Honeybunch - I Won't Stand In Your Way

A track that never made it onto any proper Honeybunch release, and only saw the light on their compilation album Time Trials 1987-1995. It says something about the quality of a band when even their outtakes are this good. True, it's not really a patch on their previous entry at this blog (here), but then there aren't many songs anywhere that reach those heights. This one is perfectly charming in its own right.

Moped - Window Shopping

Moped were from New Jersey but released their lone album, the splendidly-titled It Won't Sound Any Better Tomorrow, on the Australian Summershine label. It was kind of typically mid-'90s boy/girl indie music, somewhere on the continuum that exists in my head between indiepop and indie rock - nothing you couldn't live without, but enjoyable enough. You can download it here.

Blindside - Barely a Glimmer

Another shoegazey indie-rock band on Australia's Summershine label. Actually, they sound a lot like their label-mates Jupiter ... at a similar level of so-so-ness, too. (I know that's not a word, but I thought "mediocrity" would be too harsh.)

This is from their first (and last?) album, Hopes Rise, from 1992.

The Earthmen - Blonde

A lovely track from Melbourne's Earthmen, from their 1992 EP Teen Sensations on the chronically underachieving Summershine label. Most of the rest of their stuff wasn't this good, unfortunately.

Autohaze - Put it Together

I've said before that I always thought the Summershine label - Australia's answer to Sarah, Slumberland etc - was a shadow of its northern-hemisphere counterparts. Autohaze are a good example of this. Their sound had all the right elements; you could hear the right influences there, from C86 to twee to shoegaze. But they never quite added up to anything special, and I always wanted to like them much more then I ever actually did.

This is from a 1992 EP, 27 Air.

Tender Engines - Girl From The Hinterland

Another band off Summershine, the premier Australian indiepop label of the early 1990s. As I've noted previously, that label wasn't really up to the standards of its contemporaries in Britain and the US, and Tender Engines were no exception, at least on the evidence of the With Regret EP which this is from. Still, pleasant enough.

This will be the last post for a while as I'm off on Christmas holliers. I can't believe when I come back I'll have to create a new "decade" tag!

Nollaig shona...

Jupiter - Leave the Ground

Summershine was Australia's equivalent of Sarah or Slumberland (notice the pattern?), the early 90s label of its country for indiepop kids. Only problem is, most of its bands weren't great. Pleasant and enjoyable enough, sure, but they never put out anything I'd really consider essential. Still worth a listen if you're into that sort of thing, and I assume you are if you're here.

This is from Jupiter's album Arum, which has a couple really strong tracks and a lot of stuff that's almost good, but not quite. In that sense it kind of epitomises the label as a whole.