Tag: Sketch Book Records

Raging expressions of angered feminist teenage anguish this month, perfectly delivered by Steatopygous via their mindblowing debut album Songs of Salome, I hail as the pinnacle of Sketchbook Records to date. But it’s only been a year since Simon formed the label. It’s DIY, a contemporary local counterculture ethos; welcome to the Wiltshire underground of the now; there’s more to discover….

There was me, showing my age, assuming Gen Z required Google to know “cassette tape!” But, due to the expense of pressing vinyl and burning CDs, Sketchbook’s Simon looks towards this affordable format, with digital downloads also, to showcase the upcoming talents he finds working at Trowbridge’s Pump.

December marks the label’s first year. A demo by Steatopygous was put onto hand-designed cassettes to punt to Pump visitors last year, but Simon has taken on other bands to feature. Yes, we must praise Steatopygous’ album, but we must also highlight the others too, as they’re released onto Bandcamp for all to access….and buy, people, buy!

“Vinyl has gotten way too expensive and takes way too long to manufacture to make it feasible for short runs,” he explained when chatting about the Steatopygous demo. “For this release, Kieran recorded the band for free, it cost less than £80 for the blanks which I’ve dubbed at home myself. Eliza’s making the inlays by hand and we’ve been able to turn it around in 3 weeks. A 7″ would be, like, £800 for 100 copies and take months to arrive. A cassette means I can just give the band twenty or so tapes to sell themselves, knowing I can make the money back on the rest, and even if I don’t, it’s been such a fun thing to do that it really doesn’t matter. And that’s punk rock, right?!”

Take it from someone who contributed to more punk zines than I care to recall, that is precisely punk! The trading of tapes was the pre-internet equivalent of file sharing, and similarly with photocopied zines, with good intentions variably more sharing or swapping, their distributors sucked it up as a labour of love. I know I did, but I’ve a cathedral of tapes, vinyl, zines and comix, which hold sentimental value, mostly from swapsies. 

It may seem surprising to note the DIY ethos remains today, and I’m glad to hear of it. In reviewing them I take into consideration these are produced on shoestrings, that they’re young upcoming acts, and it’s going to sound raw. But just like Ol’ Dirty Bastard in more ways than one, I like it raw!!

Working backwards through the discography then…..

---

Steatopygous: Songs of Salome

Recorded and mixed in summer 2025 at Nine Volt Leap Studios with Dominic Bailey-Clay, and released this month, Songs of Salome, is a brave and stupendous collection of six outrageous riot grrrl screamo punk tracks, from a Devizes-based female-fronted young band named after the state of having substantial levels of tissue on the buttocks and thighs! Implying, not only a running theme on the psychoanalysis of body image and society’s expectations, but also that they don’t give a flying fuck if you think they create nothing more than a “screamy noise,” will twist any such misdemeaning negatives into positives, and post them as stories on their social media; just one of the two-fingers up at the status quo aspects I love about Steatopygous!

Yet it’s not only the idea if they’re not pissing someone off they’re not doing it properly which makes them punk, there’s solid riffs of what I shouldn’t describe as “traditional punk,” because that’s surely an oxymoron to be spat at; nothing about punk was ever traditional, but I guess what I mean is, it reflects punk’s origins honourably, while still pushing the anger it conveyed to future generations. And in this, I cannot compare them to another of the same subgenre and ask them to excuse my ignorance of nineties riot grrl bands, like Bikini Kill or Bratmobile, though they’ve inspired me to listen to them now, and my finding is, if Steatopygous strives to be an English equivalent, they’re not just on the right road, they make them look tame by comparison.

No one I know of is expressing their poetic frustrations quite like Steatopygous, these six songs prove it. If you identify, if you rethink, it’s in your face if you want it or not. Wall Plug Slug is self-harm themed, depressing in ballad, but still easing us in gently. Cassowary takes no prisoners of patriarchy and sexual relationships, something which rings throughout the album. Marie’s Wedding Song takes us to riffs and themes The Slits might have, but Little Boy is the most poignantly contemporary…. and screamy, making grunge sound like easy listening!

Sceptic really raised an eyebrow when I reviewed it earlier this month, Female CD simply thrashes out till the end of this monster; it’s breathtaking, doesn’t come up for air, and overall, Steatopygous are provocateurs against what’s acceptable, and Songs of Salome launches it back at you in a desirable frenzy, and I don’t believe they care.

It’s an outstanding debut of which I encourage them to drive more in the same direction, avoiding any requests to sell it out.

---

Until the Last Sunflower: Between Maturity

If mainstream labels require a textbook style artists are contracted to adhere to, the beauty of counterculture is there are no barriers. Until The Last Sunflower is Trowbridge’s Joshua Allen. Between Maturity was recorded in a bedroom early 2025, released in May, and is so vastly different from Songs of Salome it’s at the opposite side of the scale. 

It includes tags unfamiliar to me, but “sadcore” and “slowcore” speak for themselves. Lo-fi ambient rock, I’d best pigeonhole it; poignant shards of thoughts and observations from a young eye, dubbed with basslines, piano or acoustic guitar, sometimes building layers, harking back to Spiritized or even the mellowed nu-cool of Bristol’s nineties trip hop scene at its jazzier moments.    

Yet its eight tracks literally require horizontal listening. With the deep prose of Syd Barrett being dumped at sixteen years old, I’d have to have had a really shit day to totally appreciate this, but shit days aplenty and Morrisey is a prick anyway; this is melancholy done smoothly!

The lengthy lowercase track names attend to the curious: perks of being a wallflower, please let me forget this memory; just this one, i miss my selfish and ignorant youth, and particularly, cupid vs disgusting men who take advantage of little children. And it certainly takes a gulp of melancholic dejection in an ambience more provoking than chilling. For this, it bucks positivity like raindrops, happy to watch them dribble down a window pane; sombre, emotive, mindful music, I like, on a particular day.

---

Hurts Worse: Love is Death and Death is all that’s Left

Released last April, Hurts Worse are Mikey and Emma, from Nebraska. A not so sober Simon messaged them to ask if they wanted to do a tape, “and somehow they said yes,” he explained!

This is a collection of eight from their various singles and EPs. Again, dark slowcore, you might gather from the title. Death, graves, bleeding hearts and the one tune most commercially viable called “if you love me please check yes next to the skull carved in my desk,” give an overall of morose subject matters, but it rolls so smoothly, gloomy and angry but not bad tempered in sound. It’s romance at its most bitter, Coldplay gone sour, and for such it’s unique and moreish.

---

Kurt Alexander: I stepped out into the world and it no longer exists and all was good.

Also released in April, this is a compilation of two albums, originally released late in 2024. Again, best pigeonholed as slowcore punk, though there’s moments upping the tempo, akin to folktronica. It’s dreamer than the others and breaks for some refined bridges of funky bass guitar, electronica and voice samples of poetry or recordings of phone calls.

It’s seventeen tracks strong, often short, experimental in that one blip is the previous tune backwards, and in production I get vibes of Money Mark’s Keyboard Repair. Though I think the downtempo Bristol nineties scene also takes an influence, probably why I’d favour it over the previous two mentioned, personally. But there’s rock here too, crashing metal guitars and acoustic guitar tunes over violin, but so subtly dubbed, it really is an interesting melting pot. If there’s emotive prose like the past couple mentioned it’s done soulfully, and less bitter. Think; Tricky was an indie kid.

---

Nobody’s Dad: Mixtape

“Not a dad?” this band asks on their Insta account, “don’t worry, neither are we,” leaving no explanation what to do if you are, but you still love this band! I reserve my right to play this mixtape on the school run in dad’s taxi; see how they like that!! The thing is, age is only a state of mind, I absolutely love this, so does my son!

Released in January, this is undoubtedly the most universal and commercially viable of Sketchbook’s back catalogue. That enthral shoegaze sound, female-fronted, drifting and dreamy with hints of grunge. Angel opens the four tracks, with a kick, and I’m contemplating The Cranberries as a comparison. Margo is a please return to me ballad, and is sublime.

You Don’t Communicate, and You’re all I Ever Wanna Be rock it back out, smoothly with those gorgeous grunge layers, akin to I See Orange, and leaving you aching for more. I think I’ve found a new favourite thing. Nobody’s Dad deserves a renowned producer to refine this, as it’s yeah, raw, but booming with so much potential, and that’s the nature of a DIY label like Sketchbook, opening eyes to upcoming talent without the professional angle of “how can I make money from this?” Nobody’s Dad, huh?! Topping this dad’s playlist now.

Kurt Alexander’s cassette covers are individually unique hand-dubbed with green or orange paint and they used a typewriter for the text. Eliza from Steatopygous hand designs their covers and a number of others too. There’s a timeless and individual charm about DIY punk culture which Sketchbook embraces, and in days of AI this is wonderfully personal, genuine, and uncommercially dedicated to a fashion of yore.

I look forward to hearing what’s next, and of course, Sketchbook presents gigs at The Pump, the next is a Christmas party with Nobody’s Dad, Parkii and Kurt Alexander on Saturday 13th December; the kids are alright.

---