That Music List: LIST 262 – 11/07/2026 (a 2018 collection)

Hello again,

Almost a week on, I've finally found a few minutes to collate my thoughts on a magical first musical festival experience for the kids last Saturday.

Just getting to Pop At The Lock and catching up with organisers Kev Birchall and Linda Yarwood, plus many old friends (some for the first time in easily a decade), would have counted as wonderful enough on its own.

The kids getting to see The School, favourites from our assorted playlists, improved it.

The School playing That Boy is Mine, the much-loved staple of the kids’ bedtime indiepop playlist, improved it further.

Finding and getting The School t-shirts their size in the merchandise stall improved it yet further still.

The School lending our youngest (“our superfan”, they enthused) a tambourine near the end of their set and bidding her to play along to Let It Slip… well, that was just the icing on the cake.

For our daughter - so worried beforehand about the festival all being a bit people-y and noisy for her – to be that engaged and enjoying herself was just a joy to behold.

Needless to say, a massive thanks to all of The School, and multi-instrumentalist Francesca Dimech in particular, for their kindnesses… and of course for a knocking good set, old favourites, striking newie Honeycomb and all.

(The School, Pop at the Lock, Middlewich 04/07/2026. Pictures are author's own)

Thanks, in fact, to everyone who took the time to engage and chat with both kids, and make them feel so at ease. There’s the danger, of course, that they’ll think every festy is as nice as this now. That’s not actually a bad thing to strive for, though, is it!

Other highlights of the day were plentiful, and included but were by no means limited to:

The aforementioned Francesca revisiting her captivating Word Salad repertoire, and reminding our kids not to smoke unless they wanted their carelessly discarded lighters to attract undead firefighters (it does happen).

Our son gasping at just how many swearywords MJ Hibbett fitted into two songs in particular (Hibbett regulars can probably guess which two).

Both Hibbett and Jetstream Pony’s Beth Arzy managing to elicit boos from the crowd over the World Cup’s dehydration breaks. The latter enjoyed slightly less success trying to get everyone to root for Mexico over England in the football, although the logic – a tournament win for Mexico would enrage Trump to the point of rupture – was impeccable.

Quad 90 and Foglights delivering sets that practically demand I explore them both further hereafter. The former’s inclusion on the bill makes so much sense with hindsight, offering up as they do a variant on the disco of Kev and Linda’s beloved Say She She, albeit filtered a little more through the punk-funk gauze of the likes of ESG. Arresting stuff. Foglights, an utterly new name to me previously but comprising one member each of The Cords and Stone Anthem, brought to mind a psychedelic folk take on the (often) drumless, vulnerable yearnings of Sarah Records mainstays Brighter. That counts as high praise in my book.

A wonderful set by The Sunbathers; concise, poignant (new song Strong Enough especially) and reflective. Lovely to see a vibraslap in action, too, and yes, the kids inevitably want one of those as well now.

Introducing our boy to the joys of record shopping/crate digging, as we rifled through the boxes of Pete Bee’s finest vinyl together and I found a couple of gap-fillers in my collection (one each from Delicate Vomit and The Garlands). One day, son, all these sevens, tens and twelves shall be yours and your sister’s (to say nothing of all the CDs and tapes).

A day to treasure, then. With no more Pop at the Lock or Indietracks, though, how are we going to top it? Wales Goes Pop, Glas-Goes Pop or – if we find a few quid behind the sofa – Indiefjord, perhaps?

******

(The Sunbathers, Pop at the Lock, Middlewich 04/07/2026. Pictures are author's own)

That appearance by The Sunbathers was actually very timely in the context of this week's selection of tracks on That Music List, as A Loved Album takes in four songs from their beautiful debut longplayer from 2018.

By turns wistful, romantic, pointed, fragile and comforting, A Weekend Away With... invites warm and respectful comparisons with the likes of Marine Girls and Young Marble Giants (the latter the subject of one of two cover versions played by the band at Pop at the Lock, fittingly enough), but there's an overriding yearning present which feels very much their own.

I remember a Cambridge Music Reviews piece on the album upon its release which theorised that the duo's status as an East Midlands band feeds that sense of longing, this being an act which loves the sea but lives about as far from any coast in England as it's possible to get.

I can buy into that theory entirely, having lived practically on the Scarborough seafront for five years around the turn of the century but now based almost as far inland in Sheffield as The Sunbathers themselves. Every return trip to the North Yorkshire coast - and there are many - is immediately followed by the commencement of plans to do another one. I would not be the least bit surprised were Julie and Paul the same.

Either way, A Weekend Away with... is a quietly triumphant body of work to be treasured, and it was wonderful to learn at Pop at the Lock that the release of a follow-up may not be at all far away now.

You'll have worked out already from the subtitle that The Sunbathers' aren't the only selections among this week's List to hail from 2018. Everything does.

This was, as has probably been mentioned ad nauseam by me on here now, the year in which That Music List paused for breath temporarily, only to fall asleep for well over seven years. Indeed, some of the songs below were already pencilled in for inclusion in Lists 237, 238, etc. some time in spring of that year, only for events to supersede me somewhat.

Ah well, I hope we're well on the way towards making up for lost time this year, with 41 posts (and counting) already.

I also hope that there's a few tracks on here that stop you in your tracks and have you exclaiming, "eight years ago? Really?". I know there are for me, and in at least two cases poignantly so. The Chills' Martin Phillipps and Tim Smith of Cardiacs (subject of a spine-tingling cover here by Alison Mathews) were still among us back then. No longer.

The inclusions from Gwenno, Linda Guilala and Grace Petrie are all right up there among my personal highlights from the entire year, with Eus Keus by the first-named (a towering, mysterious single deserving of far better than the occasional glib epithets of "That Cheese Song" one sees and hears) just shading it over the second-named as my favourite single of 2018.

Mucho Mejor prompted me to reappraise Linda Guilala's catalogue completely, having evidently not been paying sufficient attention to hook into all of the motorik, Stereolabby hums contained therein. Not just another sunny, Spanish-language female-fronted indiepop act, this, their presence on Elefant Records - home of many such - notwithstanding.

Turn of the century hitmakers and antagonisers of rockist festival crowds par excellence, Daphne & Celeste were always more interesting, rounded people than a small handful of taunting, ad hominem singles gave them credit for. Some impressive credits in Off-Broadway theatre and Wim Wenders-produced cinema helps say as much.

Knowing that, the fact that their 2010s comeback comprised collaborations with experimental musician and producer Max Tundra, often erring more on the side of outré electronica rather than pure pop (and even covering a Captain Beefheart track), becomes that bit less of a surprise. It still served to annoy all of the right people all over again, though, especially those who turned up at their 2018 UK tour expecting just the hits. Good.

As such, Alarms doesn't go into the I Love Pop Music And I Will Fight You strand this time, but there's something no less fine from Janelle Monae which does instead.

Finally, with visuals about as unsettling as the music which they accompany, I feel morally obliged to apologise in advance if The Third Eye Foundation's video gives you nightmares.

J xx

Click on the video or link to play each tune (links last checked as all working 28/06/2026).

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HAIKU SALUT – The More and Moreness