German label Jarmusic has released lots of indie-pop and psych-pop records, mostly from bands who are well established in the underground and have rather a cult status. Alan Jenkins' various bands, as well as Martin Newell and his band Cleaners Of Venus spring to mind. I'd got a few Jarmusic releases in the past, mainly from the bands themselves (such as the Immediate 7" and Conspiracy CD reviewed earlier) and thought it was about time I got in touch with Jarmusic directly. I've since got a few more of their releases and judging by the ones I've seen so far, it looks as though Jarmusic is a label which treats records/CDs as a whole package and puts as much care into the sleeves/covers as the music itself. Whilst some CDs come in normal jewel cases, others are packaged in tins or fancy full colour gatefold digipaks.

Becki DiGregorio has a 4 track CDEP, Ascension. I know Joachim at Jarmusic is a fan of XTC, and there's an XTC connection with this EP as Dave Gregory plays guitar on one of the tracks and Andy Partridge is the engineer. The first two tracks are singer-songwriter pop which is rather more mainstreamish than most things I've heard from Jarmusic. Inside The Dream isn't quite as straightforward as the other tracks - it includes a violin and percussion, and a fairly quirky guitar solo which sounds a bit 70s-ish. The Days Of Our Ascent also includes violin but there's not so much of an emphasis on this instrument, and despite being over 6 minutes long (ie not your average 3 minute pop song) it still sounds a tad commercial. Inside The Dream is the standout track for me as Becki and co are doing something rather different with this song, it isn't such a mainstream sounding thing. The other songs are preferable to a lot of commercial sounding music though, it has to be said.

Bingo Durango have been around since the 80s, but this is the first I've (knowingly) heard from them. Their Fool Romeo CD has 4 tracks and is packaged in a tin box like the Conspiracy CD reviewed in the singles section. People have apparently classed this band as psychedelic - there is a late 60s-ish guitar sound creeping in to some of these tracks but overall they aren't an overtly psychedelic sounding band. They're much more an 80s-ish/early 90s-ish indie-pop band if you ask me - but not the twee sort. They're doing a more sophisticated sort of indie-pop with male and female vocals, which has a similar sort of feel to The Rileys but not identical to them.

The Creams have various stuff out on Jarmusic, the latest being a double CD called The All Night Bookman. As per usual with this band, you get crazy titles like Stubbs Inflates A Kangaroo, Non-U Bee Fur Cannon Plinth, Why Can't We Hit These Stupid Porcupines?, Lovely And Fart, Civil Disorder In Bad Rabbit... Very, very strange. The music is a kind of quirky indie-pop which has hints of various other styles - across the whole album you'll hear hints of psychedelia, surf, ragga, experimental, jazz, etc - it's quirky indie-pop on the whole though. Needless to say, there's quirky lyrics too. There's also a Bartlebees cover on here (No Stories). And they use a theremin. 42 tracks, 121.56 minutes, oddness by the boatload - it's great.

People who've been following the indie scene for many years may well recognise The Deep Freeze Mice as being the band Alan Jenkins (of The Creams) was in between the late 70s and mid 80s. Jarmusic have reissued (amongst other things by The Deep Freeze Mice) their Live In Switzerland album which was recorded in 1985. This issue also contains some extra live tracks recorded in Leicester in 1982. Like The Creams, The Deep Freeze Mice songs have odd titles (I Like Digestive Biscuits In My Coffee, My Geraniums Are Bulletproof, I Am Big Chief Radio Luxembourg, Teenage Head In My Refrigerator, Esther Hit Me With The Marmalade, I Met A Man Who Spoke Like An UCCA Form, etc) and musically their quirky pop is very similar to The Creams, with the same kind of organ sound and semi-psychedelic guitar solos. Jarmusic info from Joachim, OT Reitze 2, 29482 Küsten, Germany.

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