Bunnies & Babies does what it says on the strapline as it's a great snapshot of the music that Irish label Dimple Disc has been putting out in recent years. If you buy some of the labels other releases you may well get a free copy of the album, but if not it's well worth buying as good compilation. The artwork for the album features childhood photos of the labels main man Brian O'Neill.
The album opens with Song Of Co-Aklan by Cathal Coughlan a song I can sing along to easily, having heard and reviewed it as a single and part of Cathal's album, this song for me is one of Dimple Discs hits from the last couple of years. Song Of Co-Aklan is a fast paced song about the state of the world we are in and how we are all suffering for the plans and actions of one mad man or another and how being locked down has affected us all, Luke Haines and James Woodrow's guitarwork is often brilliant and the keyboards and synths played by Cathal add loads of interesting textural elements, to add to the sense of disembodied despair many of us feel while updating our profiles and looking for a place of safety. It's also a song I've now heard so much it's achingly familiar, it always grabs my attention when hearing it. With Cathal's passing earlier in the year an extra layer of meaning has been added to it as well.
Latitude by Sack is a song and act I was not familiar with before reviewing the 25th anniversary edition of the band's album Butterfly Effect that Dimple disc put out. This is a blast of indie-pop that has a summer holiday feel to it, as long as your not just going to the sea side that is, this has a sophisticated air to it nice dual vocals, as they sing about how much love they have. It was produced by Paul Tipler and Garret Jacknife Lee.
1990's Brightest Star is a previously unreleased song by Keeley, as ever asking questions about the still unsolved disappearance and murder of Inga Maria-Hauser, this sounds like a 60's sophistipop tune with gently fuzzy guitars and the deep wish that Inga would have been a bright shining star had she lived.
Wheels (Happy Cycling) by Eilieen Gogan and Sean O'Hagan is a dreamy acoustic folk pop tale about making off with your brother's bike and getting up to all sorts of childish adventures.
The Time It Takes To Fall by Ger Eaton comes from the three ep and is a gorgeous slice of chamber pop with a mariachi style trumpet part, giving this an Mexican influence on a rather lush song, wondering just how long a fall really is, as well as how far down your going.
Enough (Paul Tipler re-mix) is taken from the album Dig What You Need that is a best of The Undertones albums since the band's reformation. Enough is a cool slice of power pop punk with smart lyrics about another relationship that has hit the sweet spot, as he's more than happy to know, that it's Enough to know you care and are near him, which is a sweet sentiment.
The Years Lie in Wait For You by Nick Haeffner is an unreleased song that unlike on his album The Electromagnetic Imaginary contains vocals, this is sung in french and English as Nick sings about all sorts of regrets that come with age, over some gently popping guitar and keyboards with a doleful trombone solo that has a dubby edge to it.
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Telefis the band formed by Cathal Coughlan and Garret Jacknife Lee have there now classic Archbishop Beardmouth (Thomas Leer Version) next, opens with breathy vocals and disjointed computer noises, over what almost sounds like choral backing singers, making this much more of a chill out version. As the main vocals come in alongside the jazzy techno, making this almost totally different to the first version. The Ep this is from is well worth hearing.
TruthTones by Kev Hopper is experimental tonal shifting patterns around a glockenspiel and meandering guitar.
Horsefeathers by Dragon Welding is the third previously unreleased song with a pulsating beat with all sorts of strings being strummed and plucked, in all sorts of 60's/70's school holidays tv series soundtrack kind of ways.
More Time by Eileen Gogan is a lilting song hoping for More Time with a recently departed loved one, who has left far too soon without the goodbyes you wish you could have delivered in person.
The Long Road Home is the fourth unreleased song on the album and is by Nick Haeffner's Pandemonium Shadow Show which is a very cool band name. The tune is quite exploratory with the feeling you are in an old-fashioned charabanc rather than a modern coach on that Long Road to your freak folk home.
Nova Swing by Lines Of Silence fades in like it wants to be a drug drenched Spiritualized style opus, this is stoned majesty.
Mundanian Dream by Damian O'Neill & The Monotones is a laid-back slice of soundtrack to an imagined film type piece, that evokes a gently frazzled dream state, as you drift along, dreaming of all those mundane pleasures, that seem so normal yet can be so easily snatched away from you.
Find out more at https://dimplediscs.bandcamp.com/album/bunnies-babies https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063890118862
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