Chicago's Loren Vanderbilt began Humdrum as an escape early in the pandemic — a band built around his favorite elements of dream-pop, indiepop, shoegaze, and new wave. On his debut album, "Every Heaven," Loren establishes himself as a talented songwriter and master of melody across 10 tracks brimming with jangly guitars and lovelorn vocals, hearkening back to the chime of IRS-era R.E.M., Felt, The Railway Children, New Order, and 90's staples like Ride, Pale Saints and Slowdive.

LP » $20.00 CD » $9.00

Following on from their excellent, jangle-tastic 2021 self-titled debut, Chime School's new album "The Boy Who Ran The Paisley Hotel" is as stellar as we could have hoped for — deeper, richer and evolved in every way. While still joyfully packed with janglepop gems, "Paisley Hotel" takes a turn toward the winsome melancholy of groups like East Village, The Go-Betweens, and The Loft, slowed down a bit from the first album and patiently unfolding in moments that highlight an evolution in songcraft, production and arrangement.

LP » $20.00 CD » $9.00

Bathed in the introspective glow of May 2024, San Francisco's own Tony Jay unveils his latest aural tapestry, "Knife Is But A Dream." This collection delves deeper into the realms of ambient noise and collage, territories previously hinted at in his earlier works. The songs, themselves, retain a skeletal elegance, a stark contrast to the swirling chaos that surrounds them. The final product evokes the image of a charcoal sketch, a fleeting moment of beauty captured for all time.

cassette » $7.00

Long-awaited reissue of this 1999 soft-pop gem. Featuring Debsey Wykes (Dolly Mixture) and Paul Kelly (East Village), Birdie sprung from the couples' shared love for the sunshine pop and soft rock of the ‘60s and ‘70s and resulted in the release of two perfect albums and a string of immaculate singles. "Some Dusty" was recorded during the summer of 1998 with the estimable Brian O'Shaughnessy (Denim, Moose, The Clientele). Deep and beautiful, its melodic, understated yet sophisticated arrangements provide an ideal setting for Debsey's sweet and soulful soft-pop vocals. There's a quest for the perfect pop moment here, something Birdie realise effortlessly on each of the ten songs.

LP » $22.00 LP » $22.00

Neutrals are a punk band from the San Francisco Bay Area, channeling a wide range of '70s and '80s punk, post-punk, and DIY indiepop influences. Their terse, angular songs don't skimp on melody or intimate storytelling and represent an appropriate intervention in these tense, atomized times. Neutrals are now back with "New Town Dream," a 13 song dispatch that takes on modern life and politics (both micro and macro) and situates their scrappy Jam-meets-Television Personalties sound firmly in 2024.

LP » $21.00 CD » $9.00

New Jersey's Lightheaded are clearly students of pop in all of its variety, drawing as much from 60s Brill Building song writers as they do from later 60s folk/pop developments and 80s DIY pop. The striking thing is how seamlessly they're able to meld these influences, and the distinctive voice that they've crafted this early in their career. Their new album "Combustible Gems" follows-up their well-regarded "Good Good Great!" EP in fine fashion, striking all the right Phil Spector/Goffin & King chords while rooting the album firmly in the NOW. Singles like "Moments Notice" and "Bright Happy Girls" possess a timeless pop charm, brimming with jangle, drama and infectious energy.

LP » $20.00 LP » $20.00 CD » $9.00

Oakland, CA mainstays Lunchbox are back with "Pop and Circumstance," an explosive new album that draws on influences from classic AM radio pop singles to the 1970s UK mod-revival to the jangle of 1980s British indiepop. From the bubblegum mod pop of "Dinner for Two" to the junkshop soul of "Love for Free," from the power pop of "Summer’s Calling" to the horn-driven grooves of "Is this Real?," "Pop and Circumstance" transposes Lunchbox’s unique blend of influences into a transcendent new key.

LP » $20.00 CD » $9.00

Over the last five years The Reds, Pinks & Purples have released six albums and countless singles & EPs, all breathing fresh life into the cerebral, leftfield pop that animated the gloomy teens, college DJs and record store clerks of the 80s and 90s. Such touchstones as The Go-Betweens, The Smiths, Magnetic Fields, and Felt are obvious inspirations, but their prolific, prodigious talent for mood and melody have virtually created their own genre, and "Unwishing Well" is its purest embodiment yet.

LP » $20.00 CD » $9.00

SF Bay Area textural pop group Torrey delve deep into a translucent dreamworld on their self-titled sophomore album. Bending classic shoegaze, rainy day indie rock sounds, and 90s alt rock flair into more intricate forms, the band uses these guitar-forward songs to shape-shift between gentle drifting and noisy breakthroughs. Some touchstones might include Lush, Drop Nineteens, Cocteau Twins and The Breeders, but Torrey have a deft grasp of their craft and a forward-thinking studio approach that places them very much in the NOW.

LP » $19.00 CD » $9.00

Channeling sold gold influences like The Pastels, Comet Gain, Orange Juice and The Aislers Set, The Umbrellas represent the fertile San Francisco Bay Area scene at its most pop-tastic. "Fairweather Friend" follows-up their surprise-hit 2021 debut in fine fashion, featuring sterling songwriting and arranging, bigger and more nuanced production, and terrific, assured vocals all around. The Umbrellas have swung for the fences with this new album and it's a bold, beautifully-executed success.

LP » $20.00 CD » $9.00

Oakland CA's Blue Ocean blend elements of shoegaze, pop, noise rock and electronics, striking a precarious balance between noise and melody that recalls forebears like Disco Inferno, Bark Psychosis and Flying Saucer Attack. "Fertile State" shows the band at their noisy best. Reverberating guitars swirl around what is at it's heart a lovely pop song, erupting into peels of feedback a la early Jesus & Mary Chain. It's a bracing, intoxicatingly fresh take on noisy pop from a band to watch.

LP » $20.00 CD » $9.00

New Jersey's Lightheaded have conjured, through some mysterious alchemy, a distinctive flavor of pop that draws as much from 60s Brill Building, garage-pop and folk-pop as it does from the DIY indie explosion of the 80s/early 90s. Their debut EP "Good Good Great!" shows that band core Cynthia and Stephen are clearly students of pop in all its permutations, but they wear their influences lightly -- a typical Lightheaded song could have been released in 1966 or 1986, but in fact sounds just right in 2023! The sound has just right amount of elemental murk, drawing to mind a mythical collab between Phil Spector and Curt Boettcher's Sagittarius, working their way through the Goffin & King songbook.

cassette » $7.00

The Laughing Chimes have, over the course of one album and several singles, breathed new life into classic jangle and paisley pop. Gathering up 3 future-classic tunes from their 2021 debut album and two subsequent singles onto one 7", Laurel Heights is a brilliant distillation of the bands' considerable charm -- a superb vinyl introduction and a compact "greatest hits" package.

7" » $8.50

"Perfect Worlds," the newest album by San Francisco's mysterious lo-fi pop legend Tony Jay, delivers an intimate record of thirteen dreamy, assured arrangements that further cements Tony Jay's status as a dejected crooner of the quotidian par excellence. Drawing inspiration from failed relationships, lack of sleep, a bicycle injury, and depression, Tony Jay (helmed by SF scene mainstay Michael Ramos) pairs catchy melodies and hushed vocals with ethereal instrumental tracks.

LP » $19.00 cassette » $7.00

Supremely well-executed pop that recalls a diverse swathe of indie history, from 60s folk-pop and girl-group tunes to 80s DIY pop to solid gold 90s touchstones like The Aislers Set, The Cat's Miaow and the post-Black Tambourine bands of Pam Berry. "Each Day" is moody jangler that delivers melodic and emotional heft that belies its brief 1:43 length. "What The Echoes Say" and "Tilt In Your Eye" are both strummy delights, showcasing Alicia Jeanine's lovely vocal harmonies to maximum effect.

7" » $9.00

Following up their very well-received 2021 self-titled debut album, Chime School are back with more perfect pop, this time on the most pop of formats, the 7" single. "Coming To Your Town" was recorded while sick with COVID and rather fittingly is a feverish attempt to describe the reactionary political moment that seemed to infect the Bay Area during the pandemic. Leave it to Chime School to pen a classic 12-string jangle pop tune about the breakdown of civil society. It's not all cats and motorbikes chez Chime School! On the flip side we have the band's lovely Brighter/Field Mice-esque take of Buzzcocks' "Love You More." Originally released on the Oakland Weekender Buzzcocks covers cassette, it's available on vinyl here for the first time.

7" » $8.50

The Reds, Pinks & Purples' new collection "The Town That Cursed Your Name" gathers together twelve perfectly-constructed pop gems, some previously unheard and some released for just a few days and then withdrawn, but all adhering to the absurdly high standards of song-craft that the band's Glenn Donaldson adheres to. Echoes of everything from The Go-Betweens to Felt to Magnetic Fields reverberate through his songs, informed by an extreme dedication to detail and no small amount of outright fandom.

LP » $20.00 CD » $9.00