Various Artists - 'Be True To Your School' (Fortuna Pop!) Released 24/11/08

Thirteen years ago Fortuna POP! set up shop as an independent record label, inadvertently providing a welcome refuge for musical waifs and wayward strays. As with most independents Fortuna POP! operates on a needs must basis, for love not money and success is predictably unpredictable. But going by the twenty-five tracks selected for this showcase compilation the releases have been kind to the label for, as the title suggests, being true to its school.

As label name and method imply, indie pop is the name of the game and ‘Be True To Your School’ has got more gems than De Beers. Finlay’s ‘Home’, Tender Traps ‘Oh Katrina’, Spraydogs ‘Dialling Mitt’, International Strike Force’s cover of Lulu’s ‘I’m A Tiger’, Twinkie’s ‘TK1’ and The Lucksmiths’ ‘T-Shirt Weather’ have all the collective characteristics of indie disco legend; jangly guitars, angular riffs and perfectly blemished vocals that straddle the glorious trappings of everyday life. Alongside the excitable gossip of Bearsuit’s ‘Itsuko Got Married’ and the innocent sleaze of The Loves’ ‘Xs And Os’ is an adequate splashing of light relief in the form of ‘Works All Right (If It’s a Proper Job)’ courtesy of MJ Hibbett (which you’d be forgiven for thinking was a Chris Moyles Breakfast Show parody) and Mogul’s ‘Starving Hungry In Tescos’ in which the protagonist thieves a bag of Doritos.    

Hidden beneath the staple of glitteringly cheap guitars lies an abundance of stand out tracks the first being Discordia’s stunning lo-fi ghost-town hip-hop of ‘Y Sun Over Discordia’. Borrowing heavily from TLC’s ‘Waterfalls’ is Mark 700 and the effortlessly cool lyrical turn in ‘Catchy Monkey’ caught somewhere in the crosshairs of Oasis and Primal Scream. Mick Travis displays anger, hurt, hope and forgiveness in the countrified ballad ‘Yvonne’ and The Butterflies Of Love exhibit misguided honesty through ‘Rob A Bank’ a song that prompted John Peel to applaud on air. Fanfarlo’s delicate vocal and evolving piano makes ‘Talking Backwards’ an instant hit, as does the ramshackle lost refrain of Talking Pictures’ ‘Fallen Angel’ (Fortuna POP!’s first release) before Milky Wimpshake put a twist on love in ‘Dialling Tone’.

With far more hits than misses, ‘Be True To Your School’ not only restores faith in the oversubscribed and throwaway use of the word indie but the more you look the more you find, mirroring the label it champions. A platform for those with nowhere else to go, if you could only write and release one song, you could do a lot worse than turn to Fortuna POP!