Paul Richards from Scared to Dance

Name: Paul Richards
Website: www.scaredtodance.co.uk
Link to Bandcamp collection


recommendations



Pictish Trail - Thumb World
I've worked with a few bands on Lost Map Records. Their brilliant roster includes Savage Mansion, Firestations and Rozi Plain amongst many others. Label founder and director Johnny Lynch's latest LP under the Pictish Trail moniker, an 8-bit odyssey.

Dana Gavanski - Yesterday Is Gone
One of my favourite albums of the year so far. I knew next to nothing about her before hearing Yesterday Is Gone. I'd included a few tracks on our monthly podcast and liked them so much I got the album.

Store Front - Task EP
I stumbled across this via Peggy Wang who used to play in The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. She's now on bass with New York's Store Front who have put out this charmingly lo-fi EP.

Basic Plumbing - Keeping Up Appearances
A posthumous release by my friend Patrick Doyle, formerly of Veronica Falls, who we lost last year. He had sent me some demos from the album a while back so hearing the LP in full was quite something.

Why Bonnie - Voice Box
The band’s first release on Fat Possum Records. This has been on heavy rotation over the past month.
The Magnetic Fields - Quickies
Stephin Merritt and co return with a collection of Quickies. Claudia Gonson has all the best tracks.

Sam from For The Rabbits

Name: Sam Cottis
Website: www.fortherabbits.net
Bandcamp Collection: https://bandcamp.com/fortherabbits

recommendations:

https://specialistsubject.bandcamp.com/album/furlough-your-dreams

1. Tyrannosaurus Dead - Post Holiday Dead Song
Apparently the first thing I ever bought on Bandcamp, this was from a split 7" Tyrannosaurus Dead released with Joanna Gruesome. Tyrannosaurus Dead were a short lived but excellent band, who fit beautifully into the Odd Box label. I just checked and they split up five years ago, which is making me feel very old indeed.

2. Why Bonnie - In Water
Why Bonnie are a band from the uber-cool town of Austin, Texas who are now signed to Fat Possum, back in 2018 they released a couple of brilliant EPs, including this one. A bit bleak, a bit beautiful and entirely wonderful.

3. Let's Buy Happiness - Chants For Friends
Sometimes you hear a band and you're convinced they're going to be huge and loved across the world, and sometimes you're completely wrong. Despite the fact they never became the biggest band since The Beatles, I still love Let's Buy Happiness all the same.

4. Squirrel Flower - Contact Sports
Back in the day before Squirrel Flower, aka Ella O'Connor Williams, was a critically acclaimed global megastar, she self-released a couple of brilliant EPs while studying for her degree. Guaranteed to make you question what you spent all your time at university doing?

5. Savage Mansion - Weird Country
One of my most recent purchases, Savage Mansion sound like Pavement if they spent a lot more time people watching in Glasgow. This was their latest offering through the brilliant Lost Map record, who get to spend their lockdown on the Isle Of Eigg, which sounds delightfully idyllic.

6. Specialist Subject Records - Furlough Your Dreams
This is probably cheating as it's seventeen bands in one, yet as my unofficial heroes of lockdown I had to send people Specialist Subjects way. They've been putting on a series of amazing "Instagram live" shows full of great bands, plant eating in jokes and lots of people feeling sad about being stuck in the house.