When psychedelic and ambient meet in an apocalyptic folk based extravaganza. It's unbelievable that this LP isn't a massive cult album in avant/psych folk or new age-y ambient circles because this pioneering work is a masterstroke of atmospheric ethno-psychedelia.
An orchestra of two Polish men Grzegorz Banaszakon on guitars and Jan A P Kaczmarek playing a zither (Fidola Fishera), Synthesiser, piano, flute, recorder, vocals and percussion
Muzyka na koniec I think translates as Music For The End. A totally compelling cosmic-pagan jam that's mysterious, mystical and sometimes unsettling. One of the great unknown and unconventional records of its ilk, this has surprisingly never been issued on cd or had a reissue since the 80s.
Mars: Requiem is an impressive blend of oratario and 90s industrial flavours. Placing liturgical vocals amongst a dystopian post industrial landscape creates a creepy and ominous effect then at other times it feels pretty sacred and devotional. Some relate these ancient vocal stylings as demonic opera but that probably has more to do with pop culture's inclusion of such music in horror movies but then again who knows what the intentions were. Actually some of the more bombastic tunes from Mars: Requium would have been perfect for a game or movie soundtrack while the more solemn songs would be more suited to being heard in a cathedral.
It would be pretty hard not to be touched by this minimal avant-folk LP. It's an improv chamber jam like no other. The opening eight minute track Primo Quadro della Conoscenza is the spectacular high point here: Gorgeous, delicate, mysterious, sparse and haunting.
It all puts me in mind of a time when my younger self romantically thought there was a possibility of living a life like an art film where the aesthetics of the surrounding landscape were to feature in importance and prominence. It was going to be wintry secluded hills in the woods in a minimally furnished cabin-esque farmhouse where the evenings would feature wine, women and song and society and the state would be far from your mind. A life combining the voluptuous, epicurean and contemplative to an integrated cosmic level was the dream not the wretched unrelenting circumstances of reality.
Ye olde and modern collide in this ambient medieval psych-folk jam from Poland. Haunting folk horror vibes. Apparently the subject matter is rather grim and macabre. The sorta thing you would have expected 4AD to release back in the day and as good as anything they did put out in this vein. Perfect music for tonight, the bleakest midwinter's night this year. Despite the fire crackling away me and the dog aren't sure who is coldest.
LO-fi hypnagogic goodness that goes from romantic to creepy to ecstatic and more. He's tapping into the lost subconscious for a peak deep sonic dreamscape where all sorts of forgotten and unthought things are bubbling away. A hazy and haunted trip-out of glorious proportions.
The pint size psych pop maestro is in unexpected fine form in 2025.
Durutti Column - Lips That Would Kiss/Madeline [1980]
You will be charmed and enchanted by the debut 7" of Vinni Reilly's sublime mesmerising guitar exploits put through the Martin Hannet ringer. Fragile, sweet and odd.
Durutti Column often get lost in the history of post-punk, the development of 80s guitar music, all things ethereal and being a key influence on future genres like dream pop, shoegaze, UK post-rock, hypnagogia etc. Durutti Column are not just some footnote though, they are the big bang... well more like the gentle rippling waves of the oscillating universe...
Vinni Reilly captures the beauty and melancholy of our lives, everything in between and more. Capturing the ineffable is what art is for and Reilly excels in this pursuit. There is so much unnecessary bullshit put out into the world it's hard not to be touched when somebody is generous enough to create such poignant and exquisite music for you to enjoy.
If Gary Numan turned into Cookie Monster and started playing doom metal maybe it would sound like this. One of the stranger anomalies in the history of 20th century pop. Disco-Doom or as somebody said aesthetically it's Disco Grover meets Cookie Monster. It's got vague hints of French cosmic, 80s action/sc-fi/horror soundtracks, zuehl, Goblin, Archaïa, Heldon, Chrome, F/i, new wave, synth-pop, space-rock, heavy metal etc. but really this German duo's debut LP defies categorisation and is in a genre all of its own.
Keeping up the theme of all things sunshine. Beach Boys and Swans are pretty much the same really, sun and fun.
You know what's funny, when this came out Swans were perceived as so passé hardly anybody even noticed. I recall a small article in The Wire and one dude on the radio in Melbourne played tunes from The Great Annihilator so I would be curious what the sales figures were. A year later after releasing the follow up LP Soundtracks For The Blind they broke up because the lack of financial stability had become so stressful they couldn't even sustain running the band.
In a turn of events that is still surprising to me Swans returned in the 2010s after a thirteen year hiatus to immense critical acclaim and an unforeseen surge in popularity. Somehow in their absence a huge cult following featuring a younger generation of devoted fans had formed. Soundtracks For The Blind had become a cult phenomenon online to rival other cult records of the 90s like Spiderland, When The Kite String Pops, Stratosphere and In An Aeroplane Over The Sea. I'm guessing their influence on Godspeed You Black Emperor was also a key factor to their meteoric post-millennial rise.
Song For The Sun - Swans [1991]
Another Beach Boys-esque tune to get you in your Little Deuce Coup headed to the coast for some surfing fun in the sun and beach babe action. Michael Gira the most fun man in rock with the sunniest disposition!
Where the Beach Boys pay tribute to the music that inspired them in the early days. This is a cover of Freddy Cannon's #3 hit from 1962. Carl absolutely kills this vocal performance. Also featuring great fairground organ lead break for peak Americana nostalgia. The good ole days when everything was way more innocent, even the creepy stuff. The Beach Boys are America's band but also they're Australia's.
There's refined radio friendly Beach Boys then there's deranged scuzzy Beach Boys and much in-between but hey its all Beach Boys. Many can't hack the rough unhinged and lo-fi version but for those that can handle it there's a load of wild stuff. I mean they sometimes get so goofy its like outsider music at times... And they are retarded aren't they... like they've got arrested development, grown blokes stuck with 15 year old boy brains. In a way they're keepin' it pure with these adolescent rock'n'roll concerns and startling strange music that's so abrupt you can't ignore it.
A young Mike Love at a vocal peak here on this tune penned by Brian Wilson. Many moons later It was credited to Wilson/Love after legal action, there was no love lost between these two cousins. Creating a Christmas classic is no mean feat and here The Beach Boys entered the Christmas pop culture lexicon forever.
By this stage, the Brian's Back era, The Beach Boys were post-modern whether they knew it or not. Everything about this is fan-fucking-tastic: The melody, the words, the sentiments, the impeccable Brian production, the expansive harmonies, the hand claps, Brian on the fucking Moog!
You don't hear this ever on golden oldies radio here but it's an undeniable feel good hit of the summer.
The fuckin' best!
Find a ride
In the sum-sum-summertime It's OK
it's alright
Dennis on the outro... two Dennis' in fact!
Dennis
Dennis
*Roy Wood guests on drums
**The sound and vibe here are a precursor to Brian's great 00s solo LP That Lucky Old Sun.
***Also surely this is the inspiration for several sunny tunes on Ariel Pink's Before Today.
Beach Boys fans know this as a tune originally from Wild Honey but some insane people prefer this rerecorded disco version. The legendary Curt Boettcher (The Millennium/Sagittarius) along with Bruce Johnson were behind the production on this one. The ten minute version took up most of side two of L.A. (Light Album) however this is the 7 inch single edit of the tune. Many fans hated it as did guitarist Al Jardine.
[1967]
The Wild Honey LP is an underrated masterpiece. Its got a harder stripped back r&b vibe compared to the sophisticated psych pop of the previous two records. Like the rest of the album Here Comes The Night is heavy on the piano, bass and organ: A very nifty proto lo-fi sound. I do love it when Brian has a sing on Beach Boys songs.
This is a neat medley of the record that the Beach Boys scheduled to put out to follow up the strange synth pop odyssey Beach Boys Love You (1977) but Mike Love and Al Jardine ixnayed Brian's plans for that and made a different album instead called M.I.U. Album (1978).
The Beach Boys - Hey Little Tomboy [1978]
The one tune they salvaged from the abandoned Adult/Child project for the M.I.U. Album was this peak weird Brian tune. A lost classic. Many don't realise that Brian is a fucking hilarious dude because he's often so deadpan. He was one funny fellow!
A dark psychedelic dream pop classic. Mournful tones give way to a mesmerising kaleidoscope of ecstatic sound that gets so fervent it spirals off into the stratosphere leaving the gloom behind for the heavens.
Every Road Leads Home - Breathless (1986)
Another soaring hypnotic tune that detours into hair raising menacing sonic excursions before returning to the waves of celestial atmosphere and empyrean euphoria. Then the swirling gets so frenzied it's confusing and hard to distinguish if it's ominous or uplifting. An incredible dreamscape depiction where puzzling emotions are conjured: Foreboding joy.
Breathless – The Glass Bead Game (Full Album) [1986]
Breathless? Who were they again? You may ask. Well for a start singer Dominic Appleton sang The Jeweller, The Strength Of Strings and I Am The Cosmos on the second and third This Mortal Coil albums. Surprisingly however they weren't signed to 4AD despite being the archetypal 4AD band. Breathless bridged the gap between goth-y post punk and dream pop. At once a throwback and a glimpse into the future, the tried and true gloomy atmosphere and the future ecstatic sonic spirit that groups like Slowdive, The Church, Panda Bear etc. would later incorporate into their sound.
It's surprising a group like Breathless weren't more famous back in the day or even now while Chameleons, The Sound, And Also The Trees, Sad Lovers And Giants etc. who also weren't all that renowned either have fanatical cult followings amongst the younger generations online today. Breathless don't seem to be as highly regarded for some reason yet they might be more innovative with their sonic explorations expanding beyond the limitations of genre. Perhaps it's because those aforementioned groups were more about successfully nailing the tone of the style in that specific moment rather than experimenting by pushing the boundaries and creating new possibilities. Transcending the gloom of the era by injecting surreal trip-outs and euphoria into the mix was their masterstroke.
On The Glass Bead Game gloomy post-punk, eerie tribal ominousness, ecclesiastical tones and dreamy neo-psych gloriously collide in a splendid atmospheric vision....
The debut Neats EP came out the same year as spiritually similar records like Mission Burma's Vs, Dream Syndicate's Days Of Wine And Roses,Chronic Town from REM etc. yet today many aren't aware of these Boston legends. Evocative and moody lyricism was combined with clean edgy dark strumming. These driving instrumental workouts would go on a really intense journey with chiming jangles offering a reprieve. This was supreme shadowy art rock.
Rocking your dystopian nightmare hard in psych-post-punk electro manner.
The Hands Of Cain didn't release a record during their existence in the 80s but somebody tracked down these lost tapes, digitally restored them and in 2009 the compilation LP The Only Sound was released.
The Hands Of Cain - Pristine Passion [1983]
Mental psychedelic goth jam with ott anthemic synth touches.
The Hands Of Cain - Two Steps To The End [1984]
Absurd Bowie-isms, phased drummage, classic goth bass, gloomy synths, Barney-esque one string guitar lines and dark space rock flourishes all put through a gothic echo chamber.
The Hands Of Cain - Deadlips [1983]
These guys could get pretty weird too with their fx, synths, psych guitars and echoed vocals. This one's for fans of early Chrome.
Spotlight paid homage to old school electro with its vocoder robot amongst the woozy noir funk.
The funky trip hop hop sounds of pioneer Wagon Christ get a bit forgotten in the historic lineage of plunderphonics to sampledelia to instrumental hip hop to hauntology to whatever but he was a master of the nocturnal downtempo tune.
Back in the day when it all used to, literally, be all about the beats. Sometimes all I ever heard in a tune was the beats, the actual beats and we were beat connoisseurs.
Apocalyptic noisey ambient drone classic. It's got the feeling and texture of Daydream Nation and F#A#∞ without the Beatles rock band dynamics and instrument definition just a crushing, chaotic and catastrophic looming clusterfuck of a sound. Drowner Yellow Swans is ominous hovering amorphous sludge and yet it still feels a bit like a rock album because of the loud propulsive racket created containing an array of swirling and fluctuating distorted tones and hidden melodies. The band described it as their gonzo psych rock record... er just don't go looking for a beat or anything.
The dawning of a new age with dazzling displays of acoustic guitar prowess. Hedges conjures a trompe l'oeil affect creating picturesque splendour and an exquisite spacious atmosphere. On Aerial Boundaries he explores his instrument to its maximum potential pushing the American primitive folk-prog thing out into another dimension. However daggy it may be, it's an undeniable jam.
A barnstorming slice of neo-psych dream-gaze. Great drummage!
Difference Engine - Breadmaker [1994] [Full LP]
Totally missed these guys at the time as they were a bit late to the gazing of the shoe party but I gotta say Difference Engine's 1994 cd Breadmaker is top tier second wave shoegaze. They had a real tight nit band aura and thankfully weren't doing exact replicas of the genre's pioneers. Amongst the dreamy atmospheres and ethereal reverberations they would sometimes whip up an incredible disorientating maelstrom. Pretty psychedelic and hypnotic.
Get mesmerised.
*The final track at 35:08 is a bonus track added to the 2015 Breadmaker reissue cd. It was originally recorded a year later for the unreleased follow up album. To me it doesn't really fit and the album should always end with the spectacular epic Epiphany...
Difference Engine - Epiphany [1994]
The aforementioned spectacular epic that closes the original cd. Epiphany is an xpressway to your disintegration today and forever.
The opening 22 minute title track to Cat System Corp's Palm Mall. The vague distant muzak reverberations and the field recorded atmospheric buzz of shoppers and mall staff in Palm Mall, as opposed to the rest of the album's vaporwave tunes, has become a minor ambient landmark in certain quarters. A sound design triumph, this soundscape is a soft, wistful, immersive and hypnagogic journey that needs to be experienced at least once.
Strangely soothing and serene consumerism ambience - Have a nice day.
A vaporwave eccojam video masterpiece. They sample and loop Kate's Wuthering Heights with the looped slow mo vision of a Pepsi Cola ad featuring legendary 90s supermodels Bridget Hall, Tyra Banks and Cindy Crawford.
*Who the hell would deliberately choose to drink Pepsi when you could have the greatest soft drink/soda/pop of them all Coke?
A classic plunderphonic exotica jam with possibly a ye olde Esquivel record on the turntables add in loops and fx, all done in real time. Experimental avant-garde is better when it's fun.
When noise becomes ambient, ultra minimalistic and psychedelic. To me it sounds like relentless weather occurring on my roof for an hour. Someone described this as every sound all at once. You could just listen to the first few seconds to get what the entire hour sounds like but that would be missing the point. The hour needs to be experienced.
The first comment on yt says:
"No ideas, no change, no development, no entertainment, no remorse" - Vomir.
I'm not sure if the dude behind Vomir said that but it's pretty cool except of course there is an idea behind it and disappointingly there is a slight alteration to the sound in the final few minutes. You could just stop it at the 57 minute mark to keep the concept pure.
Actually it's worth trawling through the comments, these people are funny and insightful. Here are some other great quotes on the internet about this piece of sound.
"This is what I imagine the sun sounds like"
"Very quickly I started seeing stuff"
"Finally, something relaxing to listen to"
"Its like being dead"
"This cured my anxiety"
"It's psychedelic stuff"
"It just stays there and doesn't do anything at all for an hour when it ends just as abruptly as it had started"
"This shit is great for studying/concentration"
"Such a bop"
"It's like when I was 9 and used to stick my head out the car window"
"Great for noise cancellation, can't hear my mom"
"No art, no soul, no creativity"
"How to Vomir: Press REC on your phone, open your car's windows while driving on the highway, hold your phone out of the car's window for one hour (be careful not to drop it)"
DIY lo-fi outsider pop from the 80s Japanese cassette underground.
Cosmic Colors is like a naive art version of city pop. Pure beauty and innocence sans the too slick soulless sheen.
This guy released over 35 cassettes in the space of five years from 1981 to 1985. None of these albums were issued outside Japan. Cult status in the western world awaits for K. Yoshimatu.
[1982]
K. Yoshimatu - Spherical Voyage
Low key evocative minimal instrumental spacey ambience juxtaposed with strange almost cartoon-like clangorous percussion.
This cassette seems like a precursor to hypnagogia with its vaguely psych prog aura mixed with echo-y new age touches.
[1985]
Juma - Lunar Lavender
Juma is a K Yoshimatu alias. This guy's just got a knack for gorgeous guitar and synth melodies, like he just can't help it.
From the noise-y ambient drone end of hypnagogia was Bermuda Link and their underground limited run c-30 cassette Exit. This is the outer limits of music, if it's even music at all. More like the sound of trying to tune a radio dial on a spaceship in another galaxy but the signal is jammed and all you get is is an interrupted transmission with confusing hints of life and music amongst the static and blurred radio waves.
Bringing you all the misses of the 70s with divine funky grooves, splendid symphonic arrangements and luscious melodies. Na Boca do Sol is the ultimate in baroque samba soul.
Starts out with glistening Vini Reilly-esque guitars then goes into hypnotic daydream pop elation years before dream pop was used as a label to describe what AR Kane were uo to and way before shoegaze or original post-rock. This tune was on that top compilation Fingertracks: Vol 1 from 5 or 6 years ago which i just happened to listen to this golden autumnal afternoon in my backyard. I still know nothing about Rick Cuevas but I am curious as to whether his music goes down a more dreamy jangly route or further into trippy echo chamber laden pop opulance Arthur Russel style. Then again it might just be a one off anomaly.
I was going to say this is the best unknown song from 1984 but a quick look on spotify reveals it has now been played over two million times.
Like a BBC sports theme but with great drummage. It gets pretty off the wall for a minute in the middle thanks to the guitar shenanigans of the legendary Alan Holdsworth. Synth goodness supplied by Egg/Khan/Hatfield & The North keyboardist Dave Stewart.
One of the most bittersweet songs ever. Great strings and George Harrison-esque lead break, outdoing America at their own game! We've all been there and this just perfectly encapsulates the emotion of a relationship you know was fun but it was always gonna end so just be glad that it ever happened at all. A song you couldn't write if you weren't ever fully living life in the moment. Vivaciously upbeat yet actually kinda devastating.
These dudes were one hit wonders reaching the top 20 in both the US and Canadia but just missing the top 40 here down under.
Haunted and hypnotic. These are ancient deep psychedelic jams.
Described as doing for rebetika what The Caretaker did for ye olde ballroom music. Rebetika aka rembetika aka rebetiko was a pastiche of urban Greek folk and traditional European music that was popular from the late 19th century to the 1950s. Aeson Zervas re-animates this outmoded exotic music by putting it through a hypnogogic echo chamber. It's a mysterious tripped out ethereal nostalgia trip. Discombobulating.
Epic banging industrial electro. EBM synthwave. Dark funky horror synth. Wave wave and waves and waves of intense darkened retrowaves. What they now call darksynth.
When I started this blog I was following a few mysterious acts with zero music press attention and minimal internet footprints Miami Nights 1984, Lazerhawk and ActRazer. They were all on the Rosso Corso Records doing retro-licious 80s synth action soundtrack gear with elements of disco, jock rock, synth-funk and whatever else for your cruisin' pleasure. The title given to this micro micro-genre was outrun which I guess was eventually subsumed into the synthwave subgenre. The acts on Rosso Corso all fitted in with parallel stuff going on at the time like Zombi and at the synthy horror end of hypnagogia/vapour-wave acts on Not Not Fun like Sand Circles, Umberto and Xander Harris.
Anyway on their third album Skull & Shark (2013)Lazerhawk eventually melded the 80s neon kitsch vibe with the throwback horror synth vibe and, unknown to me at the time, ended up in a place later named darksynth which was a scene in its infancy (beginning the previous year) made up of acts like Perturbator, Carpenter Brut and Mega Drive. Seven years later we end up with Vandalism by Masked doing music that resembles hard late 80s/early 90s ebm/electro industrial rather than, say, the soundtrack to Knight Rider.
Power - Lazerpunk [2018]
Academic Agent recently made a video resource on the youtubes which was a pretty successful attempt at a comprehensive guide to the darksynth micro genre from what I can gather. His guide alerted me to all things darkened synthwave after Lazerhawk's Skull & Shark. He included this harsh dark bangin' EBM-esque cyberpunk number which couldn't be more far removed from the chilled cruising and neon tropical vibes of synthwave.
Recently somebody smart rebranded 00s to early 10s hipsters as "Indie Sleaze" thus stripping it of its beyond the paleness, irrelevance and obsolescence in cultural cache terms as in "that shit is never coming back" so voilà it's now re-cycled and maybe even cool again... whatever all that means... wouldn't it be great if it meant the retarded ideological conformity of the last 15 years in the music industry was finished and now artists can go back to thinking and doing whatever the fuck they want without the fear of pitchfork mobs forming to destroy their livelihoods or blackmail them for not toeing the line.
Anyway... Snow Strippers' Know My Name sounds like prime 2009 witch house.
Snow Strippers - Again [2023]
Trash is the name of the game and it's certainly achieved here in a fake moronic kinda way.
Snow Strippers - Achin Like It's [2024]
Snow Strippers have got like 30 videos on their barely three year old youtube channel. Reckless youthful abandon in scuzzy dilapidated middle America is the vibe in most of them.
All the electro/disco/trance/house put through an electro-clash bubblegum-techno-pop ringer and tranced even further for the retro hipster rave in your bedroom.
Snow Stripper - Only Way Out [2022]
When you think maybe they pressed the crappy low-key trance preset button too many times then all of a sudden you realise this is one of the most tripped out ethereal jams ever,
Snow Strippers - Tragic Surprise [2022]
Electro-synthwave-chillwave with lil' mesmerising hooks.
Also the video is pretty iconic: T-shirt for a flag. Bare breasts for America. Patriotic!
Stop the press! This is a brand new record released just yesterday!
All your eerie gothic ambient sound design flavours combined for a dark woozy 2025 anthem. Glitchy ethereal wave to witchy nightmare gaze, VIZ might just become your new favourite gloomy sonic sorcerer.
Angel's Throat - VÍZ
More woozy shenanigans as dream pop shifts into a gloomy electroacoustic nightmare. The Black Lodge relocated to rural Lost Highways of Transylvania.
The most orthodox and least talked about of all the Flying Nun janglers. Sneaky Feelings' 1984 LP Send You is still a pretty underrated low key triumph despite gaining some belated acclaim ten years ago when Captured Tracks did a reissue. These guys eschew the tense jangles and the post-punk bass lines of their contemporaries in the international jangle underground for a more traditional sound that could have been created in the 60s à la Bob Dylan and The Byrds. Throwing Stones istimeless goldwith itssparkling web of swirling jangles, splendid harmonies and sour lyrics.
Sneaky Feelings - Not To Take Sides [1984]
We even get some ace atmospheric reverbed twang here amongst the bursting melodies, lush harmonies and kaleidoscopic jangles. Pure pop goodness for people not made for these times or those times.
We interrupt the 80s jangling for a moment to present this folky/soft-rock classic from one hit wonder Brian Protheroe. I'd never heard this tune until it turned up on one of those Junk Shop compilations in the 00s so I'm guessing this wasn't a hit in Australia. The stream of consciousness lyrics which include a list of things that keep going wrong are pretty funny. He feels like he's in gaol because he's run out of pale ale and the cat's just finished off the bread. Nick Drake-esque folk transforms into Shuggie Otis style smooth mellow funk jam which also contains excellent saxophone solo. The kids would probably call this yacht rock now but I don't know if they've realised that this one should definitely be in the cannon.
More jangling from down south in the 80s, this time from Birmingham Alabama's Primitons. Seeing Is Believing from Primitons self-titled mini LP is somewhere between the menacing jangles of The Feelies and supreme pop melodicism of Shoes. Produced by Mitch Easter who even kindly provided the lead break.
Primitons - All My Friends [1985]
All My Friends is the crowning glory in Primitons small discography (of just 18 songs). Starts out the gate with that Feelies-esque nervy urgency then proceeds into almost shoegaze territory with a melodic almost psych-noise-pop chorus reminiscent of peak Pale Saints. The jittery to mellifluous song structure is a neat sonic trick analogous to the loud/quiet/loud method perfected by The Pixies a few years later.
One of the great non-hits of the 80s. I mean sure it was a hit in the indie ghetto but how did this not crossover to become a chartbuster? Anywho The Living Kind has aged like fine wine. At the time Ups & Downs couldn't avoid being compared to The Church with this jangling Rickenbacker monster featuring Ploog-y drummage. Vocally though they were different and this melodically rich power pop with blood harmonies from the Atkinson brothers is incredibly crafty and catchy. These guys could have had a career as songwriting hitmakers for commercial Aussie pop stars I reckon...
Dark swirly bass, swirly psych jangles and downbeat lost lyrics. The lines between post-punk, neo-psych and the jangly pop of the day get blurred once more. We get the usual Television and Byrds inspiration and I guess for all these jangly bands there's always a lurking Feelies influence too.
Has anyone ever written a book about this great 80s phenomena of jangling pop-rock? I mean it was so ubiquitous but all we ever hear about now is post punk, hardcore, blockbuster commercial pop, heavy metal and noise rock. Yet some of the biggest bands of the era employed a jangle strategy more often than not: The Smiths in the UK, REM in America, The Church in Australia, The Clean in in NZ etc. Plus all the fantastic second tier bands in each territory then the gazillion unknown groups in the jangly underground like Crippled Pilgrims. It makes zero sense that all those other aforementioned genres as well as goth, industrial, synth-pop are seen as more worthy than all our favourite jangly bands.
Then some bands were in a zone somewhere between REM and Husker Du. I Was In Your Life is hard edged power-pop, hooks and harmonies plus excellent backwards guitar solo. It's all done and dusted in a brisk two minutes. These guys missed out. Bleached Black had the electrifying tunes but sometimes notoriety just doesn't happen and their potential was never fulfilled. Forty years later this 7 inch single is going for sixty bucks on discogs.
Bleached Black - Morning Sun [1987]
This one's sorta somewhere between Died Pretty and Grant Hart. Morning Sun goes along splendidly in a harmonising, drumless and acoustic manner. The production on this is fantastic so it's no surprise producer Lou Giordano later went on to produce many Alternative bestsellers of the 90s like Bob Mould, Lemonheads, Julianna Hatfield, Belly, Sugar, Live, Goo Goo Dolls and many more.
There isn't a hell of a lot of info out there on New Haven, Connecticut's Bleached Black but it seems their self-titled LP from 1987 was dumped with little promotion, no singles and no videos, then they just drop off the face of the earth. It all seems very bizarre considering how promising they were but I guess there's an untold story that we just don't know. Anyway that's how the cookie crumbled...
Bleached Black - Let Me Take The Time [1987]
This time Bleached Black get dark and noisy. Let Me Take The Time is hard driving yet melodic post-punk with added feedback that's got a bit more of neo-psych flavour like Rain Parade crossed with mid tempo Husker Du.
Bleached Black - Crisis [1987]
More driving buzzsaw neo-psych with surreal guitar interludes, intense lead and top harmonising. The hard hitting twin vocals of Stevo and Greg Prior are pretty infectious, right up there with peak Stipe and Mills and future legends Staley and Cantrell.
More REM worship... well this not so much a rip off as a tribute. This is a pretty fantastic impersonation of an REM song too. Stipe and co were absolutely mythical in the 80s before they did terrible shit like Radio Song that destroyed all of that delicious mystique.
P - Michael Stipe [1995]
Even Gibby Haynes of Butthole Surfers was dazzled by the great man, so much so that he wrote an excellent song about meeting him. Others name checked in the song include River Phoenix, Sophie Coppolla, Martin Landau etc.
REM - 9-9 [1983]
You tend to forget that REM were pretty fucking peculiar on those early records. I mean what the fuck are they up to on this tune? This ain't no radio friendly schlock à la Everybody Hurts. These southern eccentrics were incredibly inspired and distinctive.
Heading further into obscure territory here with more long lost paisley jangling from down south. There's some uncommon lo-fi haunted psychedelic magic going on here. The strange tonal shifts of the insane bass passages on this create a pretty discombobulating sensation! This band from Tuscaloosa Alabama are right in an inspired zone on Another Place To Hide creating the perfect mid 80s one and done 7 inch single. Recorded by Tim Lee from Windbreakers (see previous post).
Now for some REM mimicry. If I'd heard this at the time I would have been irritated and thought this was just pale imitation but now I'm fascinated by it. It does have a nice boy/girl chorus which is pretty sweet and the whole thing is pretty darn catchy. I guess there's elements of other jangle and strummers too like The Feelies, The Bats and their ilk. The biggest surprise here is that Mitch Easter is not the producer, surely that can't be right.
Secret Question - One Plus Two [1985]
More REM worship from the terribly named One Plus Two from North Carolina. They did a single, this EP and an an LP and surprise surprise Homestead Records was their label.
Promise - One Plus Two [1985]
The Ivy Room EP would be a mere historic jangly curiosity if it wasn't for this fabulous track. Songs about leaving small country towns in your youth are close to my heart and Promise does not disappoint. The whole defiant optimism of leaving your town because of a relationship disaster is so darn infectious. This time honoured theme pops up in other classics like Pavement's Box Elder and Gene Clarke's I'll Feel A Whole Lot Better by The Byrds.
Some early 80s garage-psych complete with OTT intergalactic acid guitars from Milwaukee group Plasticland. I guess it's some kinda precursor to the paisley underground. I vaguely recall Matt Piucci saying, on a podcast, that Rain Parade were influenced by them and that perhaps he ripped off certain elements of this tune for I Look Around one of the great songs on Emergency Third Rail Power Trip.
Pretty choice slice of jangly power pop . Everything's in the right place. Right up there with The Someloves and The Plimsouls. A love song that's in that sweet spot of emotive yet restrained making it not too cheesy.
Nice.
Actually the more I think about it, the more I think it's one of the great lost guitar pop songs of the 80s that hardly anyone knows. This version is a re-recording of their ramshackle 1985 single for their one and only self-titled LP from 1987.
A southern more twangy take on the paisley underground sound. All these ingredients were becoming cliche by this point but somehow Mississippi's terminally underrated Windbreakers absolutely kill it here driving windswept lost highways with their ghostly melodies and reverbed to the hilt twin guitar trip-out.
These guys had previously been pretty new wave-y but by their third record, the minor triumph that was Translator (1985), they were laying on the dark jangles and psych tinges to their melodic power pop. I mean if someone told you that was Marty Wilson-Piper rockin' out in a blistering fashion from the 2:58 minute mark you'd believe them.
Despite crafty songwriting, fabulous musicianship and a great sounding production they just didn't have enough to get them over the line. They didn't have the strong cohesive identity or cool image of say your Dream Syndicate, Smiths, REM or XTC.
New Song - Translator [1985]
Here's the trippiest, most paisley moment on the record. All hallucinogenic and kaleidoscopic backwards guitars sounding a lot like a Rain Parade or Church tune from 1983.
Pretty cool.
Fall Forever - Translator [1985]
This fan favourite is catchy power pop with psycho bits.
After Rain Parade and Dream Syndicate and before Opal Kendra Smith and David Roback formed Clay Alison. On their one and only single they had Terry Graham from Gun Club on drums. Pretty cool psych-pop sound with Dave laying down some pretty hazy sweet lonesome fuzz.
Tripped out fuzz, jangles, cosmic bass, swirly sideshow alley organ, narcotic electro hand claps, Kendra Smith on backing vocals all reverb-ed to the hilt for a maximum daydream haze-y buzz.
Hallucinatory hypnotic neo-psych at its finest. Get mesmerized!
Every coupla years I put on Emergency Third Rail Power Trip and go hang on... isn't this one of the greatest records of all time? and not just in the dreamy jangly psych field? Why doesn't this show up in the retarded lists and cannons?
[1983]
1 Hour 1/2 Ago
All the cool influences: Syd Barrett, Yardbirds... wait for the 1:05 moment. That could be peak "the bottoms fallen out of the song" abstract shenanigans that The Church's Wilson-Piper/Koppes were so fond of. Fragments, interludes, playback slow downs, backwards tapes and volume shifts creating great 80s psychedelia.
[1983]
I look Around
Who's ever heard so many Byrdsian jangles then incredible backwards guitar stylings outside of a classic 80s Church tune? Here they were the contemporaneous Rain Parade before guitarist Dave Roback went on to form the sublime Opal and 90s legends Mazzy Star.
