This week it's a very welcome return to our Non Nordic Sunday feature, an excuse to unshackle ourselves from our Scandinavian straightjacket, and journey across the world in search of indie music written by bands with a pure love of what they do. Today we head to the Philippines and Cinéma Lumière, a band that writes music heavily infleunced by those on the much loved 'Sarah Records' indie pop label .
Regular readers will, of course see the connection, because last week we featured 'The Little Hands of Asphalt', who wrote their latest song after appearing at Indiefjord festival, which has strong connections with the UK Indietracks festival - and both line-ups have often been heavily influenced by bands in the 'Sarah Records style'. Incidentally both those festivals have started to announce artists and bands for this year, and both events are going to be really special.
So Cinéma Lumière are from Manila, a 4 piece band consiting of musicians with a wealth of experience in bands on the local underground indie scene - Xavier Emas
(Stellar Spectre, Sunday Picnic Love Affair, Carnival Park), Jon Tamayo (The
Strange Creatures), Manny Gallo (Sodajerk, SPLA), Sue Torrejon (Unhappy Kids),
and Tan Evangelista (The Strange Creatures). Given I have a half established plan to visit cities such as Manila one day and write about the underground indie scenes I find, it's great to hear the names of so many of these bands.
Their debut release is 'Love', the 1st track from an EP which they hope will see the light of day this year. It's just such a fresh sounding song, bubbling contentedly with soft jangling guitars, a cute melody and a huge dose of bands like Heavenly, the Field Mice obviously, and the likes of The Softies too. Lovely harmonies are added to the mix, and they capture the spirit of Indie Pop so well, because you just know they're playing with huge smiles on their faces.
This is 'Love':
Undoubtedly now our favourite band in the Philippines, you can find out more on Cinéma Lumière by visiting them on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram.
And don't forget this years Indiefjord festival in Norway, and the equally brilliant Indietracks festival in Derbyshire in the UK - they've recently announced excellent Swedish band Melby on their line-up, and we're definitely going to at least one day.