Cardiff-based record label Barely Regal Records is celebrating the launch of its first release, Zero Years of Barely Regal.
The compilation features 14 tracks from unsigned locally-based bands, and is available on limited-editon CD from the Barely Regal website, costing £4. It will also be available for download from Amazon and iTunes at the end of the month. The tracklist is as follows:
1. The Screenbeats – ‘Hanging On’
2. Man Without Country – ‘Closet Addicts Anonymous’ (CD only)
3. Theo – ‘How to Write Short Stories’
4. Right Hand Left Hand – ‘Harry Powell’
5. KUTOSIS – ‘small cities’
6. Samoans – ‘Rosario’
7. Elephant & Soldier – ‘At Home (With Smoke and Candels)
8. Hail! The Planes – At Least They’re Playing The Beatles
9. Strange News From Another Star – ‘Letter From the Queen’
10. Whyteleaf – ‘Wake Up the Dawn’
11. Solutions – ‘Fighting Tigers’
12. Chasing Lions – ‘La Maison’
13. Goodtime Boys – ‘Deaner’s Last Weekend’
14. Among Brothers – Sam, Isiah and the Wolf
A limited number of physical copies were also available at Zero Years‘ launch party on Friday night at Clwb Ifor Bach, which featured performances from Man Without Country, Theo and Samoans.
“We wanted to release the compilation to showcase all the unsigned bands we’ve seen over the past year which have really grabbed our attention, and ultimately inspired us to start a label in the first place,” says label manager and Goodtime Boys bassist Matt Fidler.
“One of the challenges with a compilation in making it clear why you picked the bands on it,” explains his co-manager, Isaac Jones. “We didn’t want the release to look like something we’d thrown together quickly with any old tracks we could get our hands on. We’ve based a lot of the content in the CD around how we discovered all the bands, to the extent that the tracks are in the order we found out about them.”
Not just a set of tracks, then, but a document of how Barely Regal came into being. Grab a copy while you can, and expect to see more from this up-and-coming local label in the future.
