We seem to be telling you this every week, but Slovakian label Z Tapes is becoming a benchmark for both quality and quantity for wannabe cassette labels. Their latest release, Azure by Australian act Candy (aka Calum Newton), is yet another worthy addition to an ever-expanding catalogue. The album is rooted firmly in the bedroom pop category, as Newton wrote, recorded and mastered everything himself. But as well as earning maximum points for DIY ethos, Azure actually sounds really great too. This isn’t a rough and ready garage rock swamped in muddy feedback (although that can be great too), it’s clean and lean and vivid, more pop than bedroom, if you get my drift.
Opener ‘Chapel Street’ is fresh and crisp and sprinkled with shimmering synths, a great introduction to the album’s marriage of bright & breezy indie pop and introspective lyrics. Follow-up ‘So Close’ brings to mind angular and danceable indie pop acts such as Foals, while ‘Wasting You’ is smart and heartsick jangly indie pop that sounds part Bandcamp-era bedroom pop and part 90s indie pop.
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The rest of the album follows in a similar vein, catchy and melodic indie songs that (at least to my ears) could all-so-easily be getting national radio play and gracing the front page of the NME. ‘Shallow’ is about falling in love with Natalie Portman’s character in Garden State, an example of the stock (and mythical) “manic pixie dream girl” character, while ‘Fremdshämen’ is a slick song about a concentrated period of self-improvement to rescue a relationship, “One day one day I’ll get a job I might even buy a car / no more eating home brand we could even go organic / I’ll get a gym membership I’ll go once a week / your parents will love me they’ll want me to be part of the family”. ‘Street Lights’ is a lean synth pop track with slapped drums and lullaby xylophone, while the closing title track has acoustic guitar and soft and tender vocals.
Azure is everything we’ve come to expect from our Z Tapes release. As far as lonely sad-kid DIY releases go, Candy has made one of the most bright and bubbly I’ve heard for a while, a fusion of alternative pop music from the 60s, 80s and 90s. The sunny, catchy tunes feel sharp and honed and possess a hidden layer of depth, particularly once you start taking real notice of the lyrics. You can get it as a free download via the Candy Bandcamp page, or on cassette via Z Tapes.