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.
