains one of the best all-girl twee pop bands and laid the groundwork for later bands like All Girl Summer Fun Band or more recently WUT. They appear to have invented the term ‘cuddlecore’ for their own music. That, and the fact that they sometimes played shows in pajamas, should give you a picture. And 30 years later, this is still so much fun.

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I was, as they say, today years old when I discovered that Special Friend is actually the name of a band and not a, well, special friend joining various bands at a gig. Thanks, Skep Wax for the clarification, for it’s the London label who will (co-)release their upcoming album (not even the band’s first) Clipping in March, from which Breakfast is taken. Special Friend is a French-American duo residing in Paris that, at least here, reminds me of early Allo Darlin’: cute, slightly lo-fi indiepop singer-songerwriter. It’s a good friend to have.

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Worldpeace DMT (Leo Fincham) and Rowan Please (neé Miles) are, according to Pitchfork, part of the “00s-fetishizing London scene”. It is possible that this fetishization included the Moldy Peaches, whose only studio album was released 25 years ago this year. It remains one of my favourite albums ever and I mention them as the album Leo and Rowan just released (The Velvet Underground & Rowan) has the same rare energy the Peaches had and that has made me obsessed with this album – and this song in particular – for the past week. “Lonely as you’ll be tomorrow, we’re here with you today”.

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There is a certain kind of jangly-twee all girl band that only appears to exist in the Pacific Northwest (Tiger Trap, All Girl Summer Fun Band) or just across the border in Canada (Cub). Maybe it’s the weather. Heck, in that part of the world it’s almost certainly the weather. WUT is from the same region (Vancouver, BC) and released two albums of fine tunes that easily match the aforementioned bands. I was reminded of them as they are about to play two shows further inland in Canada, if that’s where you are based. If not, here’s a lovely song.

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Heavenly is back. After their sad demise back in 1996 and semi-reincarnations as Marine Research and Tender Trap, the quintessential twee pop band is playing shows again and will release an album (Highway to Heavenly) on their own Skep Wax records next month. Of the few songs already released, Portland Town (a single from last June) is my favourite and the one that reminds me most of old Heavenly. In particular the neuroscientist (Cathy Rogers) providing background vocals to the economist (Amelia Fletcher), for Heavenly is that cool. And even with an average age of around 60, so very good.

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There is the psychedelic pop of The Chills and the noisy lo-fi of Tall Dwarfs, but for me Christchurch’s The Bats have always been the band that best epitomizes New Zealand’s alternative pop music: jangly, melodic, punky and a little bit underground — or is that down under? The band has been around for more than four decades (with a hiatus somewhere in the middle) and is about to tour New Zealand once again, but Made up in Blue is one of their earliest songs and still my favourite song of theirs.

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