Odd Box Records

Odd Box is away at the moment – all orders placed in the next few weeks will be sent out on 3rd August.

Indietracks festival is first up. Then holiday.

Exciting news from Odd Box on Monday 19th July we are releasing an 8 track remix album by The Smittens.  ‘Dancing Shoes’:  The Smittens Remixed is available to pre order now for just £3 (plus P&P) from the shop.  You can listen to the whole EP in this little flash player here:

The Smittens are a hard-working globe-trotting independent American twee pop band from Burlington, Vermont, who like to think of themselves as friends first and open-hearted indiepop revolutionaries after that.

Max Andrucki, Colin Clary, Dana Kaplan, Holly Chagnon, and David Zacharis switch up instruments, song-writing, and singing to create brilliantly lyrical and hyper-catchy pop songs of all shapes and sizes. ‘Dancing Shoes’ sees 8 of their songs lovingly remixed by the likes of Nixon (Roger Gunnarsson), Mark Robinson (Teenbeat Records) and  Steve Williams (North of January Records).

The full track list of the EP is:

01 Party Time (The Boston Boys Have the Cutest Butts mix by Mark Robinson)
02 The Garden (Mesclun Mix by Greg Davis)
03 Army of Popkids (Less Army, More Pop Mix by Dana Julie Kaplan)
04 Sapphire (Stock-Aitken-Waterman Mix by Nixon)
05 Baby, Don’t You Know? (Kochalka Quality Mix by James Kochalka)
06 Momus, Where Are You? (Oil and Water Mix by Ryan Power)
07 Pretty Boy (Premix/Remix by Colin Clary)
08 Twitterpated (Twitterpated 2005! Mix by Steve Williams)

I first heard The Smittens in 2005.  The band were a big buzz on the indiepop underground around that time and I fell instantly for their pop charms.  Since then I’ve had the pleasure of seeing the band perform in crowded bars in London, New York and Boston.   I’ve also been wowed by their now regular performances at the Indietracks festival here in the UK.

When the chance arose to release this EP,  I jumped at the opportunity and the resulting ‘Dancing Shoes:  The Smittens Remixed’ is everything I hoped it would be.  The Smittens’ beautiful pop songs have been lovingly tweaked and transformed into a series of infectious remixes that, whilst not detracting from their indiepop hearts, manage to bring a whole new dimension of dance-ability to their pop sound.   The Stock-Aitken-Watermen-inspired remix of ‘Sapphire’ by Nixon is one of those rare ‘wow’ moments when a song you already love is given a makeover you’d never thought possible.  It’s this playful toying with perceptions of what The Smittens are that makes ‘Dancing Shoes’ such a beautiful and unexpected record.

The band is a fixture on the international indiepop festival circuit with multiple appearances at the Indietracks festival, Athens Popfest, NYC Popfest, Popfest New England, San Francisco Popfest, London Popfest, and the Cosy Den Festival in Stockholm. This summer The Smittens are planning their most ambitious adventure yet with 14 shows across the UK and Europe. The band are currently at work on their 4th studio album and they have a few new tracks coming out on compilations in the near future.

I’m off to New York Popfest for a couple of weeks.

All orders placed between now and 30th May will be posted out on my return.

Fab new video for ‘Cave City Sunrise’ – one of the songs on the debut One Happy Island album.

Exciting One Happy Island news.  Their self titled debut LP is back from the pressing plant and is ready to be shipped for 7th June.    For those that haven’t heard One Happy Island before – here’s a short bio:

One Happy Island is an indiepop band from Boston with sloppy DIY tendencies. Chief exports include handclaps, ukulele strings,  harmonicas, bittersweetly jangley ballads, furiously unfocused kazoo solos, and unashamed lo-fi recordings. It is the intention of Shannon, Rebecca, Clint, and Brad to take their songcraft and melodies to new levels of fun, fun, and fun.

Their self titled LP builds on the reputation garnered through a series of EP releases (self released, WeePOP!) and some rather wonderful live performances – including a slot at last years Indietracks festival.   The new LP keeps much of the lo-fi charm of the bands earlier recordings but the record finds the band in ambitious mood and with songs like ‘How To Hurt’ and ‘Nomi, You’re A Star!’ bring a vulnerable edge to the proceedings.  The pop heart beat of the band still shines through on instant classics ‘Elegant Elephant’, ‘Cave City Sunrise’  and ‘Horse Cave, Kentucky’.   The LP is available to pre-order from the shop, now.

If that wasn’t enough we’ve got a free download single available as a sneak preview of the LP.  Featuring ‘Elegant Elephant’ from the LP and one exclusive recording. ‘Elegant Elephant’ a delicious hook laden pop song that will surely bring us sunshine as summer looms on the horizon. The exclusive song is ‘Does Your Chewing Gum Lose Its Flavor (On the Bedpost Overnight)’ and is a recording made by One Happy Island that features Pete and Ian from Horowitz. This fun cover of the Lonnie Donegan classic shows the playful side of One Happy Island.  This can be download now, from ODDNET.

The first ODDNET release since January is about to be uploaded and should be available for download from Monday 10th May.  As with all ODDNET releases these are free to download and feature 2 songs – much like classic old 7″ singles.  NET005 features Falling and Laughing, a two piece from Birmingham.

‘Lights Out Birmingham’  and ‘Compilations of Sweden’ are two previously unreleased songs by the band. Describing themselves as indiepop, or in an attempt to point out the futility of boxing a band into a genre – they also have created a genre all of their own ‘Chordgazing’.  Nice.   The two songs on the release are fantastic and they’re a little pointer of what is to come on their soon to be released ‘Bunnyhood’ EP – which should be out in the next month or so on Odd Box.  Exciting Stuff.

I’ve managed to wangle a space at this wonderful all dayer that is happening at The Old Queens Head.  It’s free before 6pm and just a fiver afterwards.  There are a ton of bands playing and loads of DJs and loads of record labels selling their stuff.  Come down if you are in London this Bank Holiday Monday.

Links:  Facebook Event | Twitter | The Old Queens Head

Full details of the event:

Do You DIY? – a series of all day events held over the two bank holiday Monday’s in May celebrating all that is great and good in the world of independent music!

These events will see a gathering of bands/ club nights / labels / magazines / fanzines / blogs with an Indie and DIY ethic under the canopy of one event, with Bands, Dj’s, Record Stalls & listening booths across both floors of The Old Queen’s Head.

The first one takes place on Monday the 3rd of May, from Midday till Midnight.
Entry is FREE before 6pm and only £5 after.

Click HERE for the Facebook event – invite your friends and help us spread the word!
So far confirmed to play are:

Adelaide’s Cape (Acoustic Set) Intricate and finely crafted nu-folk.

Alice Gun (Acoustic Set)
Distilling brutal/beautiful songs from guitars, glockenspiel, double bass, cello, E-bow, accordion and a lopsided upright.

Decimals
New outfit from the former Automatic and yourcodenameis:milo collaborator Pennie.

Filthy Pedro (Acoustic Set)
Anglesea’s raucous founder of antifolk

Line And A Dot
New female folk artist along the lines of Elliot Smith, Alela Diane and Neutral Milk Hotel

Look, Stranger!
Talented young chaps with an armoury of pulsing hooks, rich harmony and soaring melodies.

Marcel
These Isle of White exiles come on like mid-period XTC wrestling Stephen Duffy to the ground..

Rob Marr (Acoustic Set)
Simple, brilliant British pop, as it should be

Sunderbans
Young&Losts latest signings. A trio who harness melancholy, folk, eccentricity and moodiness to equal parts aplomb, restraint and frazzle.

The Bobby McGee’s
Charming and exhilarating off-kilter ukulele melodies from the founders of tweecore

The Lost Cavalry
Mark from Fanfarlo’s new and sublime project

The Loves
Indie-pop masters. Their 4th & Final LP “…Love You” will be out on Fortuna Pop later in the year.

Theoretical Girl (Acoustic Set)
Singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and earl grey tea drinker extraordinaire.

Jennie Abrahamson
Wonderful new singer songwriter from Sweden, over in the UK for her first dates here, signed to How Sweet The Sound Records.

Lonely Joe Parker
Rum-soaked, saddle-sore troubadour romantic-in-rags Lonley Joe Parker enjoys a nice bicycle, and a glass of hard stuff. Poised somewhere between Cat Power, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy and Billy Bragg, colourful tales of girls won and lost, hoods dodged and wrongs righted (or wronger-ed).

Jackie Paper
Though better known as guitarist of wonky-pop botherers Thomas Tantrum, as a solo artist Jackie Paper creates a bittersweet mix of innocent, lilting, sunny anti-folk (Jeremy Warmsely, Jeff Lewis) and darker, more menacing alt-country (Big Star, Gram Parsons) influences.

Ann The Arc
Ann The Arc, making their debut in the capital, are a new trio hell-bent on nothing less than the total destruction of every pair of skinny jeans in the world peace, to be achieved through the rightful return of the music of The Replacements to the centre of popular culture, along with a good dollop of PJ Harvey, Pavement, J Mascis, The Bad Seeds and The Clash.

Stall/DJs/Records from a raft of labels/clubs:

Ambiguous Records // Artrocker // Atomic Beat Records // Baby Honey // Barbequtie // Big Scary Monsters

Blang Records // Brainlove Records // Bring & Share // Bronzerat Records // Club Ac30

Cool For Cats // Dustbowl Records // East City Records // Elefant Records // Fear&Records

Fierce Panda // Filthy Little Angels // Fortuna Pop! // God Don’t Like It // Home.Under.Ground

Memphis Industries // NoOneDied // RocketGirl // Ruffa Lane // Scared To Dance // Shifty Disco

The ace new LP (er, EP priced) by Ace Bushy Striptease is getting nearer.  ODD012 – is getting closer to completion.  The band blogged last week with some more details:

A Little More Suspicion In Our Fairytales Plz

1. Wrestle; Eat; Cry
2. Pain In The Aga
3. Adam Jackson Spreads Like Wildfire
4. HM9 (Waterfall)
5. All I Wanted For Christmas Was Alan Gow But He Had A Bio-Mechanical Spine Problem
6. Let Us Sit Quietly And Listen To Pop Punk feat. Miles LookiMakeMusic
7. Children’s Eyelash Trimming Device
8. Show Yr Working
9. 490 Fights Before Midnight
10. Bon Nuit, J’ai Changé Mon Esprit
11. It’s A Race
12. I’llfinishyrfinish (I’ll Finish You)

This will be priced at a regular EP price (£3) and should be on order for pre-sale in next few weeks.  And the first few orders  – exact numbers to be remembered will get a free CD copy of “Daniel Ershov Has Been Offered £100,000 By An Eccentric Millionaire To Step Naked From A Car Onto A Busy City Street, Walk 200 Meters And Climb Back Into The Car” – Which is a previous record made by the band and they’ve only recently got physical copies of it – after it has been available as a free download.  Exciting stuff.

That’s right.  The first Odd Box cassette single,  that’s a cassingle for those of a certain age, is due to be released in May.  The cassette is by Hot Booth and it’s going to be called “The Whole Thing”.   For those that don’t know,  Hot Booth is one Mr. Daniel Chapman.   He’s in a lot of other bands but Hot Booth is his own thing.    The pre-orders for this EP should be up soon enough – but you’ll have to be quick on the draw as we’re only making 50 of these little fellas.

The tracklist for the cassette is as follows:

The Humms are set to return this summer with their debut LP.  That’s got us all excited here at Odd Box towers.  Their EP released (last few copies left) on our very own label last year still sounds like the most you can have with your ears, indeed it was voted #2 in the Sounds XP writers poll for 2009.  That made us smile at the time, as does the news of their imminent return with their debut LP ‘Lemonland’.

The Humms - Lemonland

Here is the bands official press release:

Official work on Lemonland began in November of 2009 although the band and I had been recording material for the better part of 2 years. The location of our studio was housed by what once had been a country diner some 30 odd years ago that sat in a lonely campsite field inside the Shoal Creek Music Park in Lavonia GA.

Once nationally known as a tour stop in the 60’s and 70’s, this was a magnificent place to record a rock and roll album. The Music Park saw it’s share of musicians come through such as Jerry Lee Lewis, George Jones and Merle Haggard.  Long since this golden age of music, the only sounds coming from the Park now were the muffled tones of this project underway.

For the next 5 months,  a small group of close friends and myself worked very hard on this record and I’m proud to say the “guts” of this album can be heard very clearly in between the tracks as you will notice noises and faint “hums” (no pun intended) lovingly caused by our marvelous collection of space heaters used to keep our fingers just above the frost line during the harsh weather Georgia saw this Winter.

You will also hear certain instruments falling apart since the only drum kit we had to work with was pieced together with duct tape and what ever else I could find to complete a decent kit.  All guitar cables where beaten and soaked in beer thanks to the band’s last tour and cut in and out at times but all of these so called “surprises” is what makes Lemonland so choc full of ear juice.

Lemonland is to be released this June / August, 2010

The band have an official little site dedicated to the recording of the LP.   That can be found here.  And you can also hear an early rough mix of one of their songs ‘Buttermilk‘.   And you should also take the time to visit their regular website and My Space pages to hear more fab songs!