The folks at Captured Tracks have compiled what is an absolutely fantastic collection. Strum & Thrum: The American Jangle Underground 1983-1987, out now via the label, serves up 90 minutes of the best sort of DIY indie that this continent has likely every produced. Rather than chronicle the familiar names of college rock and the boom in that form following the birth of MTV, this immaculately curated and crafted set makes a case for the also-rans, for the bands who didn't get the attention that R.E.M. and Let's Active, for example, received. And in making that case, the compilation makes clear that while C86 and its attendant scenes in the U.K. in the same era were defining a sound overseas, a bunch of American kids were making tunes that were just as winningly jangle-y, and nearly every bit as melodic and winsome.
If the collection favors the chiming over the rough, that's fine. What's here, over the span of 28 tracks, is the soundtrack of an alternate history of the era. Of course, some names are fairly familiar to some of us who read Trouser Press and listened to college radio in the middle of the Reagan years: The Springfields are here with their Byrds-ian "Sunflower", as are Salem 66, whose "Seven Steps Down" seems the cousin of any number of Pam Berry offerings from late in the Eighties. Along with those, we've got "Purple Parlor" by Downey Mildew, a band who got compared to R.E.M. a bit, I recall, but who sound like they owe a debt to Felt too, and near that is "When Do You Say Hello" by Great Plains (featuring a pre-Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments Ron House), a manic cut that's one of the real highlights here.
The songs themselves reflect the era, and the formidable talents of those invovled. "Change" by Holiday, a D.C. band made up of members of Oh Ok (Michael Stipe's sister's band) and Insect Surfers, is just a fantastic selection, as is "Black and White (Alternate Version)" by Crippled Pilgrims, another D.C. band, one which featured members of Government Issue, among others. And while the punk backgrounds of some of these groups is a given, there's little here to reflect that in terms of the sound. Most of the stuff here has a genuine lightness of touch that renders nearly everything here a cousin to early R.E.M., from "Essential Things" by A New Personality (featuring Brent Rademaker of Shadowland and Beachwood Sparks), to amped-up "Patron of the Arts" by Bangtails, a group featuring Archer Prewitt years before he was in The Sea and The Cake. "Pages Turn (Alternate Version)", anchored by the strong vocals of Barbara Manning, is a bit harder, but it too sounds a lot like "Gardening at Night" or something. Still, not everything here is like that as "Misery, Me & You" could be passed off as an early Aztec Camera side, and not one from the all-American The White Sisters, a pre-Velvet Crush Jeffery Borchardt outfit. But that one's sort of an outlier since so much of this seems to owe debts to Paisley Underground stuff here on these shores. I mean, it's hard to hear "Tomorrow's Time Today" by The Reactions (featuring Dave Swanson, later of Cobra Verde and Guided By Voices), and not think of The Three O'Clock, or "I'm in Heaven" by Cyclones and not think of The Bangs.
Strum & Thrum: The American Jangle Underground 1983-1987 is just remarkable. An 80-page booklet adds to the history, providing not only context but a genuine crash-course in the American indie of an entire era. And for those of us who grew up then, and perhaps knew a few of these bands, it's the ones we never got to hear, or see live, that are likely to charm the most. The entire compilation renders fresh something that we thought we knew well, makes new a scene we thought we'd packaged up already. There's not a dud on the set, and nothing that will not immediately ring in your ears in the best possible way, and cause your pulse to quicken and feet to tap.
Strum & Thrum: The American Jangle Underground 1983-1987 is out now via Captured Tracks.
[Photo: The Reactions, from liner notes, care of Captured Tracks]