‘Caroline of Brunswick Square’ (matda040) is the new single from English favorites The Perfect English Weather featuring husband and wife duo Simon and Wendy Pickles from The Popguns.

The song is a swinging sixties-influenced gem with absolutely stunning crystalline vocals and prime guitar work that will have you reaching for the repeat button straightaway.

It is the first song released by the band since 2019 and the initial preview of a forthcoming 10-track album ‘Just Beyond The Lights’ scheduled for release this spring.  

The single is available now from the Matinée shop and all the usual streaming services.  You can have a listen here on our Soundcloud as well!

The ‘Fractals’ EP (matinée 101) is the highly anticipated new single from Spanish indiepop favorites The Royal Landscaping Society!

Lead track ‘When There’s Nothing Left To Look Forward To’ is a brilliantly hypnotic heartbreak song layering multiple guitars with twinkling keyboards and electronics to produce the most captivating few minutes from the band so far.

‘Fractals’ perfectly incorporates the mathematical concept of repeating geometric patterns in recorded form, and was written immediately after watching a documentary about the relationship between math and nature.

The EP concludes with the stripped back ‘Untitled’ combining piano, six-string bass guitar, and vocals in an especially simple and effective song that will have you reaching for the replay button straightaway.

The single channels the usual influence from fellow heartbreak champions Brighter, Harper Lee, and The Cure in exceptionally warm recordings and is one of the strongest singles released on the label to date. The EP is limited to 500 copies on classic black vinyl in a beautiful record sleeve with a design based on the Fibonacci sequence.  

It is officially released February 14, but is available for preorder now in the Matinée shop!  The stellar ‘Means of Production’ CD (matcd088) from the band is also still available and absolutely essential listening so pick up a copy of it if you haven’t already. 

You can add recent 7″ singles from The Popguns, Red Sleeping Beauty, or Math and Physics Club (or recent CDs from Azure Blue, Bubblegum Lemonade, Red Sleeping Beauty, or Northern Portrait) to your order with little to no additional postage cost so do the right thing and support these magnificent Matinée artists. Visit the Matinée shop for all these hits and more!

Soundtrack your shopping experience with our Soundcloud player and a video for the lead track below:

Hot on the heels of their acclaimed fifth album Diary (matcd094), Red Sleeping Beauty return with the ‘Late Nights’ EP (matda039).

The EP features slightly darker late night versions of their 2015 comeback single ‘Always’, the Saint Etienne-esque smash ‘Could Have Been Me’ from Diary, and their very first released song, ‘You Are The Kind’, originally featured on the ‘International Pop’ 7” compilation in 1992.

The single is available right now from the Matinée shop, the usual digital merchants, and our Soundcloud:

As we work on a fantastic batch of new Matinée releases, it’s time to clear space with a holiday sale!

Take up to 50 percent off every item in the Matinée shop now through January 5.

Just enter the applicable promo code in the shopping cart at checkout.

We are shipping orders all week so treat yourself to new releases and back catalog classics with same day shipping … or buy digital downloads for immediate gratification.

There are several releases that are close to selling out now so please grab a copy while you can.

Thanks for your support of the label this year and stay tuned for 2025 release news coming very soon.

Celebrate the season with festive favorites from Matinée artists Azure Blue, Brighter, Bubblegum Lemonade, Champagne Riot, The Fairways, Harper Lee, Lovejoy, The Lucksmiths, Math and Physics Club, Northern Portrait, Pale Sunday, The Perfect English Weather, The Pines, Pipas, The Popguns, Razorcuts, Red Sleeping Beauty, The Royal Landscaping Society, Slipslide, Strawberry Whiplash and The Windmills.  One song for every day of the month and perfect for Christmas wrapping frenzy. Happy holidays!

Happy December!  We are kicking off the holiday season with a surprise Christmas single from Scottish noise-pop outfit Strawberry Whiplash, featuring an alternative version of the holiday classic ‘Frosty the Snowman’ with Sandra providing especially sugary vocals and Laz (the Hal Blaine of the drum machine) on the backing track.

The band recorded the song eleven years ago for a Scottish radio show, but it was never actually used and went missing until 2024 when it was discovered on an old flash memory card. Layering electric and acoustic guitars, manic drumming, tambourine, shakers, and sleigh bells, the song is a modern take on the timeless holiday standard.

The EP (matda038) also includes another airing of the band’s reverb-drenched Christmas classic ‘Santa Needs A Holiday’ which first appeared on the ‘Matinée Holiday Soirée’ EP (matinée 078) back in 2010.

The single is available now from the Matinée shop, the usual digital platforms, and streaming on our Soundcloud.  Happy holidays!

‘The Night of the Stars’ is the fantastic sixth album from dream pop favorites Azure Blue—the celebrated project of Tobias Isaksson, one of Sweden’s most internationally acclaimed indie artists. The album (matcd095) pushes the quality to its peak, exhibiting a richer, clearer, and more luxurious approach to the patented Azure Blue sound across ten enticing tracks about togetherness in times of hardship. With its warm, analog production, the album recalls the brilliance of the popular ‘Rule of Thirds’ debut album from 2011.

Album opener ‘Rise’ is a shimmering dream pop anthem with a rushing drumbeat topped by luxurious layers of analog synths and a Peter Hook-like bass, while the crystal-clear topline in ‘Three Times The Drama’ shines over electric guitars and analog synths for an immediate pop melody. ‘Visions and Themes’ is a pop gem about love, dreams, and doubts featuring widescreen synths, manic drum machines, and a breathtaking key rise, while ‘Under The Stars’ delivers more top notch electronica and ‘Mia Luce’ is an emotional duet with Swedish pop starlet Paola.

Side two of the album opens with ‘Define Your Dreams’—a bright flare first previewed during the dark days of the pandemic, and ‘What Is Love?’— a song for dancing with tears in your eyes. ‘My Guiding Light’ is a Dylanesque Bryan Ferry moment in a summer mood with heartfelt lyrics about a couple with differences, while ‘The Miracle’ has a beat reminiscent of The Cure and the most personal lyrics on the album, and ‘Martyrs’ is a sixties-influenced evergreen in a modern synth suite with strings and elegant vocal harmonies.

‘The Night of the Stars’ is a distinguished masterpiece released with the support of the Swedish Culture Council. It is available digitally and in limited edition CD and 12” clear vinyl formats in collaboration with Hybris of Sweden and Anna Logue Records of Germany.

You can get the CD or clear vinyl LP now from the Matinée shop and record retailers worldwide.  Stream a few hits on our Soundcloud while you shop!

In their 35th (!) year, Stockholm indiepop legends Red Sleeping Beauty decided to gently force creativity by releasing one song a month. Their fifth album ‘Diary’ (matcd094) is based on ten of those and might be their strongest set of pop songs yet.

Spanning from jangly indiepop numbers (Is This Love?, The Sound Of Summer, I’m Here Tonight) reminiscent of the band’s acclaimed ’90s singles through somber mid-tempo tracks (Summer House, This Heart’s Now Yours, Cruising Slowly, Head Up High), to straight-up dance floor fillers (New York New Me, Caroline (I Found Love), Could Have Been Me), ‘Diary’ is eclectic yet strangely coherent, thanks to the band’s knack for timeless melodies.

Now down to a duo, ‘Diary’ is enriched by inspired guest appearances from Mary Wyer (Even As We Speak), Julia Lannerheim (Acid House Kings), Jane Wildson (Papa Topo), and Emol.

“We have always been about the songs, and this approach made us focus on just that. The album just happened,” says vocalist Niklas Angergård. “Not ‘making an album’ allowed us to be freer in form and do exactly what we felt like doing that month,” adds keyboardist Mikael Matsson.

The exclusive Matinée CD version includes four bonus tracks: the final two songs from the one song a month series (Free Cake For Every Creature, If I Showed You My Heart), a Spanish version of The Sound of Summer (Canciones de Verano), and a tripped out rework of Cruising Slowly.

The highly anticipated sixth album ‘Lawrence of Suburbia’ (matcd092) from prolific Scottish indiepop heroes Bubblegum Lemonade is out today! The album demonstrates a step up in both songwriting and performance, while still retaining their well established Brill Building pop sensibilities. Combining jangly and psychedelic songs, and peppered with lovely backing vocals from Sandra of fellow Scottish janglers Strawberry Whiplash, the collection is carefully structured and a great listen from start to finish.

The album blasts off with ‘She Comes in Rainbows’, an effervescent Television Personalities-inspired celebration of the more colorful characters in our daily life, and ‘Someone Made You Sad’, a slower track with prominent use of backwards guitar, a catchy melodica motif, and a Madchester feel to the chorus.

‘Love’s Young Nightmare’—one of three singles pulled from the album—is an instantly lovable indie disco floor filler with a brilliant but simple monster guitar riff, while ‘From Her To Paternity’ is a poignant and reflective song with jangling 12-string guitar, Byrds harmonies, and arguably the album’s best song title.

‘Out There on the Radio’ is the second single from the album—a jangleadelic slice of radio-friendly guitar pop which recalls the Primal Scream off-shoot Spirea-X for anyone of a certain age, and ‘There Will Be Another’, a positive, reassuring song with an anthemic chorus and a baggy beat created through a combination of bongos and wah-wah guitars.

Kicking off side two of the album is the brilliant single ‘Never Have I Ever’, an especially infectious radio-friendly hit with clever lyrics, tambourine, keyboards, and jangling guitars. The Velvets inspired ‘The Sweetest Reverie’ (Laz’ favourite on the album) is the sound of hazy sunlight on a spring morning and provides more jangling guitars, a skipping drum beat, and some nice glockenspiel interaction.

‘Saturday’s Child’ juxtaposes a song about slowing down when we get older with a catchy Motown drum beat, a searing wah guitar solo, and EDM-inspired frequency filtering techniques on the backing track, while ‘Renewal Of All Things’ repurposes a Biblical phrase to refer to renewable energy production before building to a strong Velvets-inspired musical climax.

‘To Leave Is To Die A Little’ is an instantly loveable song featuring an uplifting double-tracked slide guitar intro, a punchy stop/start chorus, Orange Juice-inspired guitars, heavily distorted hi-hats, and a 1970s Disco groove before reaching its strong sing-along ending. The album concludes with ‘You’ll Know The Angels’, a slower song reflecting on one’s mortality and featuring slide guitars, a bongo beat, and Laz’ sister, Mary Kate, singing the haunting coda.

At times joyful, positive, poignant, and reflective, ‘Lawrence of Suburbia’ is an essential addition to the Bubblegum Lemonade catalog and perhaps the best album so far from the artist.

The release is out now and in the hands of our trusty distributor so your local record shop can order it or you can get it straight from the Matinée shop of course. It is also available on the brand new Bubblegum Lemonade Bandcamp so if you are in Europe you can save on postage by ordering from the band link.  As always, you can have a listen to a few choice tunes on the Matinée Soundcloud right now too:

‘Visions and Themes’ (matda037) is the stunning new single from the upcoming album by Swedish dream pop heroes Azure Blue. The song is an absolute pop gem about love, dreams, and doubts featuring widescreen synths, manic drum machines, and a breathtaking key rise.

Forthcoming album ‘The Night of the Stars’—scheduled for release on November 22—is an analog dream promising a more luxurious version of the classic Azure Blue sound across ten enticing tracks.

The single is available right now from the Matinée shop, the usual digital merchants, and our Soundcloud: