The Shangri-Las - Myrmidons of Melodrama

The Shangri-Las were a girl group active from 1963 to 1968. They had many chart hits with their perfectly melodramatic girl group songs of love, crushes and loss. This is the compilation of their best songs, the aptly titled 'Myrmidons of Melodrama'

I can't explain why I adore this so much. Maybe it's the perfectly realised pop songwriting. Maybe I'm a sucker for sad songs. Maybe it's Mary Weiss' voice. Maybe it's just hormonal. If you're going the melodramatic route, you can't go wrong here.

you can never go home anymore

Lush - Split

Lush were a britpop/dream pop act that was active from 1988 to 1998. My favourite Lush era was their shoegazer era, their early EPs and their 1994 full length, Split.

Sweet, sweet, wistful dreampop full on yearning, longing and daydreaming. Berenyi/Anderson's vocal harmonies + beautiful melodies. Essential listening.

let me try to pull you free

Low - I Could Live in Hope

Legendary American slowcore act Low formed in Minnesota in 1993. Their debut, 'I could live in hope' marks the beginning of a wonderful journey of one of the greatest american bands in recent times.

Good with: wines, pills, depression, suicide, oncoming winter weather, lying down and staring at the ceiling. Understated, gentle and devastating beauty.

rope

Cranes - Loved

Cranes were a British band formed in 1986, whose style has ranged all over from dream pop, gothic minimalism, shoegaze, alt rock and trip hop. Alison Shaw's vocal delivery is the dealbreaker here, either you're going to fall helpless in love with these sounds or shun them altogether. Here's my favourite record of theirs, Loved.

James and Alison Shaw, the brother-sister songwriting team from Portsmouth, England that's best known as CRANES, are not without pretensions: They originally planned to make Loved a double album with half devoted to a musical interpretation of The Flies, the expressionist play by tortured French novelist Jean Paul Sartre. That plan was shelved (they had to settle for cover art by French painter Edgar Degas), and instead, their third album delivers 11 oddly seductive pop songs that mix brutally powerful drumming, a Cocteau Twins-like wall of shimmering guitars, and the lovable little-girl-on- helium vocals of Alison Shaw. Almost flawless. 


into the night

Seefeel - Polyfusia

Seefeel formed during 1992 in London, England, when guitarist Mark Clifford and drummer Justin Fletcher met vocalist Sarah Peacock and bassist Darren Seymour. They released their first EPs on the Too Pure label in 1993. Stylistically situated at the intersection of dream pop/shoegaze and ambient electronic/IDM, their music has a distinctive sound. This might have contributed to the band getting a contract with the seminal electronic label Warp Records in 1994. 

Pretty much a textbook definition of hypnotic repetition, Polyfusia is the compilation of their Seefeel's three EPs (More Like Space, Time to Find Me, and Plainsong). There are probably reference points to this (from the advent of Warp as a premier electronic label as well as the shoegazer scene of years before), but nothing quite like it. You're exactly halfway between now and the distant future, organic and electronic. Stare into space.


more like space

Drive Like Jehu - Yank Crime

Drive Like Jehu was an American post-punk/post-hardcore band led by Rick Froberg and John Reis, formed in 1990 in San Diego, California and disbanded in 1995. Their music combines elements of rock and punk with complex time signature changes, complicated interweaving guitar lines, unusual and extended song structures, and atonal, dissonant guitar riffs, sometimes described as noise rock, math rock or sludge rock. They released two full-length albums before disbanding in 1995, partly due to Reis' increased involvement with his other band, Rocket from the Crypt. The success of Rocket from the Crypt and of Reis and Froberg's later band Hot Snakes has drawn increased attention to their work in Drive Like Jehu and led to a re-release of their influential album Yank Crime. 

Originally released in 1994 on Interscope, Yank Crime is without question the greatest post-hardcore album ever recorded, and also one of the great guitar albums. The 12 strings of Rick Froberg and John Reis' guitars flirt and taunt, melding into a chugging whirr of locomotion. Froberg's pained vocals ache and plead on epic standouts "Luau" and "Sinews," which culminate in tightly wound, extended jams that exhibit both astonishing guitar technique and strong senses of arrangement and melody. Many have copied Yank Crime, but none have matched it. - Emusic


wipe the last howlie, the FUCK off our turf

Bark Psychosis - Independency

Compiles the EPs of one of the most complex and consistent band of the 90's. When you listen to this stuff, remember that it was a bunch of 15-16 year olds recording it. Yes, amidst all that grunge and commercial bastardisation of rock music, these kids saw the future, and played alongwith it. Immense, layered and gorgeous in its simplicity, Independency should open a few doors for those treading these grounds afresh. 

blood rush