Freeze the Atlantic NEW ALBUM IN SEPTEMBER!

Posted on May 16, 2012 by | Leave a comment

After an EP, single and numerous line-up changes through tours with Fighting with Wire and Attack Attack! The Surrey quintet, featuring former members of Hundred Reasons and Reuben, are finally ready to unleash their debut album on the world – 11 stand out tracks honed with 18 months of hard-work, finely crafted melodies and the kind of venue-packing balls out melodic power that simply demands attention…

Blending in elements of their illustrious indie-rock past – but still sounding every inch something ‘proper fresh’… Readers of Rocksound will be able to experience it first hand with an exclusive album sampler going out with every magazine in August – which will feature some fresh cuts from the record, as well as an exclusive RS only bonus track… Ben insists on the best for his readers you know… ;-)

FREEZE THE ATLANTIC will be playing a handful of dates with Fighting With Wire in June, in addition to playing various festivals this summer (including 2000 Trees, Southsea & Y-Not) and touring the UK around the album release.

The full tracklisting is as follows:

1. Shivering & Dazed
2. Conflict! Conflict!
3. Broken Bones
4. Le Track
5. Volcanoes
6. This Isn’t Maths, This Is Rock ‘n’ Roll
7. Crestfallen
8. Loses All The Romance
9. The Colour
10. The Alibi
11. Feather In A Hurricane

Roll on September…… AND HOW COOL IS THIS ROBOT BASED ARTWORK! I shall call him Jack (The Robot)

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New Social Club video – and it’s bloody great..!

Posted on May 2, 2012 by | Leave a comment

Oh The Social Club. Handsome of face and excellent of keyboard player (anyone who has met Paul Terris will know what I mean)  and purveyors in the finest of pop videos it would seem. Sure I could wax lyrical about the brilliance of the editing, the simple yet awesome visual effects and the magnificent cameo from PoP favourite Barney Dufton getting something from a microwave. But probably best just to watch aye.

And here’s more words from a Lew interview over on DIY:

“Well, the original idea behind the video is that we would all do a montage of training for what you assume is some kind of olympics, but turns out to be a pretentiousness contest. However, that seemed like way too much work, so instead we bought four ladies turtleneck tops and mucked about a bit on a black background.

“We had the set pieces beforehand, and we were all filmed separately. The magic is really in the edit, thanks to our mate Rik Argent. He came up with loads of ideas and then painstakingly edited them all together. It’s got a nice ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ meets Holly from Red Dwarf quality to it.”

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WE’VE SIGNED DOCTRINES!!!

Posted on April 27, 2012 by | Leave a comment

All fresh as fuck and brandishing the ‘sort of shout along indie-infused pop’ that the Japandroids would probably dig (we don’t know, we’ve not asked them) Doctrines are Alcopop! Records brand new signing…

Hailing from Manchester, the dynamic 4 piece (Jamie, Robert, Luke and Kyle) have been together just over a year, releasing a debut EP and appearing on recent BSM compilation ‘Making Music is for Pussies’. Their next EP, ZE, is released with us and our fiery fun pals at AC/Dsleeve in late June, all accompanied by a big old UK tour.

Here is a track from forthcoming EP ZE. Here it is. Yours to download, cos we bloody love ya!

Despite sounding something like an unholy union between At the Drive in and Titus Andronicus (my description – so er.. Yeah), they actually draw their inspiration from some rather interesting means: Jamie takes up the story about the new EP – a 17 minute movement split into 4 parts.

“At the time of writing, we were on a mad sci-fi kick, learned about the singularity and got really scared about it all. So the intention was to attempt to write a futuristic tale inspired by that mad old guy Raymond Kurzweil, transhumanism and postgenderism… It’s NOT pretentious at all. In the end it turns out to be a story about the importance of family, friends and love. proper hippies.”

Natch… You’ll love it!

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Posted in Alcopop -the label-, Doctrines, Free Music

New Stagecoach tapes up for grabs!

Posted on April 23, 2012 by | Leave a comment

It’s been a long time coming since the last one, but our boys Stagecoach (who have not lain dormant but been busy preparting that debut record just for you) have emerged from the studio, blinking like the last of the much-beloved mine dwelling pit ponies to drop this badboy for Record Store Day! 56-k Dial Up is its name, and being on a tape is its game. A Fairy Liquid Green tape would cha believe… Limited to 100, the 50 that breezed into stores were snapped up as quickly and the last few occupy the shop today.

A healthy stock sat proud and pleased this morning when they went on sale at 10am. Now there’s six left. Sorry poppers, I haven’t given you blog readers much time to get on this one… So for the next few hours they may reside still available fingers crossed but if they have sold out by the time you get there, do feel delighted that the song is available to stream just about here. Stagecoach are back baby, and the album is fully on its way!

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Alcopop at the Great Escape (Friday May 11th)

Posted on April 22, 2012 by | Leave a comment

We’re all going to the SEASIDE! To play the Dolphin Derby and watch some bands. We might even indulge in an ice cream or two, and we’d bloody love for you to come join us. So we’ve got together with our pals at BSM and 7 Bit Arcade to put on a little free show at the Royal Pavilion Tavern as part of the Alternative Escape on Friday 11th May!

If you were there last year (pictured), you’ll well remember that it was an understated tea party style affair, completely suitably for all the family – very polite, and not at all a debauched boozefest which ended with insane stage diving, chandaliers being ripped from the ceiling and yours truly being threatened with expulsion from the venue for ‘inciting chaos’. Put simply, it was bloody amazing – and you should TOTALLY come down this year too. We kick off at 1 in the afternoon, bands on till 2am (13 hours – yup!) with the 405 DJs till 6am. This could be the party of the Spring!

Check out the line up, remember it’s free and get there early. Last year it was one in one out from 5pm…

Katie Malco 1.15 – 1.45
Delta/Alaska 2.00 – 2.30
Glow Kit 2.50 – 3.20
Gunning for Tamar 3.40 – 4.10
Big Success 4.30 – 5.00
LightGuides 5.20 – 6
Jumping Ships 6.20 – 6.50
My First Tooth 7.10 – 7.40
Shoes and Socks Off 8.00 – 8.30
The Social Club 9.00 – 9.30
Stagecoach 10 – 10.30
Hymns 11 – 11.30
Johnny Foreigner 11.50 – 12.30
Tall Ships 1.00 – 1.40

YEHAA! Then off to the Dolphin Derby at 7am yeah?

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Posted in Alcopop -the label-, All and Sundry, Glow Kit, Gunning for Tamar, Johnny Foreigner, Jumping Ships, Katie Malco, my first tooth, Stagecoach, The Social Club

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(New) site for sore eyes – and discount day!

Posted on April 16, 2012 by | Leave a comment

So it’s been a long time coming, but we’ve finally got ourselves a fresh new home on the web! Complete with sounds, smells (well, almost) and basically a whole load of more stuff – but still in the simple blog style format that seemed to work so nicely before, ladies and gentleman – please enjoy the new www.ilovealcopop.co.uk ☺ You’ll also notice that the shop looks rather sweet too – hopefully you should find it a lot easier to navigate, and you can even pick what records you should listen too in relation to your favourite animal! You into ravishing tigers right? Well – buy appropriately ☺

At the moment it’s all relatively new and untested so do let us know if there’s anything that doesn’t work for you, or you absolutely hate… But in the meantime I do hope you like it.

Also, we should like to thank the following heroes, who got involved – meaning that we weren’t hampered by my lack of design or coding skills. When it comes to the former, I excel much like a hoofless stallion would fare in the Grand National, and as for the latter – well, lets not even go there…

So cheers Joe from Idle Hands Management who put together the homepage and created that bubbly header, thank you kindly Tom at onenineeighteight who built the sensational shop and coded it so the boxes go gold when you hover the mouse over them. Winner! And also much love to the wonderful Tim from Blue Walrus who sorted all of our server space, a new email address and loads of help when I was sobbing in a middle of codes I didn’t begin to understand.

To celebrate, and test the shop out proper, I thought we’d do a little 10% discount… But only for the next 24 hours, so if there’s something you’ve been meaning to buy for a while, now may well be the time…. Just type ‘openingday’ when you order!

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Posted in Alcopop -the label-

NEW STAGECOACH single and RECORD STORE DAY RELEASE

Posted on April 6, 2012 by | Leave a comment

likewoah – It’s about time right, but the news is good and our swell brothers in Stagecoach return to Alcopop! Records to release ’56k Dial-Up’ – the first taste of new material from the band’s debut album due later this year. Produced by Dom James (who slammed out that freakin’ awesome Vs Everything by Johnny Foreigner), it is backed with a remix of old favourite ‘Hang That Head’ by Bobby Shoop Shoop…

It’s a one-off single (I said we weren’t gonna do any singles in 2012. That’s two and counting, but when they’re as good as this – what can you do), it’s limited to just 100 copies on jelly green, hand-numbered cassette and will be available April 21st at a selection of Coach’s favourite stores – Banquet, Truck (Oxford) and Rise Records (as well as the PoP shop OBVS!).

The band are still mid recording with a debut album coming soon (very excited about this), so this should be a tasty taster as it were! I will also be encouraging lovely bassist John to be recording a spoken word missive on cats as a secret track on each tape – but I haven’t asked him yet…. Watch this space ;-)

Oh and you can catch them here too at these ipcoming Shows:

May 9 – The Garage, London w/ Tellison
May 11 – The Great Escape, Brighton w/ Johnny Foreigner and Tall Ships

Here’s a picture of them looking all moody and writey. In reality Luke and Matt are just in deep discussion about Clint Dempsey’s recent form…

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Alcopop! new signing…. GLOW KIT from Denmark

Posted on April 6, 2012 by | Leave a comment

OH YO Denmark…. We’re a coming for you. See, in our romps around the UK to check out some of the greatest bands this fine nation is producing, we just occasionally take a peak abroad – and check out some wonder sounds from the continent.

And so, after spending much of the week at SXSW hanging with some awesome folk from the Danish music scene, we’ve decided to take the plunge and hook up with the good chaps at Kanel Records to bring you Glow Kit -”Based in Denmark and featuring members of Cola Freaks, Bliglad and Snow Kite, these guys are beyond rad, blasting thru a mix of Power Pop and Garage Punk with a touch of psych guitars that will have the more surf-keen of you dancing from pillar to post.

They’ll be popping over for a few shows in May (most notably at our TBA Great Escape/Alternative Great Ecape –not sure which yet- showcase) and are well worthy of your time chaps. The new album will be coming in May time on heart-achingly cool glo-in-the-dark sleeve (well why not right) and I think you might just get real excited by these chaps.

Check out this hit and see what you think, yo…. It’s just so WAVVEs meets Futureheads meets FUCKING AWESOME! Hope you like sweet poppers.

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New Gunning for Tamar wristwatch EP – OUT TODAY

Posted on April 6, 2012 by | Leave a comment

It’s been quite a week in Texas, poppin’ and rocking SXSW and keeping the good ship Alcopop! steadied from a series of hotel computers and frantic borrowed phone calls – but it’s all coming to an end, and as i board the cramped, sweaty Greyhound bus to Dallas to swing back home, I must forget the warm embrace of the midwest – and moreover let you handsome bunch know about the stunning new EP from Gunning for Tamar…   The Time Trophies EP! OUT TODAY yo! Yes it’s packed with 5 fantastic songs, 2 of which are remixes by the epic maybeshewill and Jr JoFo, but what’s more – it’s truly one for the fans of alternative formats… Cos this baby comes on a gorgeous looking, tangerine, silver faced wristwatch… It’s gone down real good fresh out of the pack, but they’re going fast (from us, Banquet Records or Truck Store). SO do be swift when ordering…

Keeping real good time (I’ve been wearing one since Christmas), each watch comes with a QR/download code on the back of the timepiece to download the full EP (320kpbs), and in honour of the title track can be worn as your very own ‘Time Trophy’. Or you can buy it in a +CD format for an extra £1 (no fancy packaging on the CD though), or with a gig ticket to GFT’s launch show in Oxford with Jumping Ships on March 24th for a tenner. Strictly limited, we only have 300 of these bad boys up for sale, for the reasonably reasonable price of £7…. Pah, enough talking from me… You probably just want to see the things right…? Done! Ohhhhh yes!

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ALCOPOP AND BSM take over TRUCK FESTIVAL

Posted on April 6, 2012 by | Leave a comment

new owners, new festival – Oxford’s finest – and we’re in the barn! You coming?

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Posted in Alcopop -the label-, All and Sundry