I’m sure you are all familiar with GoldFlakePaint, the Edinburgh-based blog is one of the finest online music publications around. What you may not be so familiar with is GoldFlakeTapes, a cassette label that was set up earlier this year as a side-project to the blog. The aim of the label is simple, to share the work of some of their favourite artists, most of whom were discovered and first covered over at GoldFlakeTapes. So far the label has released one excellent compilation, Nothing If Not Loved, (which featured artists such as Oh, Rose, Bellows and Princess Reason), as well as Small Wonder’s excellent album, Wendy (which we loved and wrote about here).
The label’s next release will be, Maybe This Summer, the third album from Canadian lo-fi popsters Family Video, an album of lovely, summery pop gems, all shot through with a double helping of casio keyboards and wistful longing. I first listened to this album sitting on a train, and among my scrawled notes and initial impressions I wrote the words “Languid Lethargic Lovelorn”. I think that pretty much nails it.
The album opens with ‘Ten Years Will Pass’, a tale of summer romance which opens with the line, “All I know is ten years will pass so fast, you just wish that you could slow down or stop here for a while”. Next up is’She Reminds Me’, a small-town summertime jam, complete with awkward romance, dreams of moving away and a catchy little woo-ooh chorus. Check it out:
[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/159680897″]
‘Sitting In My Room’ is an indie rock paean to self-doubt and fear of the future, opening with the line “And I think about everything too much all of the time”. Lead Jam King voices this doubt directly in the chorus, singing, “Oh my God, I don’t know, the path of the future and what it holds”. Another standout is ‘Pour Warm Water’, with it’s chorus of, “It’s okay to feel that way sometimes, it’s okay to make mistakes sometimes”.
The band have perfectly captured the spectrum of emotions of long hot youthful summers. At one moment they sound like an exuberant get-together with friends and the next they’re the hazy evening sun slanting through your faded bedroom curtains as you cry into the phone because Johnny doesn’t love you. It’s about being young in the hot eternity of summer, about the joy and heartache that vie for your consciousness as the sun sets and the insects buzz and somewhere beyond your small town, the whole world continues to spin.
Maybe This Summer is due for release on the 1st of September. Pre-order the limited edition cassette via the GoldFlakeTapes. The album is also available for download on a pay-what-you-want basis over at the GoldFlakeTapes Bandcamp page.
P.S. Amazingly, this is the band’s second album of the year (the first already holding a place on the draft for this year’s Best Free Music list). So after you have finished listening to this, check out their previous albums.