Skep Wax HHV Records 15 Items

A new wave of indiepop is emerging in the UK, and Panic Pocket are at the forefront of it. Playful, tuneful, sardonic and sassy, Sophie and Natalie have been friends since childhood, know each other’s secrets - and probably know a few of yours too.

Formed in 2017, Panic Pocket soon became a DIY sensation, releasing debut EP Never Gonna Happen, with Reckless Yes in 2019. Their debut album has found a new home.

Amelia and Rob at Skep Wax Records fell in love with the mixture of punk-grrrl attitude and songwriting skill: “They reminded us of all our favourite bands rolled into one. Panic Pocket know how to turn anger and humour into brilliant pop songs.” Panic Pocket will be the main support band at Heavenly’s sell-out London shows in May.

Many of Mad Half Hour’s 10 indie-pop anthems are concerned with being at odds with life's accepted milestones, feeling alienated from the people you thought wanted the same things as you, while trying to forge your own path. So the top-down janglepop of ‘Boyfriend’ reflects on what happens when your best friend finds love…and insists on bringing it everywhere, and ‘Get Me’ answers claustrophobic questions about ‘settling down’ with a not-so-silent scream over some deliciously dirty riffs.

But Panic Pocket’s superpower is their sense of fun. On Mad Half Hour, you’re never more than a few seconds away from a monster hook, killer harmony or an acerbically witty turn of phrase worthy of the band’s heroes Aimee Mann or Liz Phair. From receiving a cryptic “frog emoji” from a long-forgotten one-night stand, to ‘Don’t Get Me Started’’s streetlit walk of shame “via Morrisons car park”, no memory is off-limits, no matter how painful.

If you want punkpop exuberance, lyrics that are so truthful they hurt, plus some very infectious tunes - then Mad Half Hour is exactly the soundtrack you need, right down to the minute.

LP is limited to 500 copies. Debut album from The Gentle Spring: The long-awaited return of Michael Hiscock, Co-founder of The Field Mice. The Gentle Spring are a new group, formed by Michael Hiscock, Emilie Guillaumot and Jérémie Orsel. Michael has an illustrious pop history, having been a founder member of The Field Mice, possibly the most beloved band on Sarah Records in the 1990s. And with The Gentle Spring, it seems that history is repeating itself_ When Michael and his friend Bobby Wratten formed The Field Mice, the two of them very quickly created a set of songs whose emotional honesty, raw guitars and perfect pop melodies pierced the hearts of a generation of indiepop fans, kids who were unmoved by the posturing of mainstream indie, and who didn't want to spend time in fields dancing at 24-hour raves. The Field Mice were the band who defined the meaning and the spirit of Sarah Records. Defiantly in love with pop, defiantly un-macho, defiantly_sensitive. And now, remarkably, Michael has done it again. With his new musical partner Emilie, The Gentle Spring have created a fresh new iteration of indiepop music. Once again, the songs are unafraid of raw emotions, brutally honest and is still in love with big pop melodies. They are still_.sensitive. But life is seen through a different lens now. There is wisdom, there is experience, and there is the ability to look back at the world with a mixture of regret and joy. These are very adult songs, and the arrangements reflect this. Rich acoustic guitars and Emilie's haunting keyboard have replaced hectic drum machines and urgent distortion. And there is a third element to this music. Jérémie Orsel's sophisticated guitar adds textures and melodies that give these songs a real depth, while maintaining an enigmatic distance, never quite overwhelming the vocal line. So things are clearer now. But feelings are just as strong. The pain of unrequited love that made Field Mice songs so poignant hasn't gone away. In some ways, the thought of roads not taken is more...

Heavenly released four albums in the early 1990s. Skep Wax Records are going to re-issue all four of them over a two year period. Classic black vinyl. The albums will include a 7" booklet with lyrics and new sleeve notes by the members of the band. Heavenly were one of the pioneers of indiepop. Formed from the smouldering ashes of Talulah Gosh, they took all that energy and attitude and used it to fuel catchy, infectious pop melodies. The influence of 60s girl groups was never far from the surface. This was girl-pop, but with the girls in control. Loved by many but derided as 'twee' by some, Heavenly ignored the increasingly macho environment of the contemporary UK scene and forged a separate path, along with other bands on the Sarah Records label. Later, having co-released their albums on K Records in Olympia, Heavenly toured the US, hooking up with bands in the embryonic riot grrrl scene. Heavenly's quiet feminism became louder and more articulate, and the hostility of the UK music press became irrelevant. Heavenly came to an abrupt and tragic end when drummer Mathew Fletcher took his own life in 1996. After a year's hiatus, the group reformed as the short-lived Marine Research, before going their separate ways musically. Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey currently play in The Catenary Wires and Swansea Sound. Peter Momtchiloff plays in Would-Be-Goods and Tufthunter. HEAVENLY vs SATAN - THE FIRST LP. Recorded in the Oxfordshire countryside, the first Heavenly album was a bid to make a pure pop record. The punk noise of Talulah Gosh had exploded and expired. Amelia had had a go at making a disco hit ('Can You Keep A Secret', subsequently released on Fierce Recordings), which was fun, but wasn't going to trouble the charts. Unbothered by critical or popular reactions, the new band decided to immerse themselves in the creation of a sweet, tuneful pop record. It's true that the punk influences aren't hard to discern (Mathew's favourite band was The Ramones), but it's Pete's elegant guitar and Amelia's m...

A compilation of new songs. An essential purchase for all fans of Sarah Records, Guitar-, Twee and Jangle Pop!The bands on this compilation were all on Sarah Records, or have key members whose bands were on that label. There are some names you'll recognise: The Orchids, The Wake, Even As We Speak, where line-ups have remained relatively unchanged. And there are newer groups: Jetstream Pony (ex-Aberdeen), The Catenary Wires (ex-Heavenly), Soundwire (ex-The Sweetest Ache), where different shapes have evolved. Time has moved on, but the music is as wonderful and as idealistic as ever. All the tracks on Under The Bridge are pop gems. Some are punk rock, some are indiepop, others are dreamy swirls of fuzz. Some are gentle and some are some are full of rage, but all of them are defiantly sensitive, literate and independent. (Some things haven't changed.) The bands on this compilation are flattered, maybe, that people spend serious money bidding for their old 7" singles. But they are a lot more excited about the music they are creating today.All the tracks on Under The Bridge are new, and most of them are previously unreleased.When Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey started Skep Wax Records in 2021 they were heavily influenced by the labels they'd worked with in the past: K, Elefant, Fortuna Pop, WIAIWYA. But Sarah Records was the one they admired most: it was ethical, totally independent, and better organised than most majors. When they looked around, they discovered that so many of the bands they once shared a label with were still making fantastic music. Under The Bridge is a celebration of that.Under The Bridge will be released as a CD album, digital download and limited edition vinyl LP. Both formats will include a 16-page colour booklet.A series of new interviews with the bands have been conducted by author Jane Duffus, whose book These Things Happen: The Sarah Records Story will be published by Tangent Books in 2023. The interviews will be posted at some point on the S...

Lp, First Pressing On White Vinyl (1000 Copies Ww).Indie Pop Comes Of Age! Amelia Fletcher And Rob Pursey Love Pop Songs, But Pop Songs With An Edge. With Their Early Bands Talulah Gosh And Heavenly, They Were Often Dismissed By Critics Of The Time As Fey Or 'Twee', But This Prejudice Has Since Been Revised: Some Of Those Sweet Fizzy Songs Were About Date-Rape, And The Band Were An Influential Part Of The Movement That Became Riot Grrrl. On Their New Album As The Catenary Wires, The Songs Are As Strong As Ever, Full Of Sweet Melody And Rich With Vocal Harmonies. But The Tunes Are Now Vehicles For Startlingly Honest Adult Concerns: The Fractured Relationships, Anxieties, Passions And Politics Of People Who Live On An Island That's Turning In On Itself. Like The Go-Betweens And Xtc Before Them, The Catenary Wires Know That Pop Music Can Convey Dark, Sardonic, Complex Emotions, Just As Well As It Can Celebrate Teenage Angst. The Album Depicts England, Not Just In Its Lyrics, But In Its Music. The Catenary Wires Have Listened To The Songs And Stories England Has Comforted Itself With Over The Decades, And Re-Imagined Them. Canterbury Lanes Presents A Duetting Couple, Old Now And Worn Down, But Still Aspiring To Put Their Folk Band Back Together, Hoping To Rekindle The Idealistic Flames Of The Early 1970s. Mirrorball, Fizzy With Syn-Drums And Casio, Presents Another Couple - Middle-Aged And Unattached, Who Find Unexpected Love At A Retro 80s Disco. In The 70s-Flavoured Pop Of Always On My Mind, Love Appears Again, Almost By Surprise, Conjured Up By An Old Photo In A Pile Of Memorabilia. The Opening Track, Face On The Rail Line, Is A Love Song Set In The Now, Full Of Emotion, But Shot Through With The Paranoia That We All Feel, Living At A Time When We Are Constantly In Contact, But Rarely Communicate The Truth. The Last Two Songs On The Album, Like The Rain, And The Overview Effect, Are Anxious Romances, Set In A Fragile World. The Catenary Wires Are Now A Five-Piece Band. The Other Members Have Imp...

Sassyhiya want to take you somewhere. The journey starts in Kathy and Helen’s flat in South London. Sit down, close your eyes, and immerse yourself... You are on your way to a musical rainforest a long way from Camberwell. Explore your new surroundings, and you will find beautiful pop blooms like Let’s See What We Can Find, as bright and vibrant as The Sundays, thrusting their colourful faces up from the forest floor. You’ll find tangles of sharp-edged guitar, as if Swiss she-punks Kleenex had been left to evolve here in the rich fertile soil (I Had A Thought). You’ll find dark pools full of lyrical complexity, deceptively deep and immersive, with shimmering reflections of The Go-Betweens (Perennial). And you’ll come across delicate love songs, creeping up the trunks and branches of the bass and drums, displaying their fragile beauty (Thank You And Goodbye). And what’s that exotic striped animal prowling through the undergrowth? Actually, it’s Crayon Potato, Sassyhiya’s pet cat, the other resident of their flat in South London, taking up her role as the feline star of a lilting, singalong anthem written in her honour.

That’s what is so great about this album. You are somehow, simultaneously, exploring the most exotic forest in the world while also sitting in a flat in an ordinary, familiar English street with Sassyhiya and their cat. This album transports you without pretending the real world doesn’t exist: it doesn’t get all mystical on you (Take You Somewhere is as unlike Enya as anything you’ve heard). Sometimes you might be reminded of Girls At Our Best, and then Delta 5. You might even, on occasion, think of Echo and the Bunnymen.

The album opens with their single, Boat Called Predator: an appropriate start, inviting you to embark: insistent, almost ominous, but with a siren call of a chorus that means you can’t go back. The first single, Kristen Stewart, is here too: a bold love song to a queer icon, affirming Sassyhiya’s status as the queens (and kings) of a thriving indiepop scene. It’s joyous and it’s life-affirming. There are other love songs here too, like the jokey, wonkily flirtatious Puppet Museum. The album ends with You Can Give It (But You Can’t Take It) - a proper anthem of defiance, gently but insistently taking down the bullies and reactionaries who trample over beauty and diversity: the kind of people you might, unfortunately, bump into as you make your way back onto the streets of South London.

Sassyhiya (pronounced “Sassy Hiya”) were formed when Helen and Kathy, real-life partners and co-songwriters, joined up with Pablo and Neil (drums and guitar). Helen had previously been in Boys Forever and Basic Plumbing, collaborating with much-missed Veronica Falls musician Patrick Doyle. She and Kathy then formed Barry, a stripped-down queercore outfit, with Bart McDonagh (The Male Gays) and Mark Amura (My Executive Dysfunction). Sassyhiya feels like a culmination of all these elements, hitting the sweet spot between post-punk and indie pop. They know their way around a melody but still keep it wonky, with influences ranging from the Breeders and Broadcast to Dolly Parton.

Marlody's wonderful first album I'm Not Sure At All!Marlody's first album I'm Not Sure At All takes anxiety, weakness, fear - and turns them into strength: powerful melodies, the sweetest harmonies you ever heard, and lyrics that insist on the possibility of hope, without losing sight of the possibility of despair.Dominated by her extraordinary keyboard playing, Marlody's songs are illuminated - and sometimes made sinister - by occasional bursts of programmed percussion, submarine bass and distant, chiming digital bells. These are deep, darkly beautiful pop songs.vThere are musical echoes: the infectiousness and daring of some of the vocal melodies might remind you of Kate Bush, the intimacy might remind you of Cate Le Bon, the stabs of anger and pain might remind you of Liz Phair. The keyboard is sometimes as smooth as Fleetwood Mac; other times it's as raucous and distorted as Quasi. The harmonies are from another place again - you could imagine hearing them in an Unthanks recording. "As exquisite as debut albums get. A wandering storybook of impossibly beautiful harmonies, rolling keyboards and a beautifully intimate vocal that is as vulnerable as it is fearless." Mu Magazine"Reassuringly hook-laden - an unlikely mixture but heady enough to work." Mojo, 4 Stars "Really something special. An exquisite record to start 2023. Should be in contention for the Mercury Music Prize." Louder Than War

Vinyl close to NM ! Includes booklet & original inner sleeve. Seam split on top. Writing on cover.

Crumbs have been incubating this, their second album, for a few years now. Who knows how they kept all the energy in check. It must have been like sitting on a volcano. The songs burst out with pure pop fire, sending splinters of guitar, sharp lyrics and snatches of the catchiest backing vocals.

The rhythm section (Jamie and Gem): it’s like Delta 5 meeting Le Tigre in a dark alley in Leeds, fusing blindly and completely, and then forcing its way into the back entrance of a venue, sending volts through the limbs of the unwitting punters, forcing them to dance. This is Tight.

And as the lights come on and the indie kids throw themselves around, Ruth’s vocals sweetly assault their ears with anger, joy, political intelligence - and all around, Stuart’s guitar, sometimes twangly-melodic like the B52s, sometimes sweet and ringing like a memory of Scars, sometimes furious and feeding back, keeps you alert and thirsty for more.

These songs do NOT outstay their welcome. Starts and ends are cut hard: no pre-echo, no wistful, drawn-out regretful fade-outs. Crumbs have imbibed the key lessons taught by The Gang Of Four and The Au Pairs: never let the energy dissipate. But there is more than anger here. The band have smuggled a pop sweetness into the disciplined shapes of their angular songs. You’re Just Jealous has sharp edges, but it’s generous too.

The album will be available as a vinyl LP, CD, download and on streaming services.

Crumbs - a brief history. They are based in Leeds, where they are active movers in the DIY scene that currently thrives in the North of England. They recorded a Marc Riley session in 2016, released their first album (on Everything Sucks) in 2017, toured extensively in 2018 and 2019, playing at the Brudenell Social Club with Swearin’ and Jeffrey Lewis, and at plenty of fests such as LaDIYfest and Specialist Subject’s birthday all dayer in Bristol, A Real Cool Fest in Bradford, Mousetival in Stockton and the Cambridge Indiepop Alldayer.

They spent the pandemic creating these new, tightly-wound, irresistible pop songs.

Under The Bridge 2 is the sequel to the celebrated 2022 compilation album that reunited groups and songwriters who had once recorded for cult label Sarah Records. The new album showcases the continuing creativity of a special group of musicians who have never rested on their laurels.

Bigger and more expansive than the first album, Under the Bridge 2 is a double LP, containing twenty brand new tracks. There is a huge range of material here, from intense, dark chamber pop to dense shoegaze to out-and-out indiepop. Exciting new groups are unveiled: The Gentle Spring (a new project by Michael Hiscock of The Field Mice); Vetchinsky Settings (a collaboration between Mark Tranmer and James Hackett of The Orchids); and Mystic Village (which features new songs by Robert Cooksey of The Sea Urchins).

You will also see familiar starry names like Even As We Speak, The Orchids and Secret Shine - bands whose line-ups have remained mostly unchanged since the 1990s. And there are established bands who didn’t appear on the first album but are now represented – bands like Action Painting! and The Hit Parade.

Most of the tracks are exclusive and unreleased: there’s the first new song from The Catenary Wires since 2021, a brand new fizzbomb from Jetstream Pony, a haunting instrumental from GNAC.

The emphasis of Under The Bridge is on the new. The bands’ shared history means they have a shared aesthetic, even a shared ethos – they all believe that the future is more important than the past. They are as independent and as uncompromising as ever, but they are still uncynical - and still excited about what Pop Music can be.

Skep Wax Records are re-issuing all four Heavenly albums over a two year period, and this is the third instalment, following on from ‘Heavenly vs Satan’ and ‘Le Jardin De Heavenly’.

Each LP includes relevant single releases as additional tracks, a 7” booklet with lyrics, pictures, and new sleeve notes by the members of the band. Altogether, the four albums will amount to a thorough collection of the band’s recorded output.

Heavenly will be playing gigs in various countries in 2024.

The third Heavenly album will be re-released by Skep Wax Records on Friday 2nd February. The re-release will also include all five tracks from the Atta Girl and P.U.N.K Girl 7” singles.

The Atta Girl and P.U.N.K. Girl singles were released in 1993; album The Decline and Fall of Heavenly came soon after in 1994: collectively they show a band that is rapidly expanding its scope. The album veers confidently from high speed indiepunk (Me And My Madness) to cool surf instrumental (Sacramento) and back again to the sweetest indiepop (Itchy Chin). Meanwhile, the singles, which include the band’s most celebrated tune - P.U.N.K Girl – demonstrates how much confidence Heavenly were deriving from their involvement in the nascent Riot Grrrl scene. All the anger is there, the politics are direct and crystal clear – yet the whole thing is still delivered with the sweetest pop melodies. It’s like being punched and kissed at the same time.

The three releases also show how Heavenly had come to feel equally at home in the UK and in the US. The album maybe feels more British, as demonstrated by the Old World irony of the ‘Decline and Fall’ title. At Heavenly gigs in the UK, often playing with other bands on the increasingly influential Sarah Records, audiences were getting bigger, while the bands were finding a sweet spot where anti-corporate understatement and a dismissive attitude to an increasingly misogynist UK Press was no barrier to success. P.U.N.K Girl and Atta Girl on the other hand, are more gleeful, more headlong, and somehow feel more American: they are carried along by the excitement and adrenaline of having found another spiritual home - the indiepunk Riot Grrrl scene that was focussed on Olympia, WA, the HQ of Heavenly’s US label K Records. (K released P.U.N.K Girl and Atta Girl together on one 10” EP.)

Amelia Fletcher and Cathy Rogers were now confidently sharing vocals, sometimes harmonising, sometimes taking it in turns, sometimes singing over each other. Peter (guitar) Mathew (drums) and Rob (bass) had become adept at changing gear from ornate pop to full-on punk, unafraid of genre rules and increasingly happy to make up their own version of what pop music should sound like.

The more delicate, more decorative arrangements of Heavenly’s first two albums had been left behind. The band – or more accurately, the women in the band – were still dogged by accusations of being too fey, too ‘twee’: not Rock enough. But, as the chorus of Atta Girl makes clear, any attempts to define Heavenly by their ‘cuteness’ now received an unambiguous response: ‘Fuck you, no way!’

The fourth and final Heavenly album ‘Operation Heavenly’ will be released later in 2024.

Heavenly were: Amelia Fletcher (guitar, vocals), Cathy Rogers (guitar, vocals), Rob Pursey (bass), Peter Momtchiloff (guitar), Mathew Fletcher (drums).

The Orchids formed in Glasgow in the mid to late 80s and in our 30+ years to date we've released 6 original albums, 2 compilation albums and 12 singles on 9 different record labels. They've done live gigs in 54 cities in 10 countries, the 7th album is released on the Skep Wax label in September.pop scottish indie guitar indie indiepop sarah sarah records glasgow

Second Album 'Twentieth Century' From Indie Agitators Swansea Sound!On their second album, Swansea Sound present a set of songs as infectious as anything from their previous incarnations. The raw energy of Hue's old band The Pooh Sticks is still there; the indiepop sugar rush of Amelia's Heavenly is still as sweet as ever. But these songs are laced with venom and sardonic wit. Swansea Sound have visited this terrain before: their catchy debut single 'Corporate Indie Band' was a sly tribute to a music scene that had lost all its authenticity, with its bands in hock to social media managers: corporate puppets play-acting at independence.In 'Twentieth Century', Swansea Sound take it a lot further, having a good look at the heroes of their youth - the fabled eras of rock, punk, post-punk, electro futurism - and considering whether the prophets that emerged from those scenes were of any use whatsoever. In 'Paradise', the electric synth-bleeps conjure up the dated futurism of the 1980s - with all its optimism about a digital nirvana: a nirvana that turned out to consist of Cambridge Analytica, OnlyFans, Spotify and chatrooms populated with incels. The song is as catchy as hell, and might remind you of Magazine. 'Twentieth Century', the title track, plays out the egotism of a punk rocker in combat gear, armed with a decent major label deal, singing (with less and less conviction) about revolution: OK, that was grim. But 'Far Far Away' is a pretty straightforward love song to Pete Shelley. He was great..All these and the further songs are indiepop, if you insist. They are full of earworms and they will make you want to dance. But they are also full of funny, complex, mordant ideas - and maybe that's why you'll want to hear them many times over.

'Re-issue album includes relevant single releases, a 7" booklet with lyrics, and new sleeve notes by the members of the band. LE JARDIN DE HEAVENLY - the second album. By the time their second album was ready to roll Heavenly were an established part of the Sarah Records stable in the UK and honorary members of the International Pop Underground in the USA, where Le Jardin De Heavenly was released by K Records. The songs on the album are rich with pop melodies and complex harmonies but the band aren't holding back - Mathew's drumming is intense; Peter's guitar flourishes are sharp-edged and loud. There are still elements of the gentler twee sound that had become the band's hallmark (or curse): Different Day and So Little Deserve are winsome, delicate pop songs. But there are also swirls of early shoegaze - Starshy is a dreamy, atmospheric confection heavy with reverb and harmony. And there's a defiant attitude in there too: I'm Not Scared Of You is the sound of a young woman refusing to be cowed by a male bully. It's not hard to see how Heavenly ended up as part of the riot grrrl scene in the US (an encounter that would have a profound influence on the band's later output). At the heart of the album, 'C Is The Heavenly Option' feels like a perfect celebration of Heavenly's transatlantic existence, and the marriage of two indie traditions: Amelia's English pop voice duets with Calvin Johnson's gravelly American baritone while the band alternate between cute melody and all-out thrash. It's a joyous combination. The eight-track album was released by Sarah Records and by K Records. The Skep Wax re-issue of 'Le Jardin De Heavenly' includes Heavenly's third Sarah Records single - So Little Deserve/I'm Not Scared Of You' and the first K Records single - 'She Says/Escort Crash On Marston Street'.