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It looks like July will be an exceptionally good month for music. Here’s some of what’s on the way:

July 4:

Two years after the release of fifth full length album Que Sera Sera is pop punk band Tacopy is about to make a return with EP The Restoration. Check out the teaser video here.

Indie rock band Via, or 非我, released debut EP VIA first EP online on July 1 and now the CD is on the way. The name of the EP main track is 장마, meaning “rainy season” it is a most suitable title for this time of the year.

No Reply will soon release a digital single called 바라만 봐도 좋은데 (it might be ok to see you), sporting a “perfect reproduction of wellmade 90s sound”. For the recording Daybreak’s Kim Sun Il has played the bass whereas Serengeti’s Jang Dong Jin and Jung Su Wan have played drums and guitar respectively.
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Yeongene sings for Japan with BMX Bandits & Tenniscoats

On April 11, a number of Scottish musicians released a compilation called Love Letter To Japan, with all funds from the release donated to The Japanese Relief Effort. It is available via Bandcamp and among other fine songs includes Standing Still – a song recorded by Scottish twee pop legends BMX Bandits, the lovely Yeongene, and Japan’s psychedelic avant-pop act Tenniscoats in 2008. The song was originally planned to be released on a 7″ vinyl single two years ago, though what happened to that one I have yet to find out.

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The 2010 edition of the Grand Mint Festival is coming up in less than a month and today, September 28, the GMF2010 Special CD was released as a digital single. The main track is called Don’t You Know and it’s a No Reply song where GMF’s festival lady, actress Han Hyo Joo, has gotten a chance to sing. The music video was released yesterday.

Also on the single is a DJ Lozik remix of Daybreak’s 팝콘 for which there is also a music video, starring Han Hyo Joo and showing the GMF lineup. As expected, Joa Band’s 북극곰아 was included, too.

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A collection of recent links that may be of interest:

Yuns of Korean blog Melody Design has written a bit on Jisan Valley and got it translated to English: Fantastic Finale to Jisan Valley Rock Festival. More on the festival in question was posted here two days ago.

Violet Sweets reports that ByeBye Sea are featured in new SBS drama I Am Legend (나는 전설이다): Bye Bye Sea takes a fictional 5th member and goes Drama.

The first part of the soundtrack for this drama, where four ajummas form the Comeback Madonna Band, was released yesterday August 3.

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Realizing I will never have the time to do something useful with all those Korean indie music-related posts I’ve starred in Google Reader over the last few months, here’s a selection of links from the past couple of days:

Malaysia-based entertainment site Voize has provided its audience with an introduction to The Koxx: Meet the Koxx. In case you have yet to check out the electro/rock band yourself, it just so happens that they have 5 out of 6 songs from their first mini album available on MySpace.

Over at Violet Sweets, wassereis has started a new post series called “infocorner” where I’m sure there’ll be plenty of interesting things to learn on selected artists. First up is 10cm: [Infocorner] 10cm.

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