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Fortuna POP!
Pete Astor 'Spilt Milk'
£9.99
Fortuna POP!
Pete Astor 'Spilt Milk'
£9.99
Spilt Milk is the brand new album from indie auteur Pete Astor, previously of The Loft, The Weather Prophets, and other esteemed acts. It was recorded onto ½ inch tape at the home studio of James Hoare of Ultimate Painting, The Proper Ornaments and Veronica Falls, with James playing guitar, bass, drums, keyboards and singing backing vocals. 'He was', says Astor, 'an amazing band.' Other contributions came from members of Astor's live band, with Pam Berry (Black Tambourine, Withered Hand) supplying vocals, Jack Hayter (Hefner) on pedal steel, Alison Cotton (The Left Outsides) on viola, and Robin Christian (Male Bonding) and Susan Milanovic (Feathers) on drums.
The album has all the hallmarks of a future Pete Astor classic, drawing together key strands and tributaries of his work over the years, blending intuitive songwriting, acute lyrics and incisive melodies. After many years making more experimental, electronic music Astor has come full circle to the sound that made his name. He explains, 'I'm back to being myself, bringing together sounds that I've used over time to make a record that sounds more like me than me!'
From the opening track 'Really Something' to the recent single 'Mr Music' (a favourite of Marc Riley and Gideon Coe on BBC 6 music) the album's re-connects Astor's bespoke guitar pop with his long-standing embrace of The Velvet Underground's musical DNA. Other standout tracks include 'My Right Hand', a hymn to everyone's best friend, with guest appearances from Tony Hancock, Marvin Gaye, Philip Larkin and a host of ex-girlfriends; the slow burning drama of 'The Getting There' recalling the atmospheres of Astor's 80s kindred spirits, The Go-Betweens. Also, there is the wry drive of 'Very Good Lock', summed up by Astor as 'a description of an injurious medical condition that often affects the male of the species'. Elsewhere there are the gorgeous harmonies of the grown up country lament 'Good Enough', which wouldn't be out of place on one of George Jones'most heartbroken albums.
Spilt Milk is part of a continuum: from Astor's beginnings with The Loft and The Weather Prophets on Creation Records in the 1980s, via his solo work through the 1990s and his more left field albums with The Wisdom of Harry and Ellis Island Sound on Matador Records, Heavenly and Peacefrog, through to his return to solo work with the Songbox album in 2012. As well as this ongoing musical activity, Astor is also Senior Lecturer at the University of Westminster, where he teaches, researches and writes about music; 2014 saw the publication of his study of Richard Hell and the Voidoids' Blank Generation as part of Bloomsbury's 33 1/3 Series.
Astor remains in touch, engaged and vital in a way that is rare with someone with such longevity. The album continues the story of one of one of England's most respected and significant songwriters. As Astor says, 'time passes, shit happens; some losses, some gains. Don't cry - but I did!'
This is Spilt Milk.
"Quintessentially English yet Cohenesque pastoral folk-pop songs bent the way of French chanson. Lovely, every one - and a striking reminder of Astor's influence on artists from Belle & Sebastian to Luke Haines" - UncutTracklisting:
1. Really Something
2. Mr. Music
3. My Right Hand
4. Perfect Life
5. The Getting There
6. Very Good Lock
7. Good Enough
8. There It Goes
9. Sleeping Tiger
10. Oh You
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Hailing from Pity Me near Durham, Martha play energetic, impassioned power pop with intricate vocal interplay and lush four-part harmonies, informed by 90s indie rock and contemporary garage punk. The band is comprised of J. Cairns (guitar), Daniel Ellis (guitar), Naomi Griffin (bass), and Nathan Stephens Griffin (drums). All four members sing and write the songs. Daniel and Nathan also play in Onsind, while Naomi also plays in No Ditching. Their debut album 'Courting Strong' came out in 2014 and was included in NPR's top 50 albums of that year, winning them the epithet 'One of Britain's best rock bands'.
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Taking inspiration from such likely and unlikely sources as The Replacements, Heart, Billy Bragg, Thin Lizzy, Cheap Trick, The Go-Gos and Radiator Hospital, the album bursts into life with 'Christine', 'a love song filtered through the messiness of anxiety and night terror' that takes inspiration from 'Threads', the British TV drama of the 1980s about nuclear war, and is followed by the rousing 'Chekhov's Hangnail', with backing vocals from Ellis Jones of Trust Fund.
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Following a Glastonbury appearance last year at the personal invitation of Billy Bragg, the band will be playing UK dates in July and August before taking to the stage at End Of The Road in September. It's going to be a busy old time for the band, what with double lives and everything, but, with passion and love dripping out of every second of 'Blisters In The Pit Of My Heart', you know they'll find a way.
Tracklisting:
1. Christine
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11. St. Paul's (Westerberg Comprehensive) -
Visit product page →London five-piece Evans the Death return with Vanilla, their most ambitious and experimental album to date, eschewing the more traditional pop structures and hooks of their first two albums, 2012's self-titled debut and 2015's critically acclaimed Expect Delays. While Expect Delays was a step towards something more interesting, more collaborative, experimental and abrasive - a bleak, introspective kind of album that still retained a pop sensibility - Vanilla sees the band veer in an ever more adventurous direction: more aggressive, extroverted and raw.
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Tracklisting:
1. Haunted Wheelchair
2. Suitcase Jimmy
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9. Welcome to Usk
10. European Bison -
Visit product page →Dublin quintet September Girls return with an impassioned musical and political statement in their new album Age of Indignation, a title that succinctly sums up its inherent anger and restless dissatisfaction. The ten tracks bristle with atmospheric textures and dark-hearted noise, tackling complex subject matter such as feminism, religion and life in Ireland at this point in history along the way.
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1. Ghost
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Indie powerhouse Fortuna POP! is proud to announce the release of Old Magick, the second solo album by Steven James Adams, former songwriter/singer/guitarist from the critically acclaimed Broken Family Band. Old Magick is proof that Adams's gift for marrying exceptional lyrics with inescapable earworms is very much intact.Visit product page →
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Adams takes Old Magick on the road in the UK this March, with some magic (and magick?) related surprises. His shows are wonderful to behold: funny, intimate and wildly unpredictable. According to a recent Guardian article "you'd struggle to find a British songwriter of the last 15 years who's had such consistently good reviews." A genuine entertainer, a truly gifted songwriter, and perhaps the closest thing there is to a British Bill Callahan, Adams has produced a high watermark of a record in Old Magick, proof that his reputation is deserved.
Tracklisting:
1. Togetherness
2. Kings of the Back of the Bus
3. Modern Options
4. Ideas
5. French Drop
6. More Togetherness
7. Sea of Words
8. The Golden Bough
9. An Ending
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