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Guy Blackman (Chapter Music) releases solo compilation 'Here Pieces' (listen)

Guy Blackman has run reliably excellent Australian indie label Chapter Music since 1992, which over the years has given us records from The Goon Sax, Crayon Fields, Dick Diver, Kath Bloom, The Cannanes, Twerps, and many more. He is a musician himself, having played in Sulk, Sleepy Township and Minimum Chips over the years. He’s also released a handful of solo singles over the last 25 years and one solo album in 2008. If you dig literate, shy, sensitive, sometimes wobbly indiepop like The Pastels, The Cannanes, Beat Happening and other groups who might be labeled “twee,” Guy fits into that universe.

Chapter Music has just released a compilation of Guy’s solo work, titled Here Pieces, pulling from early gems like “Fashion Conscious” (which drops indie references to NME and Spacemen 3 among others), to more recent forays into synthpop (“Camming 4 Each Other” which featured Crayon Fields’ Geoffrey O’Connor). It’s all pretty charming stuff, from ruminations on sad holidays (“Sunny Xmas Day”) to his lovely duet with My Pal Foot Foot (“Reunion Island”). The record’s cover art was designed by Total Control’s James Vinciguerra and, perhaps not surprisingly, TC’s Mikey Young mastered it. You can stream the whole thing below.