Best Kept Secret is definitely my favourite tape label around right now - Alessandro is frequently releasing tapes, all of a high quality and usually totally in agreement with my taste in music. The music is indiepop in a wide sense, occasionally venturing into other melodic genres. The tape covers are always well designed and are quite possibly the most professional looking inlays I've ever seen from a DIY tape label. Since the last Best Kept Secret feature in Aq, Alessandro has released several new tapes.

LIE 010 - We Are Not Alone compilation tape. This comp of American bands/songwriters is subtitled Songs For The Lo-fi Generation, but the vast majority of this is good lo-fi, not messy, careless lo-fi. When I've complained about lo-fi music in the past, I've meant really badly played, badly recorded music/noise which even a 5 year old could do, but there is a lot of lo-fi music out there which shows that although it's recorded on a low budget, the music itself needn't be messy and thrown together. This comp contains a mixture of artists I've heard other stuff from before (Orange Cake Mix, C Browne Jr, Linda Smith, Michael J Bowman, Ray Carmen, Paul Nini, Robin O'Brien, KD Schmitz, Don Campau, Azalia Snail, Suretoss, Plundershop, Cocker Spaniels, Household Names, Dino Di Muro, Will Simmons, Kenyata Sullivan), ones I've heard of but not heard before (Mike Landucci and Dennis Callaci - I tend to associate them with the labels they run, Blackbean & Placenta and Shrimper respectively, rather than their own music) and those I've come across first through Best Kept Secret (Push Button, Sticker Mister, A Boy Named Thor, Lettuce Prey, Trendlenberg, Gram, Brain Transfer Project, The Laces). Side one consists of various kinds of DIY pop - all good stuff. Side two is still mostly pop of various types, but occasionally ventures into a more experimental territory with tracks like Robin O'Brien & Don Campau's Herb Recitation, which is exactly that - Robin is dictating various aromatic herb names over the top of an experimental sounding instrumental; and Azalia Snail's The Saint Aint, which is quite a random thing - I've never been keen on Azalia Snail's music and this track doesn't change my opinion of it. On the positive side, this track is only very short so it doesn't grate as much as a longer track of this ilk probably would. Most tracks here show that you don't have to display the most extreme sort of amateurishness in order to be lo-fi, but Dennis Callaci's track is the amateurish kind of lo-fi music, with some very basic guitar playing. For an amateur sounding song it's actually OK though. There's really only the Azalia Snail track I'm not keen on; everything else is at least worth a listen and various tracks are highly recommended.

LIE 011 - Vinyl Bill What Lo-fi. Vinyl Bill's first tape has been reissued by Best Kept Secret. The music is homemade pop which often has psychedelic/spacey undertones. One of the tracks is a cover of The Kitchen Cynics' When He Laughed, which starts off being pretty faithful to the original, then turns into a pretty surreal instrumental which conjures up pictures of a weird dream that isn't quite a nightmare but almost... A good interpretation of that song, and Vinyl Bill's own songs are also great.

LIE 012 - Lettuce Prey Blood From A Stoner Witch. An excellent tape of DIY pop which is very melodic and has vague hints of melancholy and psychedelia - although there's really only the one overtly psychedelic track here, the cover of Mind Garden which features a lot of played-backwards instrumentation. Overall, this tape is probably the least psychedelic release I've heard from Lettuce Prey. It can sometimes sound like all your favourite hometapers rolled into one - Ray Carmen, James St Vrrain, Vinyl Bill, Frank Peck and most of all MJB. Late 60s folk singers spring to mind a bit too. Basically great homemade music which blends a vaguely 60s-ish pop sensibility with something a bit more skewed.

LIE 013 - Moonbabies Climbing Up These Miles. Very impressive pop music from this Swedish band. There's two sides to the band - the Ola Frick-penned tracks tend to be quieter and more low-key, whereas the ones written by Carina Johansson, with or without Ola Frick, are usually more obviously poppy and upbeat, and sometimes slightly noisy. These two types of song sound good together though; you can tell it's the same band. They're not a completely diverse band, they're just not one-dimensional. There is one track that does sound like it could be by a different band - In The Banshees, which has shades of traditional folk and choral music. A strange, but enjoyable, diversion from the pop stuff. There is nothing wrong with tapes at all for niche market music, but the Moonbabies are likely to appeal to more than just the smallish audience who know about the tapes scene. If they got a deal with a well-respected, medium-sized independent label they could easily acquire a large cult following or perhaps become even more well known than that! This band are, I'm sure, capable of attracting a fairly wide audience but they have enough interesting ideas to set them apart from all the bland bands that do get signed. Basically they are talented and deserve to be heard.

LIE 014 - Caligari A Full Moon Postcard. The title track, and Intentions, are indiepop with psychedelic/atmospheric undertones. The Line is darker, and whilst it's still vaguely indiepop, it's quite a darkwave thing as well with its goth and punk elements. It's Out Of My Hands is a catchy song which is quite reminiscent of early 90s indiepop. Probably my favourite track here. Blue is like the sort of old-style indiepop that's influenced by the 60s. Real Life is punky but more or less pop, reminds me of Mousefolk a bit. Ocean is another indiepop/goth cross, but the goth hints are only slight this time. Side two starts with Curtains Going Down which returns to the feel of the first two tracks. The rest of this side is mostly rockish/punkish/goth type stuff, except for Psyche, which is a fairly experimental, lo-fi instrumental. The melody of Lose All Intimacy is reminiscent of 70s rock, but the atmosphere created by the drum machine, synth and samples is more evidence of a goth influence creeping in. Soma is a bit darkwave and a bit ethereal. Up In Smoke is an out-and-out darkwave song. Cast has a very long intro that made me think it was going to be a post-rock meets shoegazing instrumental, but then the vocals come in and the song itself is a gothic indie thing. Resolution #1 is quite a goth thing as well. I don't mind this band's goth-tinged songs (goth mixed with other genres often works well, I'm just not that keen on straightforward goth music), but the more pop tracks are the ones that stand out for me. A lot of the poppier songs are excellent and remind me of various bands I was listening to a few years back.

LIE 015 - Shy Rights Movement Great Western. The singer/songwriter of this band is Mark Ritchie, aka Frank Peck, so if you expect melancholy indiepop you'd be expecting right. The instrumentation is less sparse than Frank Peck and there's even noisy guitars creeping in on occasions, but no amount of noisy guitars can disguise the fact that this is still Frank Peck (and his band). These songs may be a little too depressing for some, but if like me you have fond memories of the days when there was an abundance of indiepop songs with meaningful lyrics focused on feelings, and tunes which were equally melancholic, this will definitely be your sorta thing.

LIE 019 - Cliff Brown Jr We Are Stardust. This singer/songwriter is better known as C Browne Jr, and previously appeared on the We Are Not Alone comp under this name. Most of these tracks are 60s-ish pop songs; sometimes the music ventures into the more laid-back side of late 60s rock (for example Zero which puts me in mind of the untitled instrumental on Delta's Sugared-up ep) and experimentation (La Puoza Di Potal). Not too keen on the experimental track but everything else is well worth a listen, the songs show a genuine enthusiasm for 60s music, unlike the fake retro bands in the 90s who just wanted to be famous and played supposedly 60s influenced music cos that was the in thing at the time.

LIE 020 - A Boy Named Thor Rocket Scientist Blues. This is subtitled Old Songs For New Ears, so it appears to be a comp of previously released songs. I'm new to A Boy Named Thor (except for the track on the comp tape mentioned earlier) so none of this is already familiar to me. On the A-side there are 7 DIY pop songs played in various styles - one is synth based and the rest are guitar based, both quiet and noisy. The B-side has two instrumental tracks. The first is atmospheric and quite spacey, but still too melodic to be called anything other than pop. The second one is more of a soundscape, a bit like Karina ESP. This tape sounds more like the work of about 5 bands but every track is great.

LIE 022 - The Kitchen Cynics Swearing In Semaphore. The Kitchen Cynics seem to have a tradition of having songs which mention the name of the label they're on - one of their tapes on Bacchanalian Revel had 'Bacchanalian revel' in the lyrics, and they contributed a song called Give Me Bliss to one of my comps (Topaz). So it's no surprise to see that one of the songs on Swearing... is called Best Kept Secret! This is a nice touch to write songs in this way, specifically for the release they're on. The lyrics here are meaningful and contain subtle humour on occasions, and sometimes there are fairly coarse lyrics which contrast sharply with the delicate melodies. There are also occasional hints of a 50s rock n' roll influence on display and this is the first time I've heard this sort of sound from The Kitchen Cynics. Much of the stuff here is their usual brand of homemade pop-psych-folk (I mean 'folk' in both the 60s sense and the traditional sense) and there's nothing on this tape that disappoints.

LIE 025 - John T Baker Little Rock Songs. The first I've heard from American hometaper John T Baker, although he does have various other releases available. This is late 60s influenced music, pop based but with hints of country, folk and rock (late 60s rock that is, not the big hair/leather sort from the 80s). The most pop sounding stuff here puts me in mind of artists such as MJB and Ray Carmen, whilst Six Strings is more like a folkier version of Frank Peck (some people would say Frank Peck is folk but I think this is a lazy description, probably made by people who class anything with an acoustic guitar as folk). Some stuff here, mainly the country-flavoured tracks, are more middle of the road than most pop based home recording artists, but there are also songs here which are sure to appeal to fans of the kind of DIY pop that usually appears on Best Kept Secret.

You'll notice that there are a few gaps in the catalogue numbers - what happened to LIE 016, 017, 018, 021, 023 and 024? Well, 016, 017 and 018 are going to be a trilogy of compilations called Beware Of The Ricochet, 023 and 024 are going to be parts two and three in the We Are Not Alone series, and 021 is going to be a tape by Denver (a band with White Town/Bulldozer Crash connections). Also planned are tapes by Simpatico (featuring Jason Sweeney from Sweet William), River and Other People's Children. More about these when they happen!

Best Kept Secret info from Alessandro Crestani, Via Biron Di Sotto 101, 35100 Vicenza, Italy or bks@telemar.it or www.indiepages.com/bestkeptsecret

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