{"title":"Indie Pop","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"all-the-young-droids-junkshop-synth-pop-1978-1985-various-artists","title":"All The Young Droids: Junkshop Synth Pop 1978-1985 - Various Artists","description":"\u003cp\u003eA new compilation that charts the underbelly of the epoch-defining sound of the synthesiser in 80s popular music.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCompiled by Philip King (previously seen compiling All The Young Droogs, Glitterbest and Boobs - The Junkshop Glam Discotheque), the music here connects the dots between DIY synth enthusiasts grappling with new, cheap synthesisers at the tail-end of punk and wannabe, jobbing songwriters enthral to the new music pioneered by Gary Numan, Depeche Mode and Daniel Miller’s Mute Records. Featuring rare tracks of auto-didactic progressive pop music, proto-techno punk, shoot-for-the-stars-land-in-the-gutter chart flops and heralded, underground synth classics, School Daze paints a picture of beautiful failure.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eComplete with extensive sleeve notes written by King and never before seen imagery, all 24 tracks were remastered by RPM in-house engineer, Simon Murphy, many from vinyl copies due to lost master tapes.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe story told on All The Young Droids is one of the dawning opportunity presented by both the emergence to the market of cheaper analog synthesisers and the distribution networks plus indie labels that exploded with the advent of punk music in 1976. While the music that sprouted out all over the globe in the wake of these factors was decried as fake, plastic, a refutation of punk’s guitar-led revolution, it’s telling that much of the music on All The Young Droids.. was created in bedrooms, ramshackle studios and home-made set ups with often borrowed equipment. In the era of record labels jumping to capitalise on the success of The Sex Pistols, The Clash (both on major labels, of course) these artists struggled to stand out from a new gold-rush with next to no budget or PR team. With radio and labels desperate for the new Yazoo, what resulted was a testament to necessity being the mother of invention.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThere are plenty of compilation debuts in evidence. Sole Sister were a mysterious trio who were featured on the Scaling Triangles compilation of female-fronted, queer-adjacent post-punk \/ underground music that also featured The Petticoats. Selwin Image were from San Francisco and featured members of the recently defunct power pop\/punk group The Pushups. Their stupidly catchy The Unknown fizzes with New Wave energy - think XTC to Sparks but remains unreleased until now. Dream Unit’s A Drop In The Ocean is an early synth wave cut, positively teaming with Joy Division instrumentation, previously only released on a long-forgotten and super rare, self-released EP. Incandescent Luminaire’s Famous Names belies an archetypal struggle of a small-town trying to make it in a cruel industry but is a thrilling New Romantic-Synth Wave cross over with a OMD gloominess that’s a joy to hear. Feminist Minimal Wave track I Am A Time Bomb by performance artist Peta Lilly and Michael Chance is a revelation destined for new found cult status. It was released on 7” and lost until now.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe flipside to the subterranean, never-made-it synth pop mentioned above are the ambitious, even fruity attempts at success that have a perennial elegance to their confidence. New Jersey-ite Billy London (real name Ed Barth) tried to cash in on the synth boom with Woman, released by a major label, a lurching new wave track built on the Louie Louie rhythm and a wonderfully camp Lou Reed-style sleazy vocal before exploding in the synthesised chorus. The song bombed but with a chorus like this, you have to wonder why? Ex-Glitter Band member John Springate’s My Life is truly epic, with doomed chord progressions and massive sounding drums turning into at least 3 different songs in the course of the track. Before you wonder what’s going on, the song resolves with a glorious return to the main refrain.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe dry-ice-dressed dance floor is well catered for too. 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Her music is simple out of necessity and introverted in delivery, but the songs contain vivid worlds and are quietly ambitious. With this latest batch, Gill pulled the process of making Cindy music even more inward. “Some of these songs were first recorded as demos alone in my basement. I think that process set the tone for the record…Maybe it set up a kind of starkness,” she says.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMoving on from the fixed quartet that performed the first three albums, Gill worked alongside original keyboardist Aaron Diko to develop the songs and they enlisted players from the ever-blossoming SF pop scene to realise her minimalist vision -- members of Flowertown, Telephone Numbers, April Magazine, Famous Mammals, and Sad Eyed Beatniks to name a few. The collective sounds fill out the record perfectly with John Cale-esque viola on ‘August’, lo-fi fairground organs, and a tasteful full-band sound that crops up throughout. ‘A Trumpet on a Hillside’ is the most triumphant Cindy has ever sounded, all ascending chords and a wedding march melody tumbling out of an old synth. Still, some of the best moments are\u003cspan class=\"bcTruncateMore\"\u003e Gill alone, as on ‘Playboy’, just naked guitar and voice, and when the forlorn whistling solo kicks in, it feels like the loneliest star is imploding in a distant galaxy.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhile the dream-pop tag is probably still relevant, this isn’t algorithm-fed genre ambience. Gill’s vocal\/lyrical presence can be as gently momentous as Leonard Cohen or as intellectually potent as any ’79-’80 Rough Trade post-punk. “In writing a song”, Gill says, ”all the disparate parts of being me momentarily correspond, like car alarms and party music momentarily matching beats.” Cindy’s Why Not Now? is that muffled street symphony inside a passing daydream\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"TOUGH LOVE","offers":[{"title":"Cream LP","offer_id":53021418258774,"sku":"MRM-00666","price":25.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1000\/6088\/9430\/files\/a0526125711_10.jpg?v=1775826615"},{"product_id":"cindy-lee-diamond-jubilee","title":"Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee","description":"\u003cp\u003eYes yes yes. We know. It might have been available to dangle in your ears for over a year but this is the first opportunity that we’ve had to scream and shout about the physical edition of Patrick Flegel’s, let’s be frank, masterpiece. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn the seventh release under the Cindy Lee moniker, the former Women guitarist’s expansive project has never sounded so diverse, so inventive or so incisive. It’s an epic of 60s heartbroken pop colliding with fuzzedout vintage psych on a spine of spindly funk. It’s rock and roll’s alternate timeline where hazy vulnerability and a knack for open-heart poetry kicked machismo right off the roost. It’s been a constant in the souls, thoughts, and words of Residents ever since it first crept out into the world and was a shoo-in for our album of the week back in May.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you’ve ever sashayed to The Ronettes’ doo-wop, or lost yourself in the dream-like pop of Ariel Pink, this is one for you. And did we mention that this 2-hour opus is absolutely heaving with sultry hooks that’ll keep you locked in for the duration? That and you only need to go 5 songs deep to hear our Jon’s song of 2024.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eDiamond Jubilee\u003c\/em\u003e is one marathon you neither need to train for nor recover from, and its rewards, much like the timeless sounds throughout, will linger with you long after the last fuzz-caked chord rings out.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"W.25TH","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":53021418881366,"sku":"MRM-00669","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"Black 3LP With Poster","offer_id":53021418979670,"sku":"MRM-00670","price":71.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1000\/6088\/9430\/files\/190d380f73a6dad99ed634e150b0677b_b54d393f-576c-4ca0-a82a-7a55ff30ffca.png?v=1775189378"},{"product_id":"cindy-lee-whats-tonight-to-eternity-repress","title":"Cindy Lee - What's Tonight To Eternity (Repress)","description":"Delivering moments of sheer beauty through somber reflections on longing and loneliness, Cindy Lee is something to hold onto in a world of disorder. 'What’s Tonight To Eternity', Cindy Lee’s fifth long-form offering, showcases the project’s most entrancing strengths: ethereal snowdrift pop and sly nods toward classic girl-group motifs. Recorded at Flegel’s Realistik Studios in Toronto and featuring younger brother Andrew Flegel on drums, the album travels hand in hand with a spectral guide. Flegel found inspiration for Cindy Lee in the form of Karen Carpenter, drawing on the singer \/ drummer’s early recordings as well as her look and style. “","brand":"W.25TH","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":53021419077974,"sku":"MRM-00673","price":32.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1000\/6088\/9430\/files\/5a28aafce3fedd5dac749f1719b831d5.jpg?v=1775189401"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1000\/6088\/9430\/collections\/0018093854_10.jpg?v=1775725937","url":"https:\/\/monorailmusic.com\/collections\/indie-pop.oembed","provider":"Monorail Music","version":"1.0","type":"link"}