The Flatmates

A while back now someone mentioned The Flatmates to me as a band that should really go up on here and I'd dutifully noted the name down and gone about my business.

Then, at some point last week I was using the 6music "listen again" thing to listen to Gideon Coe during the day at work rather than that moron Lamb, and he played a song (as is usual on the radio I understand) that blew me away before I even knew who it was; it was just perfect indie pop.

It turned out that it was this: The Flatmates - Shimmer and for the first time in ages I was speechless. How the hell had I missed them? Why, when I was writing their name down didn't I bother to listen to them on their myspace page?

Suffice to say The Flatmates are fantastic. They have an information page here and a Wikipedia page.

Anyway, formed in, or around, 1985 in Bristol, the band released half a dozen cracking indie-pop singles and a couple of albums, recorded a Peel Session and as is the way, split up, reformed and split up again. This site has all the story you need in far more detail than I can fit in here and the mp3 above, although scratchy is great. It's in better quality on the myspace page too.

And lo and hehold there's a 'Best of' to buy, worth £8 of anyone's money.