Of Montreal, Apples, Tullycraft Do Twee Singles Club
Plus: Circulatory System, All Girl Summer Fun Band, Boyracer, Bunnygrunt, Casper & Cookies

Twee!! The magical genre that begs for effusive exclamation points will get the royal treatment this year, as much-delighted-over Athens imprint Happy Happy Birthday to Me inaugurates an extra-special 7" singles club featuring many of twee's brightest and sparkliest stars.

"Golly gee!" you might say. "That sounds mighty nifty! Swell, even!" And you'd be right, damned right.

For its 2007 singles club, HHBtM has lovingly rounded up quite a fun bunch. Debatably twee Elephant 6 associates Of Montreal and Apples in Stereo join not-so-twee E-6ers Circulatory System and the New Sound of Numbers, while quintessentially twee folk like Tullycraft, Boyracer, Bunnygrunt, All Girl Summer Fun Band, Casper & the Cookies, Baby Calendar, and Poison Control Center evoke smiles all around. Demonstrating twee's diverse range, we even have the naughty twee of Cars Can Be Blue and the relatively outré twee of Red Pony Clock.

Once you've overcome the pangs of giddiness, scroll on down for a complete list of singles club participants.

In all, Happy Happy Birthday to Me intends to unleash 13 split singles-- collecting 26 artists altogether-- in three separate shipments to club subscribers. Memberships just went on sale, and all 13 singles can be yours for the not too shabby price of $60 in the U.S. (slightly more elsewhere; check the HHBtM website for details). Act fast though! The series is strictly limited to 450 copies of each single, and the earliest 150 birds get bonus goodies and special packaging and more things to make them deliriously happy.

A seven-inch single, for the uninitiated, is a circular piece of plastic seven inches in diameter, with unique grooves cut into its surface. Such singles sometimes come in a rainbow array of colors, and can be played on a device known as a turntable, or, in certain circles, a record player. An apparatus called the stylus (colloquially: the needle) affectionately caresses those grooves, generating happy sounds in the process-- and voila! Instant manic twee freakout dance party.

Happy Happy Birthday to Me Singles Club 2007:

The Apples in Stereo b/w Poison Control Center
Of Montreal b/w James Husband
M Coast b/w The Minders
Tullycraft b/w The Smittens
Boyracer b/w The Faintest Ideas
Casper & the Cookies b/w The Marbles
Bunnygrunt b/w Phil Wilson (of the June Brides)
All Girl Summer Fun Band b/w Cars Can Be Blue
The Love Letter Band b/w Tender Forever
Circulatory System b/w The New Sound of Numbers
Fishboy b/w Baby Calendar
Keith John Adams b/w Velcro Stars
Ideal Free Distribution b/w Red Pony Clock