LAZARUS CLAMP/ALPINE LOW split 7" (Sorted)
Lazarus Clamp, normally purveyors of off-centre noisepop and post-rock, surprise us with their song here which is a version of the broadside ballad Some Rivals! And this is no bizarre treatment of the song, they even use banjo, violin and accordion, as to be expected of traditional folk music. However they do play around with the lyrics - I'm sure the line "The lesbians have stolen my true love away" wasn't in the original! Over the past 2 or 3 years I've got heavily into folk music, so it's good to know that I'm not the only person from an 'indie' background with an interest in it.
Meanwhile Alpine Low do a couple of songs - Follow the Light Home, a really good laid-back indiepop song with off-centre electronic bits, and Further, Not Closer, a just as great DIY noisepop track with a few quirky/experimental moments. Contact sortedrecords@hotmail.com

TAFFIA Taffia EP CD (Crai)
One of the singers with Taffia is Steve Andrews (aka The Bard of Ely), who long-term followers of the tape label scene will be sure to recognise. After several years of promoting his music through this medium (as well as the occasional release on very small vinyl labels), Steve has finally caught the attention of more established CD labels who are more likely to get his music out to the audience it deserves. As well as a solo appearance and an appearance with the Archdruid of the Secular Order of Druids on the Green Man Festival CD on Double Snazzy (due to be reviewed in future), Steve also has this CD with Taffia, a band which features amongst them Phil Moxham of Young Marble Giants.
Lead track Nicky Wire Your A Liar (the misspelling of 'you're' is deliberate) is a techno song with vocoder, protesting at the high prices charged by the Manic Street Preachers at their millennium gig in Wales. Passport is a mixture of doom laden atmospheric experimentalism, techno, Eastern-style percussion and samples of airport announcements. I've Been To Heaven is a kind of experimental pop with techno elements. Harvest Home is my favourite track here, a superb psychedelic folk-pop song written by Steve, which has some extra electronic additions in the version here. Finally, a different version of Nicky Wire..., again an electronic track, but with unprocessed vocals, so you can hear every word of the satirical lyrics.
Yeah, good to see Steve is finally getting heard by more than just ultra-underground types. For info on this EP contact crai@sain.wales.com

SKANDINAVIA Dark Days CD (Global Warming)
Vocalist Eliza was formerly in Bellatrix, who played noisepop with synths and often with some rather teenage lyrical concerns. Whatever you do, don't expect more of the same. Eliza's new band, the excellently named Skandinavia, show a whole new songwriting maturity. Long gone are bouncy naive pop songs; this new band play a mix of indierock and heavy 70s rock which sometimes borders on prog, and has the effective addition of violin, which features more prominently than it did in (what I've heard from) Bellatrix. Dog in particular shows what a powerful voice Eliza has, she sure can scream - but not simply for the sake of it. Yeah, I really, really like this and have been playing it a LOT lately. I hear there's an album in the works, now that I'm very keen to hear. Label info from globalwarming@btclick.com; band info from skandinavia@deluxxe.co.uk

WINTERBRIEF Unwrapped 7" (Promenade)
Winterbrief make the sort of music that used to be called 'disco-punk' in the 90s. They do pop-punk with synths and a male & a female vocalist who sometimes sing and sometimes shout. There's quite a quirky and off-centre feel to much of their music. Recommended for fans of Bis, Dweeb, Schup or Ninja Massacre. Contact Fredrik at the label - promenade@spray.se

BLOOD MUSIC A Telegram For Rosemarie 7" (Promenade)
The name Blood Music led me to expect ear-shattering experimental noise, but no, this is tuneful DIY pop. Hej introduces the record in Swedish, while some sort of easy listening tune plays in the background. A Telegram For Rosemarie is a slightly quirky love song backed by piano. I'm Waiting Round The Corner is homemade pop with guitar, synth, drum machine, real drums, and is that a banjo I hear? The Salesman is another piano-based song, this time about a salesman selling all sorts of odd stuff (a miniature Volvo on three wheels, anyone?) Come On Billie May is ramshackle homemade pop. Finally The Ramones' Somebody Put Something In My Drink is reinvented as a lo-fi version of 80s electropop. Contact promenade@spray.se

BLUE JAY WAY The Non-International EP CD (Electric Breeze)
BJW have decided to call it a day. A real shame, as this CD shows they were a band with heaps of potential. The majors even recognised this and one label was particularly interested in their music but refused to sign them as they were 'too old'. The youngest member of the band is 26. This is just the sort of narrow-mindedness that sums up how I feel about how the majors work. As I see it, the age of a musician is completely irrelevant, and besides, 26 isn't even old!
As for their music, it's jangly, powerful, melodic guitar pop, very much along the lines of what the Rainbow Quartz label specialises in. I feel they'd have been better off contacting labels like them, specialist labels that actually care about the music, instead of the big business guys who are only interested in bands' images and making money out of them. But it's too late to wonder what might have been as the band are no more. I just hope their songwriters decide to continue writing new material, it would be an awful shame for such talent to go to waste.
The band have only just split up and you can still get the cd via their website www.bluejayway.org.uk
The site also states that they may consider reforming if any labels are interested in them - let's hope so eh?

CRAZYFACE Free Coke CD (Bearos)
The band allege Free Coke is about a woman who ran up a huge bar bill at a party instead of sticking to the cola drinks which were free - but it's not hard to see through such claims, expecially when they have a picture of a rolled-up £50 note encrusted with suspicious looking white powder on the cover!
Crazyface's music is based mainly around punk-pop, but they inject some much needed originality into this generally all-the-same genre. There's this real quirk-factor at work here; Good Cop Bad Cop has changey bits and a twiddly guitar solo that shouldn't work in a song like this but does. No Place Like Home begins with a wah-wah fuelled piece sounding straight out of a 70s cop show, then it flies off at a tangent, with bits of jangly yet powerful indie, twisted punk-pop, more twiddly guitar soloing... Loads of power and energy, loads of individual ideas, highly recommended. Label info - info@bearos.co.uk
Band info - us@crazyface.com

VARIOUS Promenade Food Compilation #1 7" (Promenade)
Very distinctive artwork on this - the front cover has a close-up of a man's mouth and chin, with mustard encrusted in his beard, and the back cover shows an almost as hairy stomach, presumably belonging to the same man. There are 7 bands included on here, the most well known being Fuck. Pueblo does melancholic lo-fi pop; Hormones in Abundance do jangly, drum machine powered bedroom pop; Cat & Dog Dialogue are another melodic DIY pop band; Fuck's track is very short and consists only of beats, minimal keyboard and spoken vocals about eating pizza; Dennis Driscoll does a quirky rap about tea and cakes, complete with 'human beatbox' backing; Uzi Street does homemade 80s-ish synthpop; and Hello Ladies do slow, melancholic, atmospheric pop. All in all, a collection of really good DIY pop and strange quirkiness. Comes with a 40 page booklet with stuff on the bands and cartoons with a food theme. Contact promenade@spray.se

APOTHECARY HYMNS Half of What is Seen 7" (Jugendstil)
Debut limited edition 7" with very nice Victorian pharmacy themed cover art. The title track is excellent psych-pop with changey bits; one part sounds very like The Kitchen Cynics, then you get some harmonica and banjo, then some psychedelic electric guitar soloing, and then it goes full circle again. The Marigold is reminiscent of The Petals, with a hint of Kitchen Cynics again - really great stuff. Definitely a band to watch out for if you dig psych-pop. I was pleased to hear that there is a further 7" and an LP planned for future release - I for one am very keen to hear these! Contact poldibloom@yahoo.com

SKANDINAVIA Album Sampler CDR
Absolutely astonishing introduction to their album, due out in Summer. The band have been described as 'neo-classic rock' and I'd agree with that, but even if you're someone who normally has an aversion to 'classic rock', don't stop reading yet. Unlike a lot of music that could also be described as such, Skandinavia are refreshingly free of gratuitous guitar twiddling, and manage to create a dramatic feel without coming across as pompous. What you do get is a totally amazing blend of heavy riffage courtesy of guitarist Claire Wakeman, and atmospheric violin and powerful voice courtesy of Eliza Newman, who is Icelandic even though her name doesn't sound it.
I'd read that one of the band's influences was Norse mythology, and being interested in this myself I was keen to hear the songs with this theme. Here we have Valkyrja, which definitely doesn't disappoint. Swim is a bit of a change from their usual sound but is just as great. It is a very beautiful sounding song that starts off laid-back with just piano and voice, then violin comes in, then some very rhythmic, almost military sounding drumming. The lyrics change seamlessly from one language to another. By far one of the best new bands I've heard in a long while; I eagerly await the forthcoming album! For more details contact their management - info@deluxxe.co.uk

GRANDSCOPE Tricolore 7" (Bearos)
Tricolore is a laid-back, mostly instrumental piece with occasional snippets of French spoken word, which manages to successfully combine melodic and soundscapey elements. I'll Find You also has laid-back electronic elements but overall is a very different style to Tricolore. This has guitar, bass, real drums, and sung, vocoder-ed vocals, and would be best described as 'epic, intelligent pop'. Contact info@bearos.co.uk

THE TOQUES Too Tired To Worry 7" (Bearos)
You may have previously heard this band under their former name of Buick6. They sound rather like an updated version of 60s country-rock, combining melodic, harmonic pop, 60s rock guitar (on the title track) and a strong country influence. I'm not normally grabbed by country music or other music influenced by it, but on a number of occasions I've heard bands coming out of the underground who play country-inspired music and actually manage to impress me. The Toques are one such band. Apparently a bigger record deal is imminent (if it hasn't happened already) so we should be hearing a lot more from this band in future.

MOTHER GOOSE Schizo Ladies 7" (If Society)
I've been following this band since the 90s and they've done some really brilliant stuff in the past, but I can safely say that this is amongst their very best. Schizo Ladies is amongst their more melodic material, even with quite a retro feel which is rare for this band. But Mother Goose wouldn't be Mother Goose unless they go all warped on us, and we hear the first signs of this being Mother Goose when Anti sings "Let me hate you/Let me stab you in the face", which is especially warped when you consider it's a line from a melodic retro pop song. Then there's the bizarre lines "Where is the girl/You missed her like the country furniture/You scream at her", before the band launch into an instrumental part that includes a guitar solo that is Blondie's Heart of Glass gone all twisted.
Meanwhile on the B-side there is Rondo Fennoscandia, a tale of love and sex under the Northern lights, set to a high energy burst of noise. Just as astonishing as the title track. I've been playing this single A LOT, it's really, really superb. Contact the band at karek@welho.com and the label at info@ifsociety.com

JET JOHNSON Donnie CD (Soda/Seriously Groovy)
Following the 9000 Men 7" on Bearos that I enthused about a while back, Jet Johnson have since signed to Seriously Groovy and have this CDEP and a couple of other releases out on SG's Soda imprint. Jet Johnson consist of Caroline Nesbø (ex-Peachfuzz), Kevin Smith (Reynolds) and Gavin Baker (Billy Mahonie, Glider, Meets Guitar). Donnie is an ode to Donny Osmond, but doesn't musically resemble him. This is fantastic summery, catchy indiepop with handclaps and ba-ba-bas. More downbeat is the next track Cats in Heaven; this has a rather folky feel and ponders the after death state with subtly humorous lyrical images. It's simultaneously dark and light, both musically and lyrically. Synd is Norwegian for sin if I'm not mistaken (I'm currently learning Norwegian. The original teacher left and was replaced by none other than the wife of one of my music contacts. How's about that for a small world?!) and is also the name of the third track here. Different again from the two preceding tracks, this is a slightly off-centre instrumental that I guess falls into the post-rock category. A very diverse EP, sounds like 3 different bands, but Jet Johnson sound great no matter what kind of music they are doing. Highly recommended. Contact info@seriouslygroovy.com

BACK TO AQUAMARINE