Cloudberry

A little while ago I banned myself from buying any more records in a bid to save money. It turned out to be far too difficult a task and as such I compromised by buying inexpensive records instead. Cloudberry release a HUGE number of 3" CDrs, of which I ordered 5 (one with a zine) more or less randomly.

Parker Lewis - "Written and Directed by" Cloudberry42 is a collection of 3 songs by this Swedish guy who I can tell you nothing more about as there is no info whatsoever on the cd case. It's sweet and breezy pop with vocals that remind me a little of a mix between Wayne Coyne and John William Davies. In the first song I can't help but be reminded of The Avalanches. The rest of the songs use a number of samples of strings and things I can't really identify, it all adds up to quite a lovely, delicate, and at times plinky plonky little collection of songs.

Log Lady Train - s/t Cloudberry 45.Log Lady Train are a Swedish two piece with a more classic c86 style of pop. The first possibly contains the line "you are shy and pathetic/ everything that i like" so I suppose that gives an idea of what it might sounds like. I'd happily dance to this at the disco, and I'd probably sing along loudly and poorly too. It's sun-shiny and optimistic, but not saccharine- just the way we like it really.

the deirdres - "dinosaurs that can swim" Cloudberry 55i think everyone knows by now that the deirdres are from derby. and i don't know how many of them there are.. 7 according to the credits. They sound to me a little bit like the retro spankees, but if you could somehow have more retro spankeees and be quite a bit quieter. I'm quite impressed with the variation on the "ba-da-ba" / "la-la-la" as in the 1st song we're treated to a "fa-fa-fa-la." There are handclaps and vocal harmonies, there's a melodica, it's often a bit of a shamles, it's great pop music.

Komon - "punk ep" Cloudberry 56this is drum machine, distorted keyboard, female vocals noisier than the other stuff so far, but there's till "doo-doo-doos" and a melodica. Frankly, it's a little bit too noisy to play through the speakers on my laptop (which is what i'm doing) so it's hard to fully appreciate these songs. Still, it's boppy, poppy, keyboardy and catchy, which is nice.

I'll write about the zine and compilation over the weekend.