The Driscolls - PC Roberts

Late '80s jangle-pop band from Bristol whose entire recorded output seems to consist of a handful of 7"s and compilation tracks. Most of which are worth tracking down, if not exactly essential.

This is from a 1987 cassette comp which mostly features bands of equal obscurity, though there are tracks from the McTells, Mayfields and Haywains - as well as a familiar one credited to "The Palesaints".

Graeme Elston - Take Me Back to Ealing

Lovely track from Graeme Elston (Eva Luna, Love Parade etc) which I think is an exclusive to last year's Indietracks compilation. There's a very '80s soft jangle-pop feel to it; it's one of those songs you'll swear you've heard before, even if you haven't.

The Golden Rule - Now I Hear the Train

This is a really nice little piece of gentle jangly guitar pop. Chicago band, from a self-titled 2009 EP.

Dream Diary - Something Tells Her

Yet another Brooklyn band, this one specialising in clear pure indiepop that brings to mind such greats as the Razorcuts and Poole. This is from their 2011 debut album, You are the Beat.

Everything But the Girl - Riverbed Dry

B-side to the 1984 "Native Land" single, which I've already posted. I think it's really quite a majestic little piece in its own way. Tracey's voice kills me on it, but then, it usually does.

 

Sensible Jerseys - Go to Work

Lately I've posted a lot of great bands with crap names so here's a band with a great name. Who weren't a crap band, if that's where you thought I was going with this.

On the other hand, they weren't a great band, either. They didn't really have time to be, appearing and disappearing all in the one year (1985), and their extremely limited output really did no more than hint at what they could have been. Pleasant jangly guitar pop, sounded great, but the tunes were kind of average. At least the ones they had time to release before splitting up, like this, the b-side to their second and last single.

I think they were from London, but I could be entirely wrong on that.

In Embrace - This Brilliant Evening

They had a terrible name but this Coventry band might have had a very bright future ahead of them in the world of mid-1980s jangle pop, if only their label (Glass) hadn't evaporated and taken a whole album's worth of unreleased material with it. In Embrace did, however, have the good fortune to release a couple singles on Cherry Red, like this one from 1985. It's our good fortune too because without that label's fondness for compilation albums, I suspect they would have disappeared down the memory hole entirely.

28th Day - I'm Only Asking

28th Day's first and only album, released in 1985, didn't get much attention at the time and isn't remembered by many now but it was a pretty nice collection of folk-tinged jangly guitar pop - the kind then being played on college radio stations across the US. One of their singers, Barbara Manning, went on to greater renown as a solo artist and collaborator with the likes of Stephen Merritt and Stuart Moxham.

This is a haunting little track from that album.

The Lodger - A Year Since Last Summer

Leeds band active since the mid-2000s but recalling all your favourite '80s indie/jangle-pop. My only reservation about them is I'm not mad about the vocals, but the songs are (mostly) strong enough to compensate.

This is a track from their second album, 2008's Life is Sweet.

East River Pipe - Make a Deal With the City

A lovely song from 1993's Goodbye California, from a band I'm not normally that enthusiastic about. (They were actually a project of Fred Cornog rather than a proper band, but let's not split hairs.) ERP started off on Sarah and ended up on Merge - a label which, in the 1990s, I always associated with a distinctly US South aesthetic - and I don't think it was so much a change in musical direction as a case of them finally reaching their natural home. You can hear a lot of that sort of Mitch Eastery '60s-influenced pop even in their early material, though with considerably less slick production.

Anyway, whatever about the rest of their music, this is a gorgeous track in its own right.

Number 4 Joystreet - Flowers

Kind of a strange little band, Number 4 Joystreet, from Somerset in southwest England, combined jangly guitars, violin, cello and really high-pitched female vocals to, erm, interesting effect. Even I find them a little too precious for anything more than small doses at a time. But those small doses can be very nice.

This was a b-side to a 1986 single, "Watch the World".

The Bangles - Going Down to Liverpool

The BBC had a programme on last weekend about girl groups. It spent a decent amount of time on the Bangles, but unfortunately, it was all in their crap phase (ie after Prince discovered them). So I thought I'd post another one from their 1984 debut album, All Over the Place, which remains one of the finest collections I've ever heard of '60s influenced girlpop. And around these parts, we love '60s influenced girlpop.

I'm not sure how many people know this was a Katrina and the Waves cover. It's not terribly different from the original, though the harmonies are nicer.

East Village - Meet the Wife

Overlooked late '80s jangle-pop band from Princes Risborough, England, wherever the hell that is (and seriously, who on earth thought that was a good name for a town?). Their singles were compiled for a 1994 collection on Summershine called Hotrod Hotel, and listening to it you can sort of see why they were overlooked: though pleasant enough, there wasn't anything particularly memorable about their music. No real stand-out tracks on the collection, either, but this is one of the nicer ones.

Very Truly Yours - Girls Tell You Secrets

I know I've been posting a lot of girlpop lately but...but...well, just listen. This is a band from Chicago whose first single was released only last year, though its jangly guitars are straight out of a Housemartins record. Then the vocals kick in and...swoon.

A song that ticks all my boxes.

The Mayfields - Seasons Pass

Another great tune from the long-lost Mayfields, sounding very much like the Razorcuts here. I think you will agree it's a dreadful shame they didn't leave us with more before they disappeared.

This appeared on the K7 compilation Somethings Burning in Paradise, from 1988.

The Spinning Wheels - That's the Question

Great piece of fast-paced jangly indiepop from 1990. Band was from Brighton, apparently, don't know anything else about them.

Men of Westenesse - The Coldest Water

The only single ever released by this Essex band, although they had enough material for a retrospective collection to be issued a couple years ago. Great jangly guitar pop that must have already sounded a bit retro when it came out in 1989.

Lorelei - Sometimes...

B-side to "The Bitter Air", an early (1991) Slumberland 7" from this DC band who never recorded anything like this again (they lost their singer shortly after its release; she would later reappear in Racecar, who've made a couple appearances on this blog). The a-side is a slow, pretty atmospheric track but it's always been this one that's really grabbed me: a Perfect Pop tune with jangly guitars and heavenly female vocals. Where could you go wrong?

The Grooveyard - Summer

From Brighton, apparently, but that's about all that I know about them.

This song appeared on the Uncle Arthur's Pop Parlour cassette compilation in 1987 and on a split flexi with "Sleepyhead" by Ever (which is also on Uncle Arthur) the following year. It's a great little piece of jangly-pop-with-flute. Terrible mixing, but who cares.

Four Million Telephones - If I Was There

Another rare finding by Wilfully Obscure, these were an apparently Lincoln-based late '80s band playing mildly jangly guitar pop. Not a lot to write home about here but I think this track, one of the b-sides from this 1988 EP, is rather nice.