Gimme 5! Amelia Fletcher & Rob Pursey Share Five Skep Wax Releases They’re Most Proud Of

With ‘Gimme 5!’ we take a peek into the collections of artists we admire. The premise is simple: artists WE like share five records THEY love.

Let’s be frank: over the past four decades, few names have loomed larger in the indie pop universe than Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey. Anyone who’s even mildly serious about the genre has at least a few of their bands’ influential records on their shelves. It’s an impressive timeline: Talulah Gosh, Heavenly, Marine Research, Sportique, Tender Trap, Catenary Wires, The Drift, Swansea Sound. And yet, remarkably, they’re showing no signs of slowing down—in fact, they seem more driven than ever.

Last week, they announced a new 7″ with Swansea Sound, featuring the trend-poking song Oasis v Blur on side A (“Five white Northern guys or four white Southern guys?”). Then they also released the amazing single Portland Town with Heavenly (“There must be folks think the same way as me // Conformity stinks, creativity’s free”), the first new music under this moniker in 29 years (with a cover version of The Only Ones’ Someone Who Cares on the flip). Next month the band will reissue their 1996 Operation Heavenly LP, and a new full-lengther is planned for 2026.

I’ve been wanting to ask these charming legends to contribute to our Gimme 5! feature for a while, and this new effort felt like a good opportunity.

From the Weald of Kent, Amelia and Rob have also been running independent record label Skep Wax since late 2020 (you’ve seen that name pop up on our site before), taking a strong position in the current scene. I sent them the impossible question of what their favorite releases are so far—where did they find the time to respond almost immediately?—and we are very honored to share their insightful response (it must have been tough to choose, so I understand they smuggled in two more than five).

Amelia Fletcher and Rob Pursey: “These are the Skep Wax album releases we are most proud of.”

1. Sassyhiya || Take You Somewhere 
“We were really pleased to have Sassyhiya on the label. We approached them by engaging in a conversation about aardvarks — the sort of thing you do when you are a professional A&R organisation. We’d noticed that Helen and Kathy had posted a picture of themselves visiting some kind of aardvark sanctuary, so it wasn’t an unreasonable way to get to know them — we are fans of aardvarks too. This encounter happened at the show where Sassyhiya supported Panic Pocket (another band we are very proud to have put out). Sassyhiya are a very intriguing band because they deftly combine very funny and very poignant lyrics, while delivering tune after tune. They are also much more accomplished musicians than they make out — you should see them playing live! They are great.”

2. Various Artists || Under The Bridge 1 and 2
“We’ve done two compilation albums with this name. We thought it would be interesting to approach all our old label-mates from Sarah Records and ask them each to contribute a new track. It was amazing: so many of the bands were still creatively active, and a lot of them are even better now than they were back then, in our opinion. Take a listen to the Even As We Speak and Secret Shine tracks, for example. Another wonderful side-effect of these compilations was that we got back in contact with people we had not seen for years, and some we’d never really met. It was genuinely moving! I guess we all wanted to acknowledge our shared roots, but also to stress that our new music is more significant than our old music. (Apart from the Heavenly re-issues, Skep Wax doesn’t do old music.) The renewed relationships also meant that we ended up putting out brand new albums by The Orchids and by The Gentle Spring (Michael from the Field Mice’s new band) – both of which we love.”

3. Swansea Sound || Twentieth Century
“Skep Wax got going in the first place because we had recorded albums by two of our own bands, The Catenary Wires and Swansea Sound, and if we were ever going to start a label, this seemed like the right time. We were also in the middle of lockdown, so we had plenty of time on our hands. (Swansea Sound only started because of lockdown, and wasn’t expected to outlive it.) Once we had learnt about running a label by releasing our own bands, we felt qualified to approach other musicians, but we feel our own bands remain important for the label. Twentieth Century is the second Swansea Sound album, and I think we really got it right with this one: the artwork by Catrin James, the videos, the antagonistic attitude. This album could only have come out on an indie label. It is openly contemptuous of the ‘music industry’ and the people who own and control it.”

4. Brian Bilston and The Catenary Wires || Songs Made By Humans
“Sorry, this is us again, but we’d like to include it because we are genuinely proud of this record. On the face of it, it is a commercially foolish idea to approach a poet and ask him if he’d like to have his poems turned into songs. But, with the intoxicating and dangerous confidence that comes with knowing you are the people in charge of releasing the album, this is the sort of thing you end up doing. And it has been a lot of fun! We are embarking on a big UK tour with Brian in November, we’ll be doing radio sessions, and in the meantime the album has gone down really well. Brian is a delightful person and collaborator. It no longer feels at all strange to have made an album that combines poetry and music.”

5.  Jeanines || How Long Can It Last and Lightheaded || Thinking, Dreaming, Scheming.
“These are our newest releases, coming out at the end of June. Jeanines and Lightheaded are the first American bands we have put out. We genuinely think they are making the finest indie-pop music and we wanted people in the UK and Europe to know more about them. Both bands are coming over to tour the UK in July and will be playing at our Skep Wax Weekender festival (17-20 July in Islington, London), along with most of the bands on the label. These releases are also significant for us because they are our first co-releases with Slumberland Records, a US label we have long admired. If something comes out on Slumberland, you pay attention because you know it is going to be good. That’s what we aim to achieve with Skep Wax Records.”

Follow Skep Wax on Bandcamp here. 

Portland Town by Heavenly (featuring Amelia Fletcher on guitar and vocals, Cathy Rogers on guitar and vocals, Rob Pursey on bass, Peter Momtchiloff on guitar, and Ian Button on drums) and Oasis v Blur by Swansea Sound (featuring Hue Williams on lead vocals, Amelia Fletcher on vocals and keys, Bob Collins on guitar, Rob Pursey on bass, and Ian Button on drums) are out now digitally (you can pre-order the 7″ vinyls, available from July 18).