For our 50th L&L release, we couldn't possibly be more enraptured, for here it is: the totally breathtakingly incredible début album from Norway's Je Suis Animal entitled Self-Taught Magic From a Book! Somehow back in late-07, the rough mixes of these songs ended up on the office nano-pod, and since then, have rarely left the little nano-screen, filling our nano-hearts to overflowing. This album rolls effortlessly from bouncy and jangly to mysterious and dewy to psychedelic and sparse; to these ears, it's pretty much perfect. A collection of great short tales, proverbially bound in a dust-jacket covered in VU, MBV, and Stereolab stickers, with a pencil sketch of Nico on the inner back flap, and borrowed from the C-86 library (long-overdue, no less!). Snuggle up with Je Suis Animal this winter, and feel the radiant glow of a great pop band with more depth than the deep end at Brunswick Pool!

Self-Taught Magic From a Book is available to order from us right now, and in shops Aus-wide from June 14, distributed by MGM. Visit Je Suis Animal on Myspace!

Add Je Suis Animal-'Self-Taught Magic From a Book' To Your Basket

For anyone scouring secondhand bins for a copy of The Lucksmiths’ Staring at the Sky EP, we’ve stumbled across a dusty boxful that Candle Records left us when they shut up shop. So we now have some copies in stock. Also in the works are repressings of classic Lucksmiths titles A Good Kind of Nervous, Why That Doesn’t Surprise Me, and the band’s most recent studio album Warmer Corners. We’ll also soon have a repressing of The Zebras’ amazing eponymous début, which has been long out-of-print!

Add The Lucksmiths-'Staring at the Sky' To Your Basket

Dig That Treasure is the debut album from the wondrous new Californian music troupe Cryptacize. With a minimum of instruments and a refreshing abundance of space, the trio of Chris Cohen (Curtains, Deerhoof), Nedelle Torrisi (Nedelle) and Michael Carreira find themselves circumnavigating melodic roundabouts and negotiating complex emotional left-turns on their way to some dreamy yesteryear stage musical. Nedelle and Chris share the singing whilst trading cosmic garage-y and plonky guitars with golden autoharp strums and acoustic pickin’. Meanwhile, Michael Carreira is to be heard tinkering away on every imaginable percussion instrument, perhaps discovered in the long-forgotten milk crate in your school’s music room.

Dig That Treasure is available now in all half-decent Australian record stores through MGM, and of course, you can order it straight from us, right here, in your computer!

Add Cryptacize-'Dig That Treasure' To Your Basket

A few more reasons why we’re celebrating daily in the L&L offices:

1) Still Flyin' jammin' the proverbial hamm out of the Laneway Festival!
2) The Bank Holidays "Cheating Cheating" on Triple J rotation!*
3) The Smallgoods "Driving Song" on Triple J rotation!*

*Please take a moment and request these quality songs get a little more air-time.

Add The Smallgoods-'Driving Song' To Your Basket

Yes by jingos, it’s happening! Australian fans of Still Flyin's unique, chaotically joyous, reggae-influenced party sounds will soon have the chance to thrill at the group in full flight on their "Auzzie Brew Groove Tour" this February. Visiting Australia for the first time as guests of the Laneway Festival, the dozen-member-plus Still Flyin' will also be playing some special extra dates in both Melbourne and Brisbane. Check our gig page for details, and prepare to be "jammed to the bone"!

Add Still Flyin'-'Time Wrinkle EEJ' To Your Basket

As they prepare their new album for readiness, Mid-State Orange have handed us the remaining copies of their incredible Odds album, released in 2006 by Candle Records. As anyone who’s seen them play recently will know, the Mid-State Orange of today is quite different to the one who recorded Odds, but the things we’ve always loved about them remain the same — driving rhythms, big guitars, great melodies, and a deep awareness of all that’s great about pop music. For more details, have a look at our catalogue page.


Add Mid-State Orange-'Odds' To Your Basket

What a fine ol’ time we have here in the L&L offices! How could life not be grand with these mountains of boxes to keep us company. Each box containing nothing but pure gold. And by gold, we do mean the amazing Nedelle CD The Locksmith Cometh! Above the arid plains of steel-string picking and the quirky bass and drums that spring up mesa-like occasionally (courtesy of Chris Cohen of The Curtains), Nedelle’s voice glides effortlessly through the breeze, bringing a goofy smile to the face of any hapless desert stroller in search of pure gold. This is Nedelle’s fourth album (third solo), and the first on Lost And Lonesome; also the first on Nedelle and friends’ US label Tangram 7s, following releases on Kill Rock Stars and Kimchee Records.

Nedelle’s The Locksmith Cometh is available in all extremely good Australian record stores from December 1, and online from Lost And Lonesome from November 17. And if you needed any further persuasion to pick up this amazing album, any pre-Christmas online order containing The Locksmith Cometh will receive a free copy of the L&L sampler CD!

Add Nedelle-'The Locksmith Cometh' To Your Basket

The Lucksmiths! The Bank Holidays! The Smallgoods! Fred Astereo! The Zebras! Mid-State Orange! Cheap L&L goodies! Mistletoe! Tasty brews! High-fives! Low-tens! Ecstatic faces! Goodwill! Time to reflect!

To celebrate a rather dizzying and dazzling year here at Lost And Lonesome, we have put our formidable skills in band-wrangling to work and lassoed our entire local line-up of bands together for one big night at Melbourne’s Corner Hotel. And as it’s a pre-Christmas party of sorts, we’ll be extending the love with a whole sackload of cheap CDs and things!

Tickets are available at the door for $20 or beforehand for $16 (plus booking fee) from Polyester Records (387 Brunswick St, Fitzroy), or online at www.cornerhotel.com. Doors will be open from 7pm with bands on soon after, so be early. See you there!

Having previously tripped us up with their two absurdly fetching EPs, The Bank Holidays now decide to completely flip us out with their highly anticipated debut long-player As a Film. The wily Western Australian foursome packed their concise pop hooks into their hobo sacks and headed eastward-ho to the verdant countryside of Victorian Gippsland to work with skewed studio maverick J. Walker. The resulting document is a wild cascade of guitars, drums and strings, and layers of masterful vocal harmonies, recalling the breezy effortlessness of Free Design all hupped-up on Shins pills. On As a Film, The Bank Holidays have managed to liberate Catchy and then recapture it, to prove it’s theirs to keep. Tread Easy and Folded in Half  (both Triple J faves from the Good Looks to Camera EP, the latter also featuring on the 48 Shades soundtrack) receive a fresh reworking amongst new masterworks like Oh Daylight and the acoustic guitar-driven Pits & Gravel.

The Bank Holidays’ As a Film is available in all terrific Australian record stores from October 13, distributed by the handsome folks at MGM.

Add The Bank Holidays-'As a Film' To Your Basket

The wait is over — The Smallgoods’ wondrous third opus Down on the Farm is fresh in and eagerly anticipating the adoring smile on your face! The end product of a lengthy gestation, Down on the Farm’s seed was initially sewn two years back, the band working steadily ever since, alongside studio wiz Marcus Barczak. The good news is it’s every bit the transmogrifying masterpiece we’d imagined from these five Melbourne fellas: a harmony-rich pop delight, drifting semi-consciously in and out of misty-eyed campfire balladry, spacious psychedelic wig-outs, creepy folk rambles, and dark waltzy carnivalia. The Smallgoods are masters of their craft and Down on the Farm is the totality of the shared songwriting and adroit musical talents within the group.

The Smallgoods’ Down on the Farm is in all quality Australian record shops from August 11, distributed by MGM, and available to order right here!

Great Smallgoods interview at www.wirelessbollinger.com/general/insight/the_smallgoods_-_the_two_and_a_half_year_gestation/Add The Smallgoods-'Down on the Farm' To Your Basket

After a notable two-year absence from the new-release racks, The Lucksmiths return with a mighty "don't argue" in the shape of Spring a Leak, their exhaustive new collection of lost treasures. Whilst certainly not a "best of", Spring a Leak is chockers with over a decade's worth of great recordings that have never made it onto a Lucksmiths full-length: b-sides, alternative versions (from 7" singles and demos), songs recorded especially for compilations, live, radio and TV sessions, cover versions, remixes, and general previously-unreleased miscellanea. Forty-five songs in all, packaged up in a deluxe double-CD digipak. For a full tracklisting, take a look in our catalogue. Spring a Leak is The Lucksmiths' first official release on Lost And Lonesome, and even better, our first co-release with Matinée Recordings of Santa Barbara, California!

The Lucksmiths' Spring a Leak is available in stores from September 1, distributed in Australia, as usual, by the lovely MGM. If you can’t wait till then, however, go ahead and pre-order from us now and we'll have it in the mail to you by August 27! But, please note: any online orders prior to this date that contain Spring a Leak may not be dispatched until August 27.

Add The Lucksmiths-'Spring a Leak' To Your Basket

Last night I dreamt I was in hospital and Jonathan Richman was there singing funny songs to the kid in the next bed.. but his band wasn’t mid-period Modern Lovers, it was Depeche Mode.. and then some amazing old footage of Perry Como was on the TV.. and it seemed like he was singing something along the lines of "betty bought a bit of butter but the butter betty bought is still bitter"! And then he turned into a craggy eighty-six-year-old woman strumming a ukulele… and then I woke up. And I realised it wasn’t a dream at all! It all really happened (except for the eighty-six-year-old woman bit) — the strange Depeche/Jonathan/Perry thing strumming a uke was in fact a guy called Fred Astereo, and he’d broken into my hospital room as I was drifting off to sleep. There he was singing these sweet, tragically hilarious unrequited love ditties. And as he left through the window, he slipped a demo of all his latest tunes into my in-tray (right by the bed pan).

Fred Astereo’s second album Don’t Break My Heart, out now, Aus-wide through MGM. Or order right here!

Add Fred Astereo-'Don't Break My Heart' To Your Basket

Four years on from their critically acclaimed eponymous album, Can't Wait Another Day is set to confirm the Brooklyn-based Ladybug Transistor's standing as some of the finest purveyors of lush, formalist pop music this side of the East River. Shifting effortlessly between sanguine and melancholy, on their sixth album, The Ladybug Transistor continue their gradual shift away from their somewhat psychedelic beginnings to a more open, classic sound. On Can't Wait Another Day, long-serving Ladybugs Gary Olson, Jeff Baron, Julia Rydholm, and San Fadyl are joined by members of Great Lakes, The Aislers Set, Architecture in Helsinki, and Currituck Country among others, and have shaped a warm and wonderful sound that will certainly appeal to fans of Lambchop, The Zombies, Love, Tindersticks, and Kevin Ayers. Sadly, Can't Wait Another Day marks the final recordings for longtime Ladybug drummer San Fadyl, who died suddenly not long after the album was completed.

"The Ladybug Transistor's best work equals the best pop music made at any time in the past 50 years" — allmusic.com

Add The Ladybug Transistor-'Can't Wait Another Day' To Your Basket

For the past few months the meandering, playfully mysterious sounds of The Curtains' album CALAMITY have been tickling at the sweet spot in our collective heart and have now all but taken up full-time residency there.  So we’re very pleased to welcome The Curtains to L&L and announce the Australian release of CALAMITY! The Curtains, from Oakland, California, is the ongoing primary endeavour for Chris Cohen (formerly of Deerhoof and Natural Dreamers) with a fluctuating line-up of friends and collaborators. CALAMITY, the fourth Curtains album — in stores now, lovingly distributed by MGM.  Or of course, available right here, lovingly stuffed into an envelope by us guys at L&L!

Add The Curtains-'Calamity' To Your Basket

That’s right lovers of guitars and drums — Melbourne’s true awesome four… guys.. have packed up shop and relocated to a new Fitzroy PO box — ours!  (By the way, call them a trio and Louis will set his hair on fire and shred a solo on your grave!)   So after twelve years of perfect good times on the wonderful Candle Records, it’s time for new terrain.  We are in the process of loading all the Lucksmiths past titles into our catalogue, so bear with us.  If you haven’t joined our email list, please sign up and we can keep you updated as news comes to hand.  By news, we mean shows, new releases, etc.  The usual.  Probably some gossip too.

And so to the other newsworthy development currently in the works at L&L…

We’re finalising our online ordering facility!  So no more printing out silly forms to fill out (though we do pride ourselves on being kinda Old School in that way).  For a while we’ll be going with PayPal, but we’ll switch over to something fancier mid-year sometime.  Once again, we’ll be keeping you up-to-date via our newsletter as word comes to hand.

Brand-new on L&L this month is the “Time Wrinkle” EEJ (extended-extended-jam) from the riotously tuneful San Franciscan rocksteady party band Still Flyin’.

Fronted by Sean Rawls (ex-Masters of the Hemisphere and Je Suis France), Still Flyin’ is a 15-piece rotating collective comprising members of the Aislers Set, Track Star, Poundsign, The Mosquitoes, Ladybug Transistor, Dear Nora, Bright Lights, and Red Pony Clock, and have featured live guests like Jens Lekman, and members of Architecture in Helsinki, Love Is All, The Lucksmiths, Hempstad, Pipas, and Mates of State amongst others.

This special deluxe Australian edition of the “Time Wrinkle EEJ” combines the six tracks from the original CD with the six dub remix b-sides from the vinyl release (both released in 2006 by the tasteful people at US label Antenna Farm). “Time Wrinkle” captures a snapshot of Still Flyin’s legendary and joyfully chaotic live show – a hybrid of rocksteady, roots reggae, and U-Roy style Dub. The result is an increasingly infectious listen – a Hammjamm, if you will – that’s sure to set even the most untweakable indie-rock-party-dial to Meltdown!

"Time Wrinkle" is available is shops in the next week or two through MGM, or order here.

Add Still Flyin'-'Time Wrinkle EEJ' To Your Basket

The Zebras’ outstanding second album “Worry A Lot”, meanwhile, has been setting hearts a-flutter amongst fans and the media alike.  Rolling Stone called the album “perfect pop the way it should be made”, while The Weekend Australian have boldly stated “the Zebras can lay claim to being, if not the heirs, then at least the love child of the Go-Betweens”.  We guarantee* that “Worry A Lot” will greatly enhance any CD collection and most definitely find a special place deep in your heart.

*Figuratively speaking

Zebras fans in Europe and the US will soon have the opportunity to catch the
band live at these special performances…

Sat 17th Feb – Tallinn, Estonia @ Juuksur w/ Tolbiac
Wed 21st Feb – Hamburg, Germany @ Gruner Jager
Thurs 22nd Feb – Barcelona, Spain @ Sidecar Factory Club w/ Carlos Cros y Los 400 Golpes + Cristian Vogel Dj Set.
Fri 23rd Feb – Madrid, Spain @ Nasti (Barbarella Club) w/ Yeepee [France]
Sat 24th Feb – Trento, Italy @ Caribe Club
Sun 25th Feb – Maniago, Italy @ Teatro Ridotto
Fri 2nd March – London, UK @ The Luminaire w/ The Orchids [ex Sarah records] + Slipslide
Fri 8th March – Brooklyn, New York @ The Union Hall w/ The Hazy Janes [UK]
Fri 16th March – Austin, Texas @ South By Southwest Festival
Fri 23rd March – San Francisco, California @ Annie's Social Club w/ Still Flyin’

Standby for extra dates as they come to hand!

Add The Zebras-'Worry a Lot' To Your Basket