Oct 9: Allo Darlin' at EartH Hall

Anglo-Australian indiepop heroes Allo Darlin’ are back with their first new music in a decade. We’re delighted to host them for the London leg of their UK tour - and there’ll be some very special guests joining them on stage.

Support to be announced.

Face value tickets include a £1.50 venue restoration levy.

No questions asked concessions are available for anyone that can't afford a full price ticket, for whatever reason. No eligibility requirements - we trust you.

Tickets on general sale 10am April 9th.

Pre-sale exclusively via the Allo Darlin' mailing list from 10am April 7th - sign up here in advance to get the pre-sale link: allodarlin.com

Allo Darlin' - Tricky Questions [Digital]

Fika Recordings · Allo Darlin' - Tricky Questions

Artist: Allo Darlin’
Title: Tricky Questions
Format: Digital single
Cat#: Fika107SG1
Release date: 2nd April 2025
Bandcamp | Spotify

Allo Darlin' return with new single "Tricky Questions" - their first new music since 2016
Out now via Fika Recordings (UK) & Slumberland Records (USA)
October UK tour, with shows in Nottingham, London, Glasgow and Manchester.

After almost a decade away, Anglo-Australian indiepop quartet Allo Darlin’ are back with their first new music since 2016’s farewell 7” single ‘Hymn On The 45’, and announce a UK tour this October (details below).

New single ‘Tricky Questions’ exhibits Elizabeth's adept skill at taking specific experiences and creating something timeless and universally resonant, and recalls living in Florence having left London:

“There’s a piazza, Piazza della Signoria, not far from where I used to live, where the Palazzo Vecchio is. You used to be able to go and walk right up to the sculptures in the Loggia, but I think now they are roped off and a guard watches over them. The city was full of tourists during the day, but after 9pm, they would all go back to their hotels. That’s when the city came alive to me, and it felt like it was just for us.

"I was really thinking about that place when I wrote this song. I wanted to go back there and soak it all up again. Writing about it helped me feel like I was back there, in a place that is timeless. But of course, more than being about a specific place, this song is really about a relationship and how it makes me feel.”

‘Tricky Questions’ was the first song Elizabeth wrote for a reformed Allo Darlin’, in the early months of the corona pandemic. Indeed, it was the corona pandemic that brought the band back together, while stuck in their isolation in Norway, England and Australia. Missing each other and the music they made together, Allo Darlin’ started having group Zoom calls, and decided that when the pandemic was over, they would become a band again. In early 2023, the band announced that they would play a couple of shows in October of that year in the UK, and the fan response was truly overwhelming.

Tickets sold out in minutes, with fans travelling from all over the world, and the band had to upgrade their London show to a venue twice the size of the original. It seemed like their fans had missed Allo Darlin’ as much as they had missed each other. 

Live Dates

5th April - Cologne PopFest, Germany
7th October - Nottingham, Old Cold Store
9th October - London, EartH Hall
10th October - Glasgow, Stereo
11th October - Manchester, Yes Pink Room

Tickets on sale Wednesday 9th April 10am
Pre-sale for all dates via the Allo Darlin’ mailing list from Monday 7th April 10am - sign up via allodarlin.com

Allo Darlin' were formed in 2008 after Australian Elizabeth Morris arrived in London and bought a ukulele from the Duke of Uke shop in Shoreditch. Like a whole host of Australian musicians before her, Morris had headed to London to realise her musical ambitions, a young woman with the small instrument in the big city with even bigger ideas.  Once there happenstance, chance encounters and a Bruce Springsteen cover for a compilation would all conspire to create the crack squad that has endured, Morris being joined by fellow Brisbanite Bill Botting and the British duo of Michael Collins and Paul Rains.

From its first line (“Will you go out with me tonight, lose it on a disco floor?”), their self-titled debut released in 2010 fizzed with the effervescent, intoxicating energy and excitement of the opportunities and experiences it offered. From frosty night buses through to fiscal inadequacy and everything in between, it was an album which presented the city as a blank canvas where everything was fair game for romanticising and celebrating, and a world where most of life's tribulations could be solved with the warm embrace of a loved one. Fresh, bright and unashamedly hopeful and idealistic, blissful exuberance ran through it like the sound of a band in love with being in a band.

Writing in his 1200 word essay on the album for Australia's The Monthly (later featuring in his writing compilation Ten Rules Of Rock And Roll), former Go-between Robert Forster suggested that the band “now have doors open before them”. Thus follow-up Europe could be viewed as the album The Go-Betweens dared them to make, culminating in the sparkling pop perfection (and throwback to Morris' native Queensland) of lead single 'Capricornia'. Their sophomore effort simultaneously looked at the Europe of her present alongside the Australia of her past, offering a stunning reflection on belonging and sense of place and a band at their most dazzlingly technicolour that built on the eagerness and immediacy of the debut with contemplation, sophistication and ambition.

Successor, 2014’s ‘We Come From The Same Place’ dwelt on belonging in terms of new beginnings and documented Morris' journey into a new chapter in her life, resulting in an album that saw her flit between the uncertainty of starting anew and post-resettlement confidence.

Allo Darlin's songs work because, to borrow from Don Draper's Kodak Carousel pitch in Mad Men, they take us to a place where we feel loved. Emotional trust falls, they often take us to parts of ourselves we've either suppressed or have yet to discover and then are always there to catch us if and when we get there.

Mar 16: Bill Botting & The Two Drink Minimums + Elizabeth Morris (Allo Darlin') + Jessica's Brother

Come join us on the 16th March at The Shacklewell Arms - Bill’s back from Australia for one week only (again) - and we’re throwing a bit of a party! For the first time since Allo Darlin’s farewell gig 2 and a bit years, Elizabeth, Paul, Bill and Mikey will all be together in a room again. Paul and Mikey are joining Bill’s band for the night, and Elizabeth is flying in especially to play a solo set.

That's Bill (Allo Darlin'), with a band that features members of Allo Darlin' (that'll be both Paul 'Thunder' Rains and Mikey 'Cowbell' Collins), plus heroes from Tigercats, The Wave Pictures, The Surfing Magazines and other legendary acts!

That's Elizabeth (Allo Darlin')! Her first show in London for literally years!

That's Jessica's Brother! Literally Jessica's Brother. That's Tom, along with Charlie and Johnny 'Huddersfield' Helm.

All star filled line-up for a starry Saturday night.

Advance tickets from wegottickets.com/fikarecordings and from Dice.

Mikey Collins joins the Fika family

We're so happy to be able to say Mikey Collins has joined the Fika Recordings family. You might know Mike from his time behind the drums with Allo Darlin', or his work at Big Jelly Studios, but now he's finished his debut solo album and will be releasing it with Fika in August.

Today marks the release of the first track from that album - the single is called Sound in Here and it premiered over at Clash Music on Wednesday.

Hoick by Mikey Collins

Making Marks on tour

Making Marks are off on tour around Germany and France supporting Allo Darlin'. Catch them at the dates below below! 17.11.12 – Lido, Berlin (DE) 18.11.12 – TBA, Jena (DE) 19.11.12 - Blaue Fabrik, Dresden (DE) 20.11.12 – Astra Stube, Hamburg (DE) 21.11.12 - Die hängende Gärten, Köln (DE) 22.11.12 - Workshop of Dorian Rollin, Ribeauville (FR) 23.11.12 - L’Internationale, Paris (FR) 24.11.12 - Le Rouge, Lille (FR)

You can buy their debut 7" single Ticket Machine from the Fika Recordings webshop.

Allo Darlin' - Europe [Cassette]

This is one of the most exciting things Fika Recordings have gotten involved in so far. We've been asked to put out a super limited edition (100 only) cassette version of Allo Darlin's second album, Europe. I'm busy making them at the moment, and it'll be quite some package. Every cassette will be handmade and hand numbered, and will come with a digital download code, a bag of Allo Darjeelin' tea, a recipe for Elizabeth's mum's Sacher Torte, and a very small 16 page artwork and lyric booklet.

You can pre-order the album on cassette from us now - we'll be shipping when the album is released in Europe at the start of May.

The ever reliable Fortuna Pop will be releasing Europe in Europe on CD, LP and digital; while the lovely Slumberland Records will be putting the album out on the other side of the Atlantic. Thanks to them both for asking us to get involved - it is a delight to be involved in releasing what is a mighty fine record.