Live Junipers Dates this October 2026..

 We have a few gigs booked for October, and more for November tbc. We play at The Church in Ipswich on Weds 7th October with The Hanging Stars. Then we're on at The Victoria Inn in Derby on Saturday 10th Oct. They we're down to London to play at the Le Beat Bespoke event at Paper Dress Vintage with The Jack Cades and dj sets from Rob Bailey of The New Untouchables on sat 24th Oct.

The Solid and the Hollow album review on Jittery White Guy Music..

We received a lovely album review for our 2026 album The Solid and the Hollow on the Jittery White Guy Music blog:

Been spending the past couple weeks cozying up with The Solid And The Hollow, the latest from UK indie pop band The Junipers. The band falls into my sweet spot of musicians who sound like they spent a few weeks hunkered down with their parents' copies of Revolver and Pet Sounds and decided to make an album--one of my favorite genres! There's a lot here that reminds me of Elephant 6 acts like the Olivia Tremor Control and Apples In Stereo, or Paisley Underground bands like Rain Parade, though they at times swap out some of the DIY edge for gentler sunshine pop. Beyond the slightly psychedelic baroque pop ("When She Turns," "She Makes The Sun Shine"), there's also some pretty straight jangle-pop out of the Teenage Fanclub/Cosmic Rough Riders playbook ("Where I'm Landing"). It's all really lovely, and has sent me scurrying through their back catalog to check out their prior records.

Live Date Confirmed: Firebug, Leicester 14th Aug 2026..

 We play Firebug in Leicester on Friday 14th August 2026. Details are HERE

Shindig! Magazine Album Review - The Solid and the Hollow..

Shindig! Magazine have given us a lovely album review for The Solid and the Hollow. This edition of Shindig is a Lemon Twigs special which also includes features on Sharp Pins, Mod Lang, Uni Boys, Tchotchke, The Jam, Little Barrie and and an interview with us.

Buy the album on our Bandcamp

Fifth album in for this Leicester group and, as ever, the goods are delivered in abundance. From Robyn Gibson, Joe Wiltshire and Ash Selden's blissful and melodic / harmonic blend, to the rhythmic percussion shifts played by Ben Marshall and all the incisive guitar jangling.

It’s all about light, shade, colour and depth with regard to many of this album’s songs, where the likes of fuzzy, towering psych-popper ‘When She Turns’ and stunning “vintage windfall” track ‘She Makes The Sun Shine’ take centre stage; mesmeric, resonant and vital, yet others too are more than capable of soul-stirring action and lodge themselves equally in the listener’s mind; ‘Swan’, the reflective yearn of ‘Where I’m Landing’, the utterly spellbinding ‘Who Can Say’ as well as keyboard-led ‘Moments Of Truth’ are but a few. Total magic, pure and simple!

Buy this edition of Shindig Magazine

The Solid and the Hollow - Album Review by The Active Listener...

 

"The Junipers have gifted us with yet another instant classic. Absolutely essential listening for anyone with an ear for timeless pop music."

Great to see a new release from another of our old favourites, this time Leicester’s The Junipers. 

I've loved everything they've released, and that status quo remains unchanged here. If anything, they're getting better.

The Junipers are one of those bands whose albums sound very carefully crafted in the studio, but also give the impression that if you wandered into their rehearsal space on any given Sunday afternoon you’d hear something with equal polish. It all sounds so natural and unlaboured that it’s hard to reconcile these guys having to go off and do day jobs as it sounds like they do this 24/7. It’s unjust for someone to do something this well and not be able to earn a full time living from it. 

But what does it sound like you ask? A more democratic Wings. A contemporary Honeybus. A more pastoral Teenage Fanclub. Just go and listen to it.

With The Solid and The Hollow, the Junipers have gifted us with yet another instant classic. Absolutely essential listening for anyone with an ear for timeless pop music.  

Buy on vinyl, CD or digital here!

NEW SINGLE RELEASE - IN A MAZE - OUT FRIDAY 3RD APRIL

 The 2nd single from our new album The Solid and the Hollow is out now. If you pre-order the album you will receive all the singles taken from the album before the album is released. Pre-order the album HERE.

It's an upbeat track about being in chaotic situations but being happy and having it any other way even if you could change things. It's also about thinking you know what's what and learning that you probably don't, and no one does. No particular inspiration from other bands we don't think, the chord sequence just fell out an acoustic guitar one night, nice when that happens. Hope it's to everyone's taste anyway : )

Lyric video is live on YouTube Watch Here.

ALBUM REVIEW - THE POP CORPS REVIEWS THE SOLID and the HOLLOW

 

There’s no two ways about it – in terms of inventive, kaleidoscopic music, there’s few groups that get close to The Junipers. From 2008’s ‘Cut Your Key’, they burst onto the scene marrying the sounds of the deep-cut psychedelic 45s from your collection, to the joyful pop of Wings-era McCartney, Gilbert O’Sullivan and Emitt Rhodes, with the toytown symphonies of Curt Boettcher, Brian Wilson and Mark Wirtz.

Without all the fuss of fanfare, their albums wouldn’t so much get released, but rather, emerge from whatever multicoloured world The Junipers reside when they’re hatching up new music. People will tell you they’re just some good blokes from Leicester – but when these records appear, it feels more like they’re hanging around in The Sea of Holes or something.

Now, quite by surprise, they have appeared again, fully formed and ready to let us into their world with a new record called ‘The Solid And The Hollow’, which again, showcases some of the finest music you’re likely to hear.

Fans of the band are borderline evangelical about the sunshine folk-rock, psychedelic twists and turns, and the pure rush of unadulterated pop that they continually deliver. Maybe that’s because we can imagine an alternative universe where some wealthy benefactor is able to just keep them on some record company books and pour enough money into them to keep us in music that nourishes and makes us feel better.

Over the years, the shifts in musical style have been subtle and smart, never once sounding like one of those terrible throwback groups that are more Beatle Fancy Dress Wig than they are embodying the creativeness of the psychedelic period.

This time around, that brilliant and familiar Juniper sound is there, but now, it’s been cut with something different.

From album opener, we see an almost slowed-down, dreamier take on Freakbeat with ‘The Oneness’, and later, ‘Where I’m Landing’ gives us a relaxed version of Power Pop that really ticks all the boxes.

‘In A Maze’ and ‘Swan’ have a bit more bite, although, still easy-does-it, bringing to mind Arthur Lee’s Love, The Byrds, and a host of uptempo jangly pop bangers, but still very much in the framework that makes Juniper records so magical and rewarding.

‘When She Turns’ – the track that was released ahead of the album to whet our appetites – is a much more muscular affair that, coupled with ‘Fishes’, melds Motorik madness with the swirling, heady, heavy psychedelic rock that is welcomed, even if it might make you leap out of your seat!

It’s not all change – the music you associate with records past is still very much present, with ‘Meadow Song’, ‘She Makes The Sun Shine’, ‘Who Can Say’ are sugary and sweet, clever and gorgeous and ‘Moments Of Truth’ allow for an experience that can only be likened to the pocket symphonies of Brian Wilson when he grew his beard out.

Throughout, the harmonies are green and lush, and the melodies are plucked out of some perfect pop songbook, and there’s baroque, jangle pop, sensational production, DIY rough-and-readiness and all-in-all, we find ourselves bathing in the whole thing, thrilled that they’ve blessed us with an invite into their universe.

You can almost hear the perimeters of their influences expanding ever so gently, with all the usual pillars of their music present, but also, echoes of garage punk, shoegaze, and Paisley Underground’s swirly grittiness.

This is an album worth raving about and utterly essential.

‘The Solid And The Hollow’ is out April 24th and you can pre-order your copy here.

Read the Article on The Pop Corporation Here

IMAGINARY FRIENDS ALBUM REVIEW on MONOLITH COCKTAIL..

 

The Junipers…now then, if I’m not mistaken my band The Bordellos once appeared on a compilation album alongside these lovely lads. The Future Is Bright The Future Is Cloudy or vice versa. Anyway, a fine compilation from many years ago. But I digress once again.

What we have here is the fourth album from the group, and what a cracking little pop gem it is. An album of pure pop, the kind Macca and Gilbert O Sullivan used to make in the early seventies, with a touch of pure 60s pop harmony magic that The Zombies would no doubt write home to their mothers about, and playful psych undertones that yearns for the day when London used to swing  and Russ Sainty used to loiter outside the Bag O Nails with that bunch of dandies The First Impression. Imaginary Friends is a wonderful album filled with quite wonderful songs. And is really made for your record collection.

Read the full review and more on Monolith Cocktail Blog

Buy The Junipers Imaginary Friends here!

JUNIPERS SIDE PROJECT - YELLOW PEGS - ALBUM REVIEW...

 

Yellow Pegs - Yellow Pegs Album Review - Shindig! Magazine - Jan 2022

While everyone and everything is on hiatus, Joe Wiltshire of Leicester psychedelic poppers The Junipers has had time to create this short, home recorded album of largely acoustic, folky material on a four-track cassette recorder. 

Stripped of his main project's usual baroque pop production, tracks do begin and often end abruptly, in improvisatory fashion, but these aren't demos - nor is Wiltshire overly reliant on the wonky lo-fi aesthetic. For one thing, the sheer amount of instrumentation on here is a cut above the usual four-track fare - acoustic guitar, bass, drums, multi-tracked voice, mellotron, celeste, harmonium, piano, the list goes on. But all are used judiciously to produce an accomplished and charming enough set of songs, none of which overstays its welcome, or really even gets comfortable at all - the 16 tracks here take up just 27 minutes. It'll be interesting to see if any get fleshed out for the next Junipers album proper.

BUY YELLOW PEGS ALBUM HERE!!

RED BOUQUET FAIR ALBUM REVIEW in SHINDIG MAGAZINE...

Attention to detail is a hallmark of Leicester's finest on their carefully crafted third album of dreamy pastoral folk and gentle soft-psych.

This is a beautifully understated record, with a deft Left Banke like  lightness of touch, a laidback Byrdsian swagger and a Curt Boettcher sense of wonder.

There are echoes too of modern day contemporaries such as The High Llamas, sandpit reverence on the Beach Boys indebted opening salvo of 'Red Bouquet Fair' and 'Follow Loretta', or a seasoned Teenage Fanclub on the shimmering, sumptuous sunshine pop of 'Esmeranda'.

However The Junipers really come into their own with an array of perfectly executed honey coated harmonies that blend pleasingly with meandering minor chords full of warmth.  They demonstrate a Brian Jones like sense of studio curiosity too, raiding a cupboard full of instrumentation to embellish an already rich canvas, skillfully deploying the likes of sitar, harpsichord, mellotron or ukulele whenever the mood dictates. Nigh on perfect! 
 

PAINT THE GROUND ALBUM REVIEW in SHINDIG MAGAZINE...

 

Where folk and country rock collide with pops soft mesh and shades of the psychedelic, this is where you'll find Paint the Grounds main aspects. Originally a 2012 download affair, this album is a thing of beauty with natural echoes of the modern pastoral in abundance; of meadows soaking up summer rays, of footfalls traipsing through the changing seasons, of shadows lengthening outside tabernacle homes.

Shimmering six and 12-strings and dreaming harmonies are joined occasionally by softly buzzing jaws harp, mellotron and zither, creating a panoply of bliss filled vistas that evoke such disparate, wide eyed spirits as 'Diamond Dew' era Gorky's, Peruvian McCartney worshipers We All Together and, somewhat quizzically, the languid haze of early Ride.

'Willow and the Water Mill', the panoramic glide of 'Antler Season' and joyously sparkling opener 'Look Into My River' are but a few of the goose bump-causing highlights on offer.

CUT YOUR KEY ALBUM REVIEW by BUCKETFULL OF BRAINS MAGAZINE...

 

Remember those early 70's TV commercials which were awash in technicolor, where flora and fauna gently undulated in the background? Well, Cut Your Key, the debut album by these Leicester lads, is the aural equivalent of that, as every song is bursting with kaleidoscopic goodness!

Mixing equal parts baroque, psychedelic, and sunshine pop sensibilities, but with a darker than usual undercurrent (moonshine pop?), songwriter Joe Wiltshire will tantalize your neurons on every turn,marrying a gentleness with a sort of of furtive power, not unlike The Fantastic Something on steroids.

Standout cuts include the Left Banke influenced 'Gordie Can't Swim', the delightful, fairytale like 'Callooh Callay!' and a couple of tunes 'Out My Pocket' and 'Song That Fades Away' which are very much the British equivalent of 60's pych pop legends Sagittarius and The Millennium. Add the down-hominess of 'Already Home' and 'So the Feeling Looms' and The Junipers have an album that will simultaneously give you chills and make you feel warm all over.

CUT YOUR KEY REVIEW on AMERICANA UK...

The Junipers "Cut Your Key" (San Remo Records, 2008

Leicester studio prodigies summon some cloud-dappled sunshine. Although now bolstered by a full band for a forthcoming live onslaught, Leicester’s The Junipers are a duo of home-studio geniuses with a tellingly impressive record collection and if there’s any justice, a rather bright future.

Included within the myriad of sounds they cram onto this concisely crafted album there are definite nods to pastoral folk (‘Fly the Yellow Flag’), country-edged pop (Already Home’), summery psychedelia, and knowingly retro (mainly 60s and Beatle-esque) pop aesthetics (‘Song That Fades Away’, ‘Gordie Can’t Swim’). Featuring a cornucopia of instruments throughout their many brief, sharp, pop journeys, the Junipers have a sound that is naturally textured, warm and mostly quite captivating.

The intriguing and genuinely sad opening song ‘Gordie Can’t Swim’ is a truly superb early highlight, sketching out the troubled life and untimely death of a friend, held up by a fine and simple melody which naturally weaves into lilting ghosts of harmony and a suitably uncertain, evocative end. Complimented by strings, echoes and a beautiful sense of space, it’s so completely perfect in its execution, the ‘repeat’ button on your CD player may well be needed numerous times at this point. Vocally and melodically, the Elliot Smith folk-inflections give proceedings a familiar air, and while its true that sometimes, as with much folk-inspired musings, the ‘twee-o-meter’ can reach an all too high scoring (‘Sheena’ being the prime offender), by cramming 15 tracks into a brief 36 minutes nothing on here truly outstays its welcome.‘Cut Your Key’ably displays two fervently fertile and inspired imaginations with a world of wonderful sound at their disposal. 

Date review added: Thursday, September 11, 2008

Reviewer: Ian Fildes

Reviewers Rating: 7/10

Buy Cut Your Key Here!!

Visit American UK

OLD INTERVIEW with ELIZABETH KLISIEWICZ

 

Leicester, UK group The Junipers might just be the best psych pop group you've never heard. In fact, if like me you're a sucker for exquisitely rendered orchestral pop with a soft psych, folk edge, you're bound to fall hard for their exquisite confections.

Going back to the start, main songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Joe Wiltshire explains he set the group in motion in the usual fashion. Hearing music that inspired him, he remembers, "The Junipers started after I heard the first Emitt Rhodes album. Hearing that, I thought I'd go and get my own recording gear and make my own Emitt Rhodes album. I didn't have the confidence to do it all on myself and I had to get my mate Marc Johnston who lived down the road a few doors away who was into The Beatles and stuff to sing on it. He was the cocky confident one so that worked."

Like many such talented musicians, the band toiled away in relative obscurity, releasing three fine albums. The first dropped in 2008 Cut Your Key and two gorgeous records with singer Robyn Gibson followed. The first with Robyn was 2012's incandescent Paint the Ground, and the best of all, the other is quite possibly 2016's finest record, Red Bouquet Fair. Yet as far as critical acclaim back home goes, Wiltshire opines, "It's been received as well as we'd hoped it would for a small, independent , little-known band". Despite this wry response, eight years ago, the first Junipers album had received raves from from music critics and radio support from the BBC. When asked if they thought they were on the verge of breaking big Wiltshire avers, "When you're in a band and you start getting told you're going to be on the radio, you think, 'That's it, we've done it!' But then we came back down to Earth."

Still Red Bouquet Fair has done relatively well. Explains Gibson, "The albums are quite limited releases, so selling out, for Paint the Ground was pleasingly quick. Red Bouquet Fair has nearly all gone on vinyl too. We think Sugarbush Records are planning another coloured re-press already." And when asked about the long hiatus between their first two LP's, Gibson shrugs, "There's no rush. That's how long it takes us to get an album made. We record songs very gradually, but only in short two or three hour sessions, once or twice a week. I'd be happy to do it everyday, but we do all work and have families and so forth, so we just have to grab the time we can."

Such care taken is obvious when you hear classic tracks such as "Dandelion Man" with it's Love - meets - The Zombies melodic structure. When asked about the influences, the affable gents are all over the map, ranging from The Beach Boys to XTC and The Byrds. No matter the source, it's clear that they've been sipping from some prodigious creative springs, all to treat fans to a beautifully cultivated musical garden. It may take a while, but there will likely be more.

The Junipers - Dandelion Man

PAINT THE GROUND ALBUM REVIEW on SOUNDS GOOD LOOKS GOOD...

 

"Paint The Ground" by THE JUNIPERS – A Review Of The 2012 Album.

GET THE ALBUM HERE!

"…Let The Feeling Flow…" – Paint The Ground by THE JUNIPERS

Initially released in 2012 as a 10-track Download only – someone in Sugarbush Records thinks "Paint The Ground" deserves another shot at stardom – and I’d say when it comes to Leicester’s Folk-Rock act THE JUNIPERS - they'd be right. 

This is a gorgeous little album – chock full of pleasing melodies – and now it’s being reissued in April 2014 with a bonus track on the VINYL LP (“Everywhere Was You” – Track 3 on Side 1). It's a limited edition of 300 copies (with a different sleeve) on Sugarbush SB600.

Stylistically - think a folksy variant of The LA’s with just as many catchy tunes. A sort of English BIG STAR with perhaps a taste of MATTHEWS SOUTHERN COMFORT and even the country melodies of THE JAYHAWKS. The painted art of the front cover might make you think this is perhaps Retro Psych – it isn’t (although the swirling song structures ape that sound at times). The Junipers feel more New Folk than Psych - like a hybrid of all of the above but with the added stew of Sixties Pop like THE ASSOCIATION or even the jangle of THE BYRDS.

Beautifully produced by Gavin Monhagon (Kings Of Leon, The Editors and Ryan Adams) - the opener "Look Into My River" hooks you immediately with its guitars, flute and layered soft vocals - while “Dandelion Man” ups the happy pace to a point where you may feel an uncontrollable urge to place a dandelion in the Afro hair of a foreign student on the London Underground.

“Golden Fields In Golden Sun” is pretty but perhaps takes the hippy lyrics a step too far – but the superb “Antler Season” is a musical nugget that will surely grace a “Juno” type soundtrack any day now. “Phoebus Filled The Town” even has a Steve Hackett guitar vibe (lyrics from it title this review) - sounding not unlike “Horizons” on “Foxtrot" at times. Very tasty indeed…

On the lovely “They Lived Up In The Valley” The Junipers sing of “such a quiet family…kept things to themselves…”

Well when you succumb to this gorgeous album – like me - you won’t be keeping quiet about them or this…well done lads.

EUPHONIOUS TROLLEY EP REVIEW ON JANGLE POP HUB...

 

EP Review: The Junipers - The Junipers Euphonious Trolley EP 1 (2013) (Self-released)

On their previous full length releases, Paint The Ground (2012) and Red Bouquet Fair (2016) The Junipers have shown themselves to be the fine exponents of a heavy psychedelic, Byrdsian vibe that has become their signature sound. 

As such I was very surprised when I eventually purchased a copy of the 2016's 12 String High various artist compilation (released by the Spanish, You Are The Cosmos label) which included a Junipers track (And in my Dreams - see above) that undressed the usual psychedelic influences and just left the most naked pure jangle-pop sound. It was enchanting, but very unlike The Junipers usual style.


Digging about to find out where the track had come from the track I eventually established it was on a 2013 download only EP, advertised with a somewhat absurd cover art and with an equally ridiculous title.

Having downloaded the EP from Bandcamp it soon became obvious that the title was the only thing that was ridiculous about this release as it contains four of the most beautifully pure modern day slices of jangle-pop that has been produced by any genuinely contemporary band in the last 5 years, with the bizarrely named track Jenny Won't Ride the Roller Coaster (see below) heading 15 glorious minutes of aural pleasure.



So why the stylistic change for such a brief interlude? After much internet searching and digging about I eventually found a now defunct blog (last updated in December 2015) which contains an article on the source of this somewhat atypical release (click here for full article from the superb Bite it Deep blog that is actually written by Pete Gough who plays guitar for the band and used his blog as a vehicle to express his appreciation for lost 60's and 70's pop treasures).

Bizarrely this in an EP of 'discards'! These are the tracks that did not fit into their heavy psychedelic vibe as they were considered too 'poppy'. As such it was the intention of the band to release them on a series of EP's under the 'Ephonious Trolley' moniker.

Plainly this self released project may well have been shelved considering their has never been a follow up to this initial volume since 2013 and the original plans (as per the Bancamp profile of this release) to one day produce an album of these poppy discard EP's may now never happen...which is a massive shame as it undoubtedly would have been an essential addition to our collections.

BUY THE EP HERE!

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