The First Worldwide Cassette Store Day: 7 September 2013

Last year Glasgow’s own Volcanic Tongue, specialists in the most underground music going, run by The Wire contributor David Keenan and experimental musician Heather Leigh Murray. This year, it’s gone global, albeit without consultation with the original proponents. Original or not, as Blasted readers will no doubt agree, anything that gets people into real record shops and buying music that you can – kinda, sorta – actually touch is definitely a good thing.

So, the first worldwide Cassette Store Day is happening tomorrow in shops across the UK, Europe, the USA and even at one phonographic emporium in Argentina. There are releases by such Blasted favourites as The Proper Ornaments, Molly Nilsson, Efterklang, and many others. A particular highlight is bound to be The Pastels’ Summer Rain retrospective of “Some of [their] favourite music [they’ve] made for Domino, starting around 1995 with Mobile Safari and ending with songs from the Slow Summits sessions”, the title track can be heard below.

We're really pleased to announce The Pastels participation in the inaugural Cassette Store Day, this Saturday, 7 September. They've compiled a unique C60 cassette of some of their favourite Pastels music, and it's called Summer Rain after the track of the same name taken from current album Slow Summits.

Blackest Ever Black announce Tropic of Cancer's 'Restless Idylls'

After releasing numerous EPs and singles over the last few years, Camella Lobo's Tropic of Cancer will finally release its debut album, Restless Idylls, on the continually awe-inspiring Blackest Ever Black. The album and preceding 7", More Alone, sees TOC's return to the label after a series of singles and EPs (including a split 12" with HTRK) on the likes of Ghostly International and Karl O'Connor(AKA Regis)'s Downwards. O' Connor has, incidentally, provided additional production on both the album and single; the former is released on 23 September with the latter preceding it in late July. You can stream More Alone via SoundCloud below.

7" mix of Tropic of Cancer's 'More Alone', a track which features in different form on the forthcoming album Restless Idylls . The one-sided 'More Alone' 7" will be released in August 2013 on Blackest Ever Black. Restless Idylls follows on September 23 on double-vinyl, CD and digital formats.

Image courtesy of Blackest Ever Black

Bona Dish - 'Zaragoza Tapes 1981-1982'

We're a little late to this (uh, three months) but it's too great to let it slip your attention. On a recent trip to London, Blasted finally got its sticky mits on the wonderful Captured Tracks excellent compilation of the enigmatic Bona Dish's entire recorded output. The label put it aptly thus: "Collected here is a rediscovered gem showcasing the zest and spontaneity that gripped the UK DiY scene of the time, standing up to their contemporaries like Television Personalities, The Homosexuals and Marine Girls... Bona Dish’s avowedly DIY aesthetic was coupled with a genuine pop flair, and songs like ’8am’ stand comparison with the very best independent music of the era."

You can stream the record below but you could do far worse than to pick the real thing from your local (or not, as the case may be) recorded-music-plastic-disc emporium.

March 19th, 2013 Bona Dish were a scratchy pop punk group from Hertfordshire villages, brought together by their love of the Velvets, Supremes and each other. They were cool, handsome and gorgeous. The songs are simple but at the same time complex. The two girls, two boy's line-up added a tension that was both sexual and musically fragile.

Image courtesy of Captured Tracks.

Review: 'Slow Summits' - The Pastels →

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The Pastels make a virtue of taking your time with their first album in sixteen (or ten or four) years, Slow Summits,​​ as Andrew R. Hill finds.

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POST 'Cavalcade' mini-album launch at Nice'N'Sleazy, 26 April 2013

​Earlier this year Glasgow/Manchester's POST had our ​Andrew R. Hill in raptures with the digital release of their debut mini-album Cavalcade, which is now receiving a much deserved physical release on (the ever-excellent) We Can Still Picnic. The live launch for this gem of a record is this Friday at Glasgow's Nice'N'Sleazy - doors are 1930, and it's a fiver on the door or £3 in advance from Monorail Music or Tickets Scotland. Support comes from gauzy popsters The Yawns and the enigmatic Spread Eagle. So (if you're in the area...or even if you aren't) make sure you grab the chance to catch one of the country's most exciting new bands in action, and be sure to pick up an album while you're at it.

Our new single, out on blue fur/we can still picnic records on 16th July 2012.

Record Store Day: Vic Godard & Subway Sect’s ‘Caught in Midstream’ 7” and Vic Godard & The Sexual Objects live in Mono, Edwyn Collins, and more…

20 April is this year’s Record Store Day, the day of the year that music fans and musicians celebrate their love of those most wondrous spaces – independent record shops. Since 2007 the event has grown and grown, with record shops across the world opening their doors (often early) to incredibly lengthy queues, hosting in-store performance and offering exclusive releases.

This year’s exclusive releases are of a particularly high standard (a full list can be found on the RSD website)  but one that has particularly caught our ear is Vic Godard’s Caught in Midstream 7”, produced at West Heath Yard by Edwyn Collins compatriot Seb Lewsley, and released on Collins’ label AED Records. Both sides of the 45 come from the sessions for the follow up to 1979 Now (the follow up to 1978 Now) a future release of another ‘lost’ Subway Sect album that saw them in their influential (but largely undocumented) Northern Soul phase.

Godard will also be playing a special set of Velvet Underground songs for RSD at Mono in Glasgow with the inimitable Sexual Objects. World Peace and Ela Orleans are also playing and Deena E. Jacobs, David Barbarossa, Jenny Rollo and The Brogues will be DJ-ing throughout the day.

Listen to A. Caught In Midstream: Vic Godard & Subway Sect by Analogue Enhanced Digital | Explore the largest community of artists, bands, podcasters and creators of music & audio.

Listen to B. You Bring Out The Demon In Me: Vic Godard & Subway Sect by Analogue Enhanced Digital | Explore the largest community of artists, bands, podcasters and creators of music & audio.

On a related note, Edwyn Collins will also be releasing a 7” with The Heartbreaks for RSD, and all of Orange Juice’s wonderful LPs are to be re-released on vinyl for this celebratory day. Collins is currently on tour and is in fine fettle, as we can attest to, having seen him at Glasgow’s ABC last night. Tears may have been shed.

Wherever you are and whatever you’re into, independent record shops are important for so many reasons, get along to your local (or locals) tomorrow if you can, even if it’s just to get reacquainted with that smell (you know what we’re talking about).

The Pastels - 'Check My Heart'

We've been a little bit slow to post this so no doubt many of you have heard it already, but we couldn't risk this wonderful slice of sun-infused hard pop escaping anyone's attention. The Pastels are one of Blasted's favourite bands and we can barely contain our excitement at the prospect of hearing new album Slow Summits, due out on Domino Records on 27 May. There's a taster in the form of the audio for first single, Check My Heart​, below. Maybe the summer's on its way after all.

The Pastels new single "Check My Heart" is out April 08, 2013, click here to order: http://smarturl.it/checkmyheart The singles appears on the new album (first album in 15 years!) 'Slow Summits' and can be pre-orderd here: http://www.dominorecordco.com/slowsummits http://www.thepastels.org/ http://www.dominorecordco.com/artists/the-pastels/ https://twitter.com/pastels_the

Casual Sex 'Stroh "80"' single launch at Nice'N'Sleazy this Friday

Glasgow's rarely short of excellent bands and now is no exception. At the forefront of the current scene are Casual Sex (featuring Sam Smith, previously of the much missed Mother & The Addicts) who bring to mind David Bowie, Magazine, Josef K and the Monochrome Set - in other words, they're bloody (s)excellent. They launch their new single Stroh "80"​ this Friday (5 April) at Nice'N'Sleazy, playing alongside The Amazing Snakeheads and Asian Babes, and costing an arousing £5 on the door, or an irresistible £3 in advance from Monorail Music or Tickets Scotland.

If you can't make that (or even if you can) then you can do far worse than to listen to their recent BBC 6Music session for Marc Riley, or to stream the single's erotic A-side below. A sexy 7" (or a download, if you so prefer) is available now on the Moshi Moshi Singles Club and can be bought directly from the band, the label, or any record shop worth its salt... The grooves on our copy are practically worn out already. See you at Sleazy's.

The debut single from Glasgow's Casual Sex. Released on the Moshi Moshi Singles Club on 1st April on limited edition 7" vinyl and download. www.facebook.com/casualsexmusic

FOUND + Aidan Moffat + King Creosote - FREE Gig in Edinburgh this Thursday

Tomorrow (21 March), not one but three of Scotland's finest artists will grace the stage at The Caves. FOUND and "Falkirk's answer to Barry White" (not our words - FOUND's Ziggy Campbell there, although he does have a point), Mr Aidan John Moffat, have previously collaborated on the experimental #UNRAVEL project (video below) and the latter has just released a new album in his L. Pierre guise, so who knows what could happen. King Creosote is of course the fine purveyor of his own brand of pop-infused folk (or should that be folk-infused pop?) and head honcho of Anstruther's Fence Records. Not only that but it's free, with entry on a first-come-first-served basis, so there are no excuses really. Check it out.

#UNRAVEL is a new collaboration by FOUND + Aidan Moffat on the reliability of memory. This is a 3 minute documentary featuring the artists explaining the project. www.unravelproject.com

Happy Birthday Mark E. Smith

​​Everyone's favourite reprobate (well, almost everyone...) Mark Edward Smith turns 56 years of age today, and he doesn't look a day over... Um... Errr... Actually, scrap that.

Anyway, Mr Smith is one of the finest lyricists this country has ever produced and his ever-changing band The Fall continue to exert considerable influence on many artists, young and old. So, why not take a moment to reflect on how much we still need the man by reading an interview where he manages to actually quite charming, or by remembering his attack on execrable Cameronite dung-mongerers Mumford & Sons? Or, why not let the music speak (decry, declaim, slur and spout) for itself (see below)?

Whatever you do, please join us in wishing a very happy birthday to the one and only Mark E. Smith.

From their debut album "Live At The Witch Trials" 1979

The Fall "Kicker Conspiracy" from the dvd "PERVERTED BY LANGUAGE BIS/LIVE AT LEEDS"