Je Suis Animal at Indie Pop Days 2012!

Je Suis Animal is a band that plays together since 2004. The songs impress through playful and magically sounds accompanied by mysterious lyrics that recall early Stereolab, Broadcast, Electrelane, and My Bloody Valentine. If you missed their great performance at our club night in 2009 you have a second chance now. They are playing at Indie Pop Days 2012!  It will be their only live show this year, performing a set of mostly new and some old material.

The band is currently working on their follow up to their debut “Self-taught magic from a book” (2008 Angular Records) and the new album should be ready for release springtime 2013. 

If you want to know more about Je Suis Animal here is an Interview with Elin and Anthony talking to Destination Pop when they played in Berlin in 2009. 

'The Mystery of Marie Roget' from the debut “Self-taught magic from a book”  was directed by Amund Hesbøl. The song is inspired by a crime story by Edgar Allan Poe from 1842. It is about a beautiful cigar girl who was found dead in the Hudson River.

We are very happy to tell you that Cats On Fire will perform at Indie Pop Days 2012!

The cats will perform at Indie Pop Days and the dogs have to stay outside... What should we tell you about a band that is one of  the most charismatic bands on the indiepop scene?

We don't intend to write the whole story about the band that started in Vaasa, a small town in the western region of Ostrobothnia, Finland.. Here are just some facts:

2001 was the year when the band started making music. Moving to the bigger city of Turku was the next step to get more attention. After releasing their first vinyl EP "Solid Work" on Elva records in 2004 the band "had the means to lift itself above mediocrity"  as singer Mattias Björkas puts it. 

In 2007 their first album "The Province Complains" won the hearts of indiepop-lovers around the globe and two years later the album "Our Temperance Movements" followed. 
From now on Cats On Fire were playing all kinds of Indiepop Festivals around Europe like the The Cosy Den Festival, Copenhagen Popfest, Indietracks Festival and this year they are coming to us!

They have just released their third album and we are very happy that the band will be presenting their new songs at our festival. On "All Blackshirts to me" Björka's pensive lyrics come with some really brilliant songs - like "1914 and beyond", a piano-song where singer Mattias describes European history with all its crises in a wonderful manner. Some of us got really addicted to this song...you can listen to it  here.

Guess the band!

Hey Hey,

Welcome to : Guess the band!

Here we give three clues to the third band we want to announce for our festival:

First clue:

A quote from the band's catering rider: "none of us are vegetarian (we're scottish!)"

Second clue:

The band already released some EPs  on WeePOP! - the beloved  DIY - label from London.

Third clue: 

The majority of the tracks on their new album appeared in a different version on their first album “Last Tango In Motherwell”, a CD album released back in 2005.

Any ideas? 

We are talking about  

The Just Joans!       Yeah!

The Just Joans - "Buckfast Bottles in the Rain"  was just released on WeePOP!,  is available on vinyl and comes with an extra cd!

The Just Joans -  "Hey Boy...You're Oh So Sensitive".

Who is playing Indie Pop Days 2012?

Hello dear Indie-Pop lovers,

the last weeks we spent a lot of time with emailing bands and we think we really found very good artists for this year's festival.

The first band we can announce is the London based band A Fine Day For Sailing.

Jen Hall and Matthew Stead founded the band in Exeter after Phil Wilson persuaded Matthew to sing his songs in front of an audience. Thom, Dan and Sharon who joined the band last winter played in the The Gresham Flyers before. They already performed at p!o!p kombinat berlin in 2009. Playing all together in A Fine Day For Sailing they recruited violin player Caroline Honour to the line-up.

A Fine Day For Sailing released three albums. The bedroom recording album Honeylands (2009, Pop Noise Records) was mainly about Matthew Stead's bittersweet lyrics and wonderful melodies. He also played all the instruments on that first album. One year later the albums "My Baby Loves Pop Music" and "Sand Box" (2010, both Vollwert Records), had been released. "Sand Box" is inspired by the music of the Beach Boys.

Here is the video to the song "Ballad of the bedsit" which was released on 7" on Dufflecoat Records last year. The new Ep "Little Places" is now available on Vollwert Records

Another band playing is not a band but a brilliant one man show perfomance by ex-Moustache of Insanity singer Nik Vestberg. We were really sad when we heard the bad news about the end of Moustache Of Insanity. We would have loved to have them at this years Indie Pop Days.

Nevertheless Fulhäst - the "new" project of Nik - seems to be a very good alternative. After the split Nik had more time to concentrate on his love for Game Boy inspired 8-bit-music. Fulhäst is where - according to his fabulous blog - "ideas came from, before moving on to Moustache of Insanity". Nik is busy working on his first Ep which should be released on Fika Recordings this spring.