Various Artists - Corrupt Postman (1988)

 
Never before or since has twee amateur hour (and a half) been so brilliant. Here we have a criminally obscure compilation on a criminally obscure label of some criminally obscure musicians and the Field Mice. Charming, coy, catchy, congruous, cathartic, clarion, cataclysmic, and much more, I would strongly advise against passing this gem up.

It's clearly blurred

The Verlaines - Bird Dog (1987)

It figures that I would lose internet access for several months shortly after deciding to revive this blog. I'll get around to reupping all the links that are down, this might take a while as I'd imagine there are quite a few.
Today we have some lovely jangle pop from Dunedin courtesy of the Verlaines. Not really sure what they put in the water in Dunedin but it seems to really give one an ear for melody. Very catchy passionate stuff, one of the real shiners from the scene if you ask me.

And you'll wipe it good
And you'll wipe it clean
And say I'll see you in the death machine tomorrow
Unless somebody's god intervenes

A Witness - I Am John's Pancreas (1986)

A Witness appear to be the sour apple in the bunch of artists from NME's famous C86. Though their song on the compilation was only about two and a half minutes one realizes right away that they stick out like a sore thumb next to the mostly p(r)eppy, jangly bands placed alongside them. A Witness instead go for more darker, confrontational tunes. It's kinda hard to affix a genre to them, which of course is a good thing. Their jagged, disjointed guitars riffs over metallic drum machines and a repetitive, chunky bass come together in a sort of chaos-pop harmony, all of this of course complemented by a surprisingly great vocal performance from one very cynical Englishman. Great listen for anyone wishing for something a bit more dissonant from the 80's indie scene in Britain.

It's not dark enough, it's not large enough
It's not dark enough, it's not large enough

Yo - Good Tidings (1984)

Was stuck in soulseek purgatory for a while trying to find this album, but here it is, power pop trio Yo's debut album. Good Tiding often seems to find itself overlooked in favor of it's more ambitious younger brother, Charm World. In spite of this album's relative lack of recognition, it's still just about as strong as Charm World. Yo make every second of this very short 20 minute album count with some great jangle punk tracks like Black Forest and Knives (which is also featured on Homework). Definitely worth a listen if you've enjoyed Charm World, or even if you've never heard it, just download it.

Walk into the Black Forest
Not really seeing anything
Walking into the Black Forest
Land of the unknown
Land of tomorrow

The Scene Is Now - Burn All Your Records (1985)

Now here's an interesting band. You might know this band because Yo La Tengo covered their song "Yellow Sarong," The Scene Is Now were a weird band from mid 80s NYC so they often get lumped in with no wave. But trust me they aren't anything like your Circle X or your Swans or Y Pants or any of that. In fact it's really hard to tell what genre they are. They're sometimes defined as "postmodern jug music" but I prefer just calling them jangle pop, really schizophrenic and disoriented jangle pop. The album consists of 20 relatively short tracks that are poppy but also dissonant. In some tracks its almost as if they try to sound bad, and it ends up giving it a really endearing and cute sound. This album might take a few listens to click but I ~highly~ recommend this album.

A man in the moon
Taps on the window
How will we know your silhouette
How will we reach you (Are we real?)

The Apartments - The Evening Visits... (1985)

Great jangle pop album out of Brisbane. Most of the songs are very catchy and upbeat, but also really melancholy at the same time. The singing comes off as kind of nasally and melodramatic at first, but it gains sincerity with repeated listens, this is an album that really grew on me after a while. Definitely worth a listen.

The girls walk Lazarus all around the room
As he changes color from red to blue
Here's your drama. Here's your fuel
I'm just sitting here cause there's nothing else to do