Soft Amateurs...

Soft City is the new/the most recent "project" of Kicker songwriter Phil Sutton. Helped out by a few well-reputed colleagues like Laura Bridge (ex-Harper Lee) and Gareth "Jona" Jones (Wintergreen) he has recorded a 3 track demo EP called The Soft City. As one could expect this is nice indie pop with those jangly guitars and you can grab all three tracks for free over at IndiePages. Now relocated to NY and looking for new bandmates!
+ The Soft City

The debut album Hongu Kongu by Scottish 6 piece Amateurs is released today on Letterbox Records. The two tracks on the free download-only single that was released in January were nice indie pop tunes with lovely male/female vocals, so the album could very well be something I should check out!
+ Things You Only Know When You Don't Drive
+ Cool By Me

The friendly boys from Danish alternative rock trio Heartbreak Disco has a new EP out. The band will now start promoting their music and the up-tempo and quite catchy title track Tomorrow certainly will/should help the band gaining some attention.
+ Tomorrow

According to the band itself, the new track The Commonfield by Emerald Park "might need a few more minutes in the oven". Judge for yourself, but I think it's absolutely gorgeous as it is and really see no point in changing anything. It takes just a few seconds of listening before you realize that it must have been produced by Ola from Moonbabies. New (and superb) mixes of the older tracks Open and Lights of Sunday are available at Myspace as well.
+ The Commonfield

Two different paths, a heartbreak and a record deal...

Probably 90% of the songs posted in this blog are either indie pop tunes or tracks by Danish artists. But every now and then I decide to follow a completely different path in my quest for new music and the other day it paid off (at least for me it did), when I came across UK band hornby pylons. The quartet (based in Cardiff) writes this about their music: "The music made by hornby pylons has so far defied accurate description but is thought to live somewhere between the soul sonic force drum machine, 90's grunge, DFA synths and a badly mixed charity shop DJ set. And the band adds: "the music sounds like electronic drums with electric guitar near a human singing along to keyboards. if you listen closely you may hear the bands actual voices." So not at all the type of stuff you'd normally see (or hear) me post in the blog, but I really, really enjoy this very electronic sounding, somewhat monotonous, highly infectious, absolutely insisting and extremely cool track.
+ Think For Each Other

Following my little hike down the most unusual path, what would be more natural than taking a stroll in more familiar territory? So I decided to visit the "no. 1 indie pop expert himself" - Tom over at Indie MP3 - and it only took a few minutes, before I had fallen absolutely in love with his recent featured band - the Swedish indie pop outfit Hari and Aino. The band (which is not a duo) has just released the wonderful 3" and 3 track CDR Your Heartache and Mine on Cloudberry Records, but all the tracks have generously been made available as legal free downloads over at Last.fm. But the one track that has really caught my attention (which is quite a feat, as all the songs are excellent) is the wonderful, charming and very Swedish indie poppish Seasons that (according to the band) has received some airplay on the radio program P3 pop. I believe this is a rather new recording as well, though it (for whatever reason) is not included on the CDR.
+ Seasons

Danish indie rock trio Heartbreak Disco has recorded two new tracks during the band's annual "Heartbreak Summer Camp". Catchy stuff taken from the band's forthcoming EP.
+ Canada
+ Godspeed When You Sleep

Andreas from the Swedish blog We Say Disco (which now seems to be called Cellmates.se) posted a comment yesterday informing me that The William Blakes has signed a record deal and will start recording in September. Actually I already knew this, but shame on me for being to lazy to post this great piece of information. So thank you Andreas for the "wake up call". You can listen to a couple of new demos at Myspace or download the older tracks that I've re-posted below. Links taken down...
+ Violent God
+ Innocence and Experience
+ Science is Religion
+ Secrets of the State
+ On Fire
+ Beginnings