News: Cats on Fire & Mieli

CATS ON FIRE:

Johanna Kustannus will release a new Cats On Fire compilation Dealing In Antiques on 12th of may. It will contain songs from their old demos and seven inch singles. There’s also two new songs. The Hague that so far has only been released as a digital single and a White Town cover Your Woman.

Cats On Fire on tour:

12.3. Baby Honey, Buffalo Bar, London, UK
13.3. Big Pink Cake, The Lanes, Bristol, UK
16.4. Pluto, Stockholm, Sweden
17.4. Oceanen, Gothenburg, Sweden
18.4. Copenhagen Popfest, Råhuset, Copenhagen, Denmark
12.6. Songs For Children, Hong Kong, China
13-15.8. Dockville festival, Hamburg, Germany

Cats On Fire Website
Cats On Fire at myspace

MIELI:

If you are wondering what Drowsy aka Mauri Heikkinen is doing nowadays here is the answer. He changed the singing language to finnish and started a band called Mieli. The debut album is due out on Helmi-Levyt next fall. Meanwhile you can check out some demos on their myspace and go and see their (first?) live performance at Bar Kuka, Turku on 19th of march.

Mieli at myspace

Oh and if you don’t know Drowsy the facts were these. He got a record deal from UK label Fat Cat Records as a young man and two aclaimed albums came out in 2005-2006. The music was often compared to things like Acid Folk, Syd Barrett, Smog etc.

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Micah Schnabel and some random ramblings

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yldl69YDsQE]

Lately I’ve been listening to Micah Schnabel’s (Two Cow Garage) solo album and I like it a lot. Self-released small edition of the album came out last year and was quickly sold out. Thankfully Suburban Home Records fell in love with it and is now re-releasing the album with new artwork. I preordered and got a free download with it. It’s a very fine album indeed. If you don’t believe me, you can stream the whole album on Suburban Home’s new listening station. Oh and if you liked that great video by TCSupergenius, be sure to check out his other videos. There’s some other fabulous stuff. Especially those Austin Lucas videos are pure gold.

What else is new? Well The Fox Hunt. I already mentioned them a while ago. I still don’t have the albums. I should get Nowhere Bound in a week or two, because it’s currently travelling from cdbaby to this household (too bad post from USA to Finland nowadays seem to take longer than before). Anyway, the point I needed to make is that The Fox Hunt has also new album out now and you can order it from their website. I did that some days ago. Check out The Fox Hunt on myspace or spotify if you like things like early Old Crow Medicine Show for example.

If that isn’t a perfect soundtrack for lonely days & whiskey nights, try Otis Gibbs. I recently streamed his new album Joe Hill’s Ashes on his website and because it sounded rather perfect to me, I ordered it.

Last friday’s FOTM was a success as well. Ben’s Diapers and Hi-Lo & In Between were both really good and because it was a record release partee for both, I’ve been listening to their new albums during the last few days. I think both of them are great albums. Ben’s Diapers threw in a couple of surprising curve balls midway through the park, but those new dimensions added more colour and actually made the record work perfectly as a whole. Hi-Lo & In Between’s record is also gorgeous. I’m extremely happy that they were able to make it sound so perfect this time around. It’s totally my kind of country/folk band and I’ve enjoyed their live performances from the start. Still I would have liked to love their debut more than I actually did. There was not much wrong with it, but it still wasn’t able to capture their magic like this follow up thankfully can. Well done. Reviews to follow if I can find the cure for lazyness..

Oh.. and Starflower’s new album came out today. A proper news entry about that in a day or two. Just wanted to get that beauty of my chest. I have to wake up in six hours, so I better continue some other night. Take care and all that..

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