Cityscape Records

Visit the new Merchandise website, have a look around and let us know what you think!

Merchandise are playing the Night and Day on Oldham St. in Manchester on Wednesday 28th May to celebrate the release of their new single, Sometimes.

The band will be showing the video of Sometimes at 9:15 and will be playing live at 9:30.

Print a copy of the flyer to get cheaper entry - click it!

Following on from the wonderful firstCityscape Presents on the 10th May, we’re delighted to announce the line-up for the second night on 21st June.

Headlining act is this time the Loungs, described by the NME as “Heart stonking trippy folk that melds your brain into a big mush of unbridled, beardy love.”

Support comes from last time’s headliners, Merchandise with Moore Marriott opening the evening.

Tickets will go quickly with the first night a sell-out so book soon - click this link to visit the Octagon website to book tickets. http://www.octagonbolton.co.uk/Cityscape2.asp

If you prefer we’ve also put the video on the site in quicktime (better audio) click here

Great news for fans of gorgeous hi-quality, lo-fi organic-pop. Merchandise are back.

Not content to sit back and soak up the plaudits from critically acclaimed second album, ‘Lo-tech Solutions to Hi-tech problems’, the creative drive of Merchandise’s Brad B Wood and Conrad Astley is flowing as richly as ever and in April 08, Merchandise drop stunning new single, Sometimes/Glitterati, in our laps, and with it look set to cement their growing reputation as creators of glorious melodic-pop.

Consummate in the art of marrying luscious acoustic loveliness with all the cut n paste potential of this digital age, Merchandise have once again struck joyful, life-affirming musical gold.
The title track sounds like waking up on a sunny Sunday morning next to the warm body of a post-coital lover. Dripping with dreamy optimism, Brad B Wood’s effortless vocal floats alongside the sprightly piano before the melodic and vibrant rhythm section kicks in and takes the chorus soaring in a swirl of harmonically entwined instrumental elegance and loved-up lyrics.

Track 2, Glitterati, is a further example of Merchandise lo-fi loveliness, albeit in slightly more cynical mood. The uplifting piano is reeled in by the dark lead guitar line and world weary lyrics that Brad delivers from the regretful point of view of one recently duped or deceived; ‘you told me how the field of glitter, is only gold and silver lies. I should have seen it from the outset but I had glitter in my eyes’.

Mournful yet ultimately uplifting, Merchandise’s perfect knack of producing aural comfort means Glitterati’s lyrical content and tender vocal doesn’t quite defeat the notion that there is still light at the end of this particular tunnel.

With Sometimes/Glitterati, Merchandise have produced the perfect antidote to winter’s greys and blues, and have once again produced a familiar, yet unique cocktail of charming, disarming and seductive music.

So go on, treat yourself to a taste of the Merchandise.

Click here to view or download in Quicktime format.

Merchandise’s new album Lo-tech Solutions to Hi-tech Problems has been gathering an embarrassment of adoring reviews.

As the title suggests, the album is the result of duo Brad B Wood and Conrad Astley marrying luscious acoustic loveliness with all the wonders of the electronic age.

And the marriage, as a host of reviewers and radio DJs have already noticed, is certainly a happy one, with tracks taken from it having caught the attention of good people everywhere.

Blowback magazine wrote: “Merchandise make the kind of acoustic electronica that’d be the soundtrack to a summer picnic in Hyde Park, with cute animals frolicking in the sun. A whole album of beautiful music. The sound of pastoral idylls and eternal sunshine.”

Elsewhere, Gill Rickson of SBN Radio commented: “It’s like someone got hold of Rae and Christian and made them cut up a Kings of Convenience album.”

Plenty more of these reviews can be found at www.cityscaperecords.co.uk.

Beautiful Morning for a Bad Day and 14:53 are two of the stand-out tracks which have been turning reviewers’ heads - gorgeous pop songs which see acoustic guitar riffs bouncing out of the speakers alongside lolloping drum loops, pristine piano motifs and Brad’s understated vocals.

Elsewhere the band step up the pace on tracks such as two-and-a-half minute bruiser Sunday Song and psychedelic burn-out Charlie Parker was a Hobo.

The mournful piano balladry of Distil Disappointment and The Last Stand of Pucho Vasquez provide other surprises as does the stark warmth of Winter.

Give Lo-tech Solutions a listen and you will surely agree with Tasty Fanzine that this is “Fantastic pop music.”

Swallowing Curses is Merchandise’s follow-up to their critically acclaimed debut album, This is . . . Merchandise.

The single continues the Bolton based duo’s exploration into uncharted sonic territory but also shows evidence of their growing ability to produce perfect pop moments guaranteed to catch the ear of the unexpecting listener.

Merchandise’s trademark sound is put to uplifting effect on Swallowing Curses which has flavours of bands such as The Flaming Lips and Pavement.

Swallowing Curses also contains memorable lyrics penned by travelling writer and band collaborator Roger Williams, describing the unadulterated joy of emerging from the mists of depression and looking out on a cloudless sky.

Not satisfied with the usual band policy of releasing second rate material to fill in the gaps Merchandise have backed the single with Terracotta Caterpillar, an enthralling cocktail of sound which melds hypnotic folk-inspired melodies with hi-tech funk a la Squarepusher and Aphex Twin.

Both tracks pave the way for their up coming second album, now being lovingly honed at Cityscape Studios and due for release in 2003.

Merchandise take their name from a song by legendary Washington D.C. outfit Fugazi and are on Cityscape Records, an independent label with a do-it-yourself ethic and an eclectic and growing roster of releases.

The boys’ first album, from 2000, had an eclectic sound encapsulating trashy punk, oddball electronica and 70s Miles Davis style instrumentals anticipating electroclash by some way.

The album blends live instruments with analogue and digital technology to create tracks such as the offbeat funk of Shooting Jenny, the whimsical lo-fi pop beauty of Unmapped Streets and the punky electro of album opener, New Resurrection.

Elsewhere tracks such as, Books, Black Russian and Zebedee suggest influences from the likes of Stereolab, Aphex Twin and New Order.

The album gained critical acclaim from Manchester cultural bible CITYlife (review left) and also received attention from national glossy Q who opined: ‘if an early incarnation of the Human League had fired Phil Oakey, replaced him with Mark E. Smith and steered clear of the dancing girls, they may well have ended up sounding like Merchandise.’ What can we say?

Lovers of invention and idiosyncrasy could do far worse than explore this lost gem.

Merchandise take their name from a track by American punk band Fugazi who also inspired Cityscape’s do-it-yourself ethic.

From Manchester’s CITYlife:

Under their adopted moniker of Merchandise, Bolton duo Brad B. Wood and Conrad Astley compose some of the most enchanting and eclectic lo-fi noodlings outside the Twisted Nerve stable.

As you’d expect of a duo who appropriated their name from a Fugazi song, the mood of their debut album is both restless and beguiling – sometimes frustratingly so. Veering between quirky lo-fi pop to hazy electronica and visceral punk, the duo’s sonic adventurism is a hypnotic blend of Air’s kitsch pop and Stereolab’s left field dilettantism. Sure, they occasionally wander into self indulgent, sub – Aphex Twin territory, but the quirky playfulness in tracks like ‘Other Thrills’ tends to endear rather than annoy the listener. In fact, the album’s finest tracks are the gentler, near ambient offerings like the melancholic, mesmerising instrumental ‘Hi Honey, I’m Home’ or the Spacemen 3-esque ‘Books’, when the duo’s cogent pop impact proves irresistible.

An inconsistent album sure, but there’s a refreshing charm and deftness of tough here nonetheless.

David Sue

Two sides of dark, restless electronica mark Merchandise’s 1996 10” debut release as different from the rest.

Deliberately oblique and consciously Factory inspired packaging known only by a record label catalogue number gave an early indication of these mischievous miscreants’ intentions.

A-side Two Minutes After creates a brooding soundscape with overtones of Joy Division and Bark Psychosis.

B-side Microcosm introduces a more dub inspired sound with hypnotic moog melodies suggesting the likes of Orbital.

Anyone looking for an antidote to the day-time TV friendly easy listening musak of recent years should look no further!

Merchandise take their name from a track by American punk band Fugazi who also inspired Cityscape’s do-it-yourself ethic.

Review from CITYlife:

Merchandise kick up a very palatable, post New Order 80s meets 90s synth pop racket. With surprisingly bouncy production this has the feel of the type of theatrical electronic pop that revolutionised the British charts in the 80s paving the way for the house explosion later in that decade. Merchandise sound like they still have one foot in the era but what the hell, this is a bubbly and ultimately forgettable pop delight.

‘I feel I can hail Merchandise as the new kings of electronica talent’ – Paintbox Fanzine