The Telephone Numbers - Scarecrow II
The Telephone Numbers – Telephone Numbers Theme
“Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you” said Alexander Graham Bell to Thomas A. Watson over the telephone, exactly 150 years ago today. Telephone numbers wouldn’t come into use until 1879 ➡️
@slumberlandrecords.com
ftherules.net/2026/03/10/t...
Television Personalities - ...And Don't The Kids Just Love It
Television Personalities – Geoffrey Ingram
I was there when in December 2002 the Television Personalities made its comeback, after singer Dan Treacy had spent some time in prison. The mini festival in London where they played turned out to be quite pivotal for my ➡️
ftherules.net/2025/11/22/t...
Start Feminine Band - Jusqu'au Bout Du Monde
Star Feminine Band – Jusq’au Bout du Monde
Star Feminine Band is a group of young women – when they formed, their average age was 16 – from the north of Benin. They have been picked up by some of the bigger European festivals (they played both Glastonbury and ➡️
ftherules.net/2025/11/22/s...
Oblivians - Soul Food
Oblivians - Ja Ja Ja
There’s an Internet verb ‘to wilf’, short for What was I Looking For: getting lost in some rabbit hole, usually on Wikipedia, having long forgotten what your original purpose for opening the browser was. The other day, after some wilfing ➡️
ftherules.net/2025/11/21/o...
The Gentle Spring - Looking Back at the World
The Gentle Spring – Severed Hearts
The Gentle Spring is Michael Hiscock’s new band. He once formed The Field Mice and in my world, that is a recommendation even more than 30 years after that band ceased to exist. Michael now lives in Paris and in The Gentle Spring ➡️
ftherules.net/2025/11/21/t...
The Notwist - Magnificent Fall
The Notwist – Run Run Run (Ada Remix)
We all do silly things when we are young. Bavaria’s The Notwist once started out as a metal band. Thankfully, they moved on from that long ago and for the last few decades, The Notwist has been making music on the border ➡️
ftherules.net/2025/11/20/t...
Laundromat Chicks - Sometimes Possessed
Laundromat Chicks – Secrets
Laundromat Chicks sounds as if they come from Oxford in 1988 or Göteborg in 2004. In fact, they come from Vienna in 2025. There is a whininess in the singer’s voice in Secrets but combined with a jangly guitar and a very basic pop song ➡️
ftherules.net/2025/11/19/l...
Strange Passage - A Folded Sky
Strange Passage – Palace Behind the Shade
I learned about Strange Passage’s Palace Behind the Shade from a @rosyoverdrive.com blog post that also mentioned Hüsker Dü and maybe that’s why that comparison keeps popping up in my hand. Just like the Hüskers did ➡️
ftherules.net/2025/11/17/s...
Lorelei - Everyone Must Touch The Stove
Lorelei – Stop What You’re Doing
With Slumberland (@slumberlandrecords.com) releasing all these fine records lately, one would almost forget that the label has been around for well over three decades. Washington DC’s Lorelei released an album with noisy shoegaze ➡️
ftherules.net/2025/11/16/l...
The mountain goats - Through this fire across from Peter Balkan
The Mountain Goats – Rocks in my Pockets
For me, The Mountain Goats (@themountaingoats.bsky.social) will always be the one-man lo-fi band I fell in love with in the late 1990s. I know they’ve released a million albums as a full band since but it still doesn’t feel ➡️
ftherules.net/2025/11/13/t...
Dreamcoaster - Imaginary Reflections
Dreamcoaster – Catch Me When I Fall
The excellent @janglepophub.bsky.social blog — a great source for new music in, well, that particular subgenre — refers to Dreamcoaster’s music as ‘jangle-gaze’. An excellent description, as the ➡️
ftherules.net/2025/11/12/d...
@dreamcoasterband.bsky.social
Jovi album cover
Jovi feat. Reniss – B.A.S.T.A.R.D.
I am a sucker for songs that switch between two languages and B.A.S.T.A.R.D. switches between three: French, English and Cameroon pidgin English. Alternating between rappers (Jovi and Reniss, both from Cameroon) is another weak ➡️
ftherules.net/2025/11/11/j...
Jovi album cover
Jovi feat. Reniss – B.A.S.T.A.R.D.
I am a sucker for songs that switch between two languages and B.A.S.T.A.R.D. switches between three: French, English and Cameroon pidgin English. Alternating between rappers (Jovi and Reniss, both from Cameroon) is another weak ➡️
ftherules.net/2025/11/11/j...
The Laughing Chimes - Whispers in the Speech Machine
The Laughing Chimes - High Beams
Right from the opening keyboard notes of High Beams I knew that this was my favourite song of what their label Slumberland calls The Laughing Chimes’ “sophomore album” (I had to check the US educational system ➡️
ftherules.net/2025/11/10/t...
@slumberlandrecords.com
Front cover of Gaze - Mitsumeru
Gaze - Eric Idol
Nothing says that my taste in music isn’t that of most people than the fact that about half the plays of Gaze’s Eric Idol on the various music platforms is me playing the 74-second song over and over again for the past ten years. ➡️
ftherules.net/2025/11/09/g...
@krecs.bsky.social
Front cover of Jeanines — How Long Can It Last, which is a blue and white abstract painting
Jeanines — On and On
@jeanines-band.bsky.social @slumberlandrecords.com @skepwax.bsky.social
ftherules.net/2025/11/08/j...
Front cover of Etran de L'aïr - 100% Sahara guitar A mini van with a single front wheel out of which four Black men are hanging, three holding a guitar
Etran de L’Aïr – Imouha
ftherules.net/2025/11/06/e...
Front cover of the album Emperor Tomato Ketchup by Stereolab
Stereolab – Cybele’s Reverie
@stereolabgroop.bsky.social
ftherules.net/2025/11/01/s...
Thanks to @rosyoverdrive.com BTW, through whose blog I discovered this song (and album)!
Front cover of Joel Cusumano - Waxworld The letters in yellow/orange capitals in front of a black and white photo of a middle aged man, with a mustache, with a hand in front of his face
Joel Cusumano – Two Arrows
@joelcusumano.bsky.social
ftherules.net/2025/10/30/j...
Don't cover of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart — perfect right now: a slumberland collection 2008-2010 The front cover has a blue and yellow photo of two people
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart – Higher than the Stars @thepainsofbeing.bsky.social @slumberlandrecords.com
ftherules.net/2025/10/27/70/
Front over of All Of A Sudden, Pow! by the Ekphrastics. The album shows drawn fireworks on a black background, with the band name in red.
The Ekphrastics – This Month At The Roman Bros. Gallery
@ekphrastics.bsky.social
ftherules.net/2025/10/25/t...
Front cover of Ata Kak — Obaa Sima, which is a yellow and red cassette cover with a black man in sunglasses, a cap and a denim jacket singing in the microphone
Ata Kak — Daa Nyinaa
ftherules.net/2025/10/24/a...
Front cover of Shoot the Point by Tullycraft, which is an abstract painting with arrows and circles
Tullycraft – Tarrytown
ftherules.net/2025/10/19/t...
Front cover of Tyler Childers's album, with a man sitting in a classic personal library, with a dog in front of him
Tyler Childers – Oneida
@tylerchilders.bsky.social
wordpress.ftherules.net/2025/10/18/t...
Front cover of The Cords' self-titled album, showing two girls on a metro station with a metro in the background
The Cords – When You Said Goodbye
@slumberlandrecords.com @skepwax.bsky.social
ftherules.net/2025/10/17/t...
Front cover of Company Car by Snõõper, showing a man with a fake head holding a giant portable phone and smoking a gigantic cigarette
Snõõper – Company Car
ftherules.net/2025/10/16/s...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vNS...
I should have added @krecs.bsky.social there as they released most of Kicking Giant's records.
Front cover of "This being the Ballad of Kicking Giant, Halo" which shows the two-person band in a black and white photo surrounded by colourful cuttings
Kicking Giant – Fuck the Rules
ftherules.net/2025/10/15/k...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cag1...
