new releases, special editions, festivals, cancellations, deliberate mistakes, apologies - whenever we have something vaguely interesting to share, we'll probably post it here (and we'll just make something up when we don't)
AN EARLY LOOK AT SPRING 2026
Lots more news on all of these - and more - soon, but I thought I'd give you a quick, sneak preview (OK, so the Behind The Sun single isn't new, but there was room in the ad for one more cover!)
18 YEARS OLD
Yep, we've been 'at it' for about 18 years now and 2025 was a typically manic one - although I have to admit it's getting a bit harder each year to peddle away at roughly the same speed!
Lots of highs over the last 12 months - some excellent new artists joined the label, including Fifth Daughter, La Nouvelle Musique, Behind The Sun Collective and The Owl Service, together with old friends Sendelica, Us and Them, Schizo Fun Addict and The Chemistry Set as well as some very, very old ones (on the 'Not Of This World' 7"). The Jake Stephenson retrospective finally made it onto vinyl and CDs (a project that meant a lot to me - Jake was an old mate and got me back into music at the start of the 90s, after the musically-crap 80s, so he has a lot to answer for, or would do if he was still alive). Beau's live recording from FdM's first gig back in 2012 was a lovely and completely unexpected find, and Swordfish and co's Himmelaya special edition gave me scope to include some pretty silly additions to an excellent double LP/double CD set that really didn't need anything to distract from the music; oh, and a first Bolan cover helped end the year in style.
The low point had to be Clear Spot Distribution going into receivership, leaving a big gap in FdM's international distribution - and finances (including money that was owed to epilepsy research as part of the sales of Jake's release - I tried to explain this to the receiver, who couldn't even be bothered to reply). Fortunately, Phil Leigh and Norman Records stepped in at very short notice and are providing a great service to international customers, despite the ludicrous costs of posting anything outisde the UK. We also now have about a dozen shops in the UK that regularly stock new FdM releases and I'm working to fill in that international gap for 2026.
In total, I reckon we managed to release at least 20 hours of music during the year that was new to FdM, if not the world at large, and 20+ artists made their first appearances on an FdM label, which can't be bad.
As always, Fruits de Mer would be a pretty fruitless exercise if it wasn't for the artists and the music fans who have supported the label for some inexplicable reason for another 12 months - thank you all, and here's to n-n-n-n-nineteen....
A LATE ARRIVAL IN SHANGRILAYA
Whitedove (aka Steve Chard) provided a remix of the 'Shangrilaya' track for the double CD set that formed part of the Himmelaya 'Lost Horizon' set.
Now Steve has come up with a stunning video to go with the track...
