skip to main |
skip to sidebar
(Slumberland, 1991)Back in VHS days, fun-guy buddyboys Slumberland used to release insanely limited versions of their records in special handmade sleeves. Not sure how many of these they actually did, but I have 7”s of this sort by Lilys, Swirlies, and Black Tambourine (the “What Kind of Heaven Do You Want” EP was hand-colored as well, but I think that’s true of the entire run). This Lilys 45, of which 43 – !! – were made, comes in a white sleeve that has a photo pasted to its front and minimal info (band name, track titles, label address) written in purple marker on the back. The vinyl is identical to the standard “February Fourteenth” black-wax single, making the thing strictly collector-dink bait, but I maintain that the unique-artwork idea was – and is! – a fun one that I wouldn’t mind seeing present-day labels revisit. Why not?
(Slumberland, 1991)The first Lilys single is about as close an approximation of the uptempo bits on the Isn’t Anything-era MBV EPs as a guy’s gonna find, and in a still-growing sea of limp Shieldsian imitators, quality stuff like this is not to be sneered at. “February Fourteenth” in particular is heavier than the by-then chart-baiting Telescopes, crisper than the early BJM stabs at crudegaze, and more invested in maintaining a Rock undercurrent (see: drums) than even the contemporaneous My Bloody Valentine itself. Best American shoegaze record I’ve ever heard? Yup. Oddly enough, “Threw a Day,” which is absolutely the lesser of these two songs, is available on In the Presence of Nothing (as an unlisted track), while the pummeling A-side appears only here and as a bonus on the impossible-to-find Australian “Tone Bender” CDEP. If Kurt Heasley and/or Slumberland ever feels like fixing that situation, your iPod or Discman or whatever will be much the better for it.
(Slumberland, 2006)The “Happy Matt” single is just what it looks like: a recreation of the Who sound circa ’66, right down to the manic drum fills and Daltrey falsetto. The A-side deserves mild criticism for not being quite as fiery as it should be, but “When I Was a Boy” satisfies by turning the “Ivor the Engine Driver” section of “A Quick One While He’s Away” into a self-contained mod-pop song with a Creation-esque speaker-blowing feedback solo. Nothing major here, just a sloppy, fun one-off that largely achieves its Rutles-style objective. Released as one of the records that announced the relaunch of Slumberland a few years back, the band is made up of members of Henry’s Dress and Boyracer, making it a nice bridge from the label’s past to its present/future.
(Slumberland, 1993)If there’s one band whose catalog needs to get back into print STAT, it’s probably Henry’s Dress (second place: Moose). The pedigree here is pretty impeccable, as the band later splintered into Aislers Set, Coachwhips, and Sic Alps, and dudes produced, no kidding, some of the best-ever American fuzzgaze in their brief time together. This debut release is a crunchy, bass-driven, guitar-screaming meeting of “You Made Me Realize” and Swirlies, a holy combo made all the holier by the fact that Henry’s Dress – unlike many other bands working roughly similar turf – has a rhythm section that actually matters. Even on the budget-Slowdive B-side (“Stumble”), there’s a prominent low-end in the chorus that gives the song its neck-snap power… a tuffer Black Tambourine gobbling codeine woulda sounded something like this. Later records would feature lady-vox and veer further into fucked-pop territory, but this first single remains a pounding, exciting introduction to what has, regrettably, become an obscure, expensive discography; if you can actually locate the records, they’re must-haves and must-hears – fug the cost.
(Slumberland, 1993)A luddite, I only recently – and reluctantly – bought my first iPod after getting the chance to cautiously fool around with one a generous dame loaned me for a few days. Thing’s pretty neat, I must admit, and I’ve been listening to a lot more music thanks to its convenience. Unfortunately, I’m just playing the same old stuff on endless repeat: My Bloody Valentine, Wipers, Flipper, Galaxie 500, and (while charging through Times Square each morning) Pussy Galore. I tend to get into musical ruts, and this doggone iPod is helping me dig ever deeper with greater speed. But at least I’m diggin’ in the most technologically with-it fashion available!
The early Slumberland Records roster, with its noisy Americanized tweegaze, has long fit nicely into that sweet rut o’ mine. Really, almost anything the label released through the mid-’90s will satisfy fuzzheads and rockin’ lo-budget MBV popjunkies alike. Crazy reliable, its records are some of the safest buys out there, so I felt mighty OK about picking up this Earthmen single based solely on the presence of the Slumberland logo. And LO! For once I found myself nonplussed. While it’s definitely not bad, it, like late Drop Nineteens, betrays a few too many hints of the mainstream alt-explosion in its clear vocals and clean power-guitar to make me comfortable. “Momentum” does burst into an extended, distorted frenzy that stamps it as a keeper, but even that song isn’t so very nifty that I can imagine ever wanting to find out more about the Earthmen. So stay in Australia, you crazy band that I know almost nothing about! I’m perfectly happy with my Black Tambourine and my Lilys. And will be.
(Slumberland, 2000)My oh my, this fi is lo. Ha ha ha ha ha ha!! …Ha? Well it is! And that’s OK, because these three songs are rough mixes of the entire recorded output (1992) of Bright Coloured Lights. BCL consisted of two ex-members of Black Tambourine, plus a few folks from fellow Slumberlanders Lorelei. Perhaps predictably, given the presence of the lead vocalist (Pam Berry) and lead guitarist (Mike Schulman), this record indeed sounds an awful lot like fuzz-faves Black Tambourine: dark poprock with near-icy reverb-heavy girl vox wrapped in driving fuzz guitar, all of it underpinned by a no-frills rhythm section. You know what you’re getting into with this stuff, and if you like that kind of thing, you’re obv gonna love Bright Coloured Lights just fine. Some highlights: The doomy churchbell-style bass blasts giving the top-shelf “Count the Raindrops” a heavier feel than any other BCL or Black Tambourine songs. The vocals. The weird sawing guitar drone in the background of “Open Your Eyes.” Heck, all of the guitarwork on here is excellent. Just drop $3.50 on it and hear for yourself, moneybags.
(Slumberland, 1993)Interesting dynamic at play on this Boyracer single. Even if the vocals are pure indieboy (swinging from twee to punky snottiness), there’s some real crunch in the guitars and drums. All in all not terribly dissimilar to labelmates Black Tambourine, but these five short songs are tighter and more pissed than those happy noisepopsters… call it shoegaze as played by a misanthropic hard-rock garage band, perhaps??
(Slumberland, 1991)First a helpful collectorfreak note on the artwork, since this single was released with three different covers. There’s one with a tiger jumping through a glow-in-the-dark hoop (probably the rarest; mine is numbered 11/100), another with a girl splashing in a puddle (mine is hand-crayoned), and a third with a raindrop photo sleeve (oops, I don’t own this one). Find ’em all and love ’em all! Because the MUSIC is early-90s US pop underground at its best: Fuzz and reverb overlaid with roaring guitars, plus a hint of jangle underneath... strictly the good stuff. There’s some intriguing pre-Beatle girl-group influence at work as well, especially on the vocal patterns of the swinging “Drown” (and, to a lesser extent, the record’s lyrical concerns as a whole). Still, while catchy, concise, and inviting, these four songs are less cutesy than what European cousins like the Pastels or Vaselines were getting up to at the time, and a track like “Pack You Up” is downright dark shoegaze. Noisy pop simply doesn’t get much better than Black Tambourine, and these guys ’n’ gals were only around long enough to release two singles and a few stray tracks, all of ’em (plus a demo) now collected on the Complete Recordings CD/10”. Genius single, genius band. Really.
(Slumberland, 2001)
Aislers Set does everything right on here and the ever-consistent Slumberland Records wins again. “The Red Door” is hard-charging fuzzpop, more coy than fey, and clearly descended from the bloodline of Slumberland Adam-&-Eves the Black Tambourine. Feedback bursts in the guitar solo make this about as white-hot as such things get. The band’s rough ‘n’ raw live recording of “Warm Girls” is a fine pit stop on the way to “Summer’s Reprise,” a lush, beautifully-arranged pop song flaunting all the catchy features the cardigan-wearing, bobbed-hair-having crowd could possibly want. Burbling organ? Yep. “Ah-ah-ah” backing vox? You gots it. Sunny strummin’? Sure! Some tasteful trumpet in the choruses swerves us nearer Belle & Sebastian territory, but a tougher backbeat throughout establishes this as its own thing. A steal at $3.50 from the label.
(Slumberland, 1991)
