New Band: Yearbook Committee

Yearbook Committee are a blues-inflected folk collective from Indiana who have been playing together since 2009, releasing an EP and a full-length album in the time since. The album got a very limited physical release last week, although it is also available on their Bandcamp. They use a variety of (mainy folk-oriented) instruments, sometimes supplemented by weird things like buckets and sheet metal. They have a massive variety in sound - some of their songs are fun, bouncy, lo-fi singalongs, some are more in the Sufjan-y fingerpicking mould and some are more in the British folk tradition of simple instrumentation and dual harmonised vocals. This could be the year they get slightly more well-known - they've got the tunes for it, and have secured themselves a much-sought-after spot as one of SXSW's official 'showcased artists'.

I've included two tracks, one to showcase their 'fun' sound ("We Let Our Grades Slip") and one to show what they're capable of when they put their minds to more introspective, intellectual fare ("We've Got a History of Ruining Things").

Yearbook Committee - We Let Our Grades Slip

New Band: Weed Hounds

Weed Hounds take a few ingredients that I always enjoy (sweet-sounding female vocals, blissed-out guitar, the odd noisy breakdown and a healthy dose of feedback) and mix them together into a kind of indie-poppy shoegazy concoction. And, much like a good pasta sauce, the whole is a lot more than the sum of its parts. So far they've released a couple of singles (one of them a split with similarly slack rockers Dude Japan) and a four-track demo, but they've just played what they described as their last show before finishing their lp, which is coming out soonish on Katorga Works.

Entirely predictably, I'm really excited. I love this stuff. The demo's great, four songs (which don't all sound too similar either) combining classic nineties broken-glass fuzz with understated twee-ish vocals. Sort of like a bubblegum version of the Swirlies, or what it feels like when you wake up still a little bit drunk, but it's a Sunday so it doesn't matter.

You can download the demo in its entirety from their tumblr.

And here's a video of them playing in a barn (with pretty excellent sound for a live youTube vid):

New Band: Grouplove

A band getting a reasonable amount of hype at the moment, Grouplove formed when they were on holiday in Crete and, despite living in a variety of countries, managed eventually to gather and record a debut EP, released in May last year. They've just started a European tour, and are going to be playing a few London shows over the next few weeks, which I'm definitely going to try to get to.

'Colours' is their biggest single, and I've embedded the (overly theatric) video they've released for it. It uses a lot of repetition, which makes it drive along more powerfully and makes in more fun than most of this kind of dancey rhythmic indiepop. The rest of the EP is well worth checking out too.

New Band: Be Like Pablo

A brilliant little Glasgow indiepop band. They were at Indietracks last year, and I heard very good things about them, but didn't actually get round to seeing them - I think they overlapped with the indiepop pub quiz and MJ Hibbett. They did, however, make their presence fairly obvious during the rest of the festival, walking around and forcing people to follow them to see various bands they seemed to be obsessed with. They got me to see Ballboy, who I wouldn't have seen otherwise and who were one of my highlights of the festival, so kudos to them for that, before I even start talking about their music.

There are a few songs streamable on their Myspace. They describe themselves as "the beach Boys with Scottish accents, Moog synthesisers, noisy guitars and a healthy dose of nerdy enthusiasm". I'd go along with all of that. 'The Post-It Song' is brilliant, with interlocking boy-girl vocals (where the girl sounds far more Scottish than the boy - I don't know why, but this sounds weird to me), but 'Julianne' is even better. I don't know how well this kind of thing would stretch into a full album, but if they can find a bit more variety, then I don't see why the album (which they are apparently just finishing mixing) couldn't be one of the first brilliant UK indiepop records of the year. Here's a YouTube video of Julianne.

New Band: Walter Mitty & his Makeshift Orchestra

Walter Mitty... make ultra-lofi bedroom songs, but unlike a lot of stuff in that grouping their stuff is genuinely charming and also pretty catchy. The lyrics are mostly about things like letting friends vomit on floors, and they make heavy use of a kazoo - and it's as brilliant as that sounds. They deserve far more than the 34 (34!!!) listeners they currently have on last.fm, and to have better gigs coming up than just what appears from their website to be a week of busking in Portland - some of their songs are easily as good as modern american lo-fi king Adam Green, for example. They've got a couple of EPs for free download on Bandcamp - the better of the two is at this link.

As an illustration of how fun this band is, here's a live video of a mass-singalong they inspired during a gig at a donut shop. God, I wish stuff like this happened in this country. Can you imagine any current British indiepop/lo-fi bands doing this? Not at all.

New Band: Veronica Falls

Here's a quick post about this brilliant new band. Having seen them live last week (the write-up of which is still pending) I got a demo CD of their songs so far, and I love it. All the best songs from their live set are there. Formed in that most bounteous of cities, Glasgow, by ex-members of indiepoppers The Royal We (who I really need to investigate more) they released a 7" on Slumberland under the name Sexy Kids before becoming slightly darker and fuzzier, and taking on their current name. Staples of the live scene over the last year or so, they've built up a bit of a following, and were apparently due to have recorded their debut by the end of the year.

Sound-wise, they obviously draw a lot from the fuzzier end of indiepop, especially from the current New York scene - they owe a lot to Vivian Girls, but Veronica Falls have much better tunes than anything VG have written. The songs are mostly quite dark, especially their debut single Found Love In A Graveyard, a song about falling in love with a ghost. I've put a link to the mp3 at the end of this post. They also do an ace cover of 'Starry Eyes' by Roky Erickson, which is freely available of Spotify.

A bit like a slightly fey-er Siouxie and the Banshees, in summary. If that doesn't sound abolutely amazing, then shame on you. I can't wait for the album.

Veronica Falls - Found Love In A Graveyard