The cassingle revival

Some bands manage to knock out a couple of great singles - an album at best - and then disappear, or struggle to come up with anything anywhere near as good. Horowitz, on the other hand, are dripping in pop tunes.

Nottingham's best band have a new cassette only release on Fika Records, the cassette-only imprint run by Tom Ashton. It shouldn't really matter what you think of cassettes or whether anywhere still sells cassette decks these days, because the three songs on 'The Knitwear Generation' are joyous.

The title track is the best song I've ever heard about cardigans, but can we just skip onto 'Summer Promised Me Too Much', please? Because it's probably the best, most affecting song Horowitz have ever written. Lying somewhere between the heartbreak of Brighter and the sonic beauty of early Ride or Pale Saints, it's the sort of song that you'll play ten times in a row without realising it. And just when you think it's dying away, it takes off spectacularly again, before leaving you hanging onto a shimmering chord. I'm just about to play it again.

Oh, yeah, and 'Play Me Your Song' is pretty good, too. A straight down the line pop romp, with some Pavement-y bits thrown in for good measure.

If you can handle the cassette format, then Fika is a label to watch. There's also releases from Moustache of Insanity, Lisa Bouvier and Lost Summer Kitten coming your way. Find out more here.