Yesterday’s free Advent Calendar treat was provided by South London indie favourites Hatcham Social with a new recording of their track ‘If You Go Down To The Woods Today (Three Cheers for Our Team)’, which is taken from their forthcoming retrospective album on legendary indie label Fierce Panda (download it here). Today’s trio of free download treats comes from another esteemed and fiercely independent imprint.
As always, the tracks are completely free to download and there’s no need to sign up to any mailing lists to access the songs (though if you’d like to you can join ours here), but if you’re enjoying the tunes we’d love you to make a donation to the wonderful charity Help Musicians, who offer health and welfare support to musicians at all stages of their lives.
Let’s find out who’s serving up today’s feast of free music…
UK indie stalwarts Alcopop! Records have earned themselves a special place in our hearts, not just from the seemingly endless supply of excellent bands they’ve released (Art Brut, Kagoule, The Spook School and Cherym to name but a few – listing them all here would take up more space and time than any of us have to spare), but also for their off the field efforts which have included trolling UKIP by buying their expired web domain, raising money for charities including United Glasgow FC and Migrants Rights Network and most recently running a 50% On Sale on Black Friday, during which the price of all releases increased by half, with the extra money raised going to The Music Venue Trust.
Today we have free downloads from three of the fantastic bands on their current roster AND your chance to win free tickets to see one of them playing live in London!
So let’s cut to the chase and introduce you to the first of the trio – Beach Riot.
Now, as regular readers will know, our Paul Cook is prone to the occasional moment of hyperbole, but Beach Riot’s 2021 LP Sub Atomic Party Cool raised his adrenaline levels into the realms of being potentially medically dangerous, leading him to exclaim, “Even if you drank a case of Red Bull, got naked, covered yourself in honey, hit a wasps nest with a big stick, ran like the clappers being pursued by an angry swarm, jumped onto a Ducati Panigale, drove at 203 mph to a rocket where you were fired into the heavens to dock with a space station full of puppies it would still not be as exciting as this album.” We’re not sure he’s ever been quite the same since.
Today, not only are we giving you the chance to download album track ‘Modern Dinosaur’ for free, but we’re also offering you the chance to win yourself a pair of tickets for their upcoming gig at The Lexington in Islington on 15th December. To enter, just email paul@joyzine.org with the subject line “A Space Station Full Of Puppies” by 5pm on Monday 13th December. The winning entry will be drawn at random and the winner informed by email.
The band are currently on tour around the UK with shows at The Rainbow in Birmingham (9th December), The Lanes in Bristol (10th), The Boileroom in Guildford (11th), Voodoo Daddy’s in Norwich (14th), The Lexington in London (15th) and The Prince Albert in Brighton (16th).
Download ‘Modern Dinosaur‘
Follow Beach Riot on Facebook / Instagram / Twitter
We’ve made no secret of our love for Croydon duo Frauds over the years, indeed we spent a year or so co-promoting gigs with them during our time in the South London borough. This year they released Long Spoons, their scorching second album, packed with all the post-hardcore fury and surreal humour that first drew us to them but with an expanded musical palette and deftness of touch that elevated them even higher in our esteem. They’ve provided album track ‘Woke Life’ for today’s Advent Calendar Alcopop bonanza.
They play their final show of the year at the AF Gang Christmas Party at Record Junkee in Sheffield, alongside Yowl, Wych Elm, Avalanche Party, Genn, Any Old Iron and Nevrous Pills. Tickets, priced £10 + booking fee, are available here.
Download ‘Woke Life‘
Follow Frauds on Facebook / Instagram / Twitter
The third instalment of today’s Alcopop triptych comes courtesy of Tokky Horror, who recently released Home Recordings 2020-21, which included tracks from their EPs from that time span along with remixes of ‘Girlracer’ and ‘Simulate Me’.
They’ve offered up ‘Eden On Acid’ from their EP I Found The Answers and Now I Want More, which prompted Paul Cook, still in remission following his brush with Beach Riot, to declare, “I’ve never been fired out of a canon or bungee jumped but Tokky Horror’s music feels like someone managed to combine both and transplant it into their musical output.“
Download ‘Eden On Acid‘
Follow Tokky Horror on Facebook / Instagram / Twitter
If you enjoy today’s tracks, please consider making a donation to Help Musicians
Come back tomorrow for more exclusive tracks + check out the tracks from previous windows, all of which are still available to download:
#1: Piney Gir – Everybody Knows It’s Christmas
#2: Lost Map Records: Gordon McIntyre – You and Me and The Ghosts of Christmas Past
#3: Hey You Guys! – I’m Sorry, Peter With Rosie – The Oxen + Peter Richard Adams – The Roaring Twenties
#4: Salt The Snail – Matador Print
#5: Dead Horse – Eating The Reindeer
#6: Blang Records: Sergeant Buzfuz – In The Bleak Midwinter, Paul Hawkins (Awkward Silences) – Christmas Doesn’t Love Me, Faux Fibbers – All The Nutters Come Out At Christmas
#7: The Scaramanga Six – Dog Form
#8: Hatcham Social – If You Go Down To The Woods Today (Three Cheers for Our Team)
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