In the early Nineties, American indie saw a lot of Yank bands draw inspiration from the C86 and shoegaze styles in the UK. And while loads of those acts stuck close to the sound of the original points of inspiration, a few more expanded on that stuff. The resulting boom of indie here was amazing, with scenes around Slumberland Records and other labels yielding some of the best records of the era.
Amid all that, one would find out about a band or artist from a compilation appearance, and that's how I first heard of Linda Smith. Her two numbers on the Slumberland Records compilation Why Popstars Can't Dance were haunting and evocative. The cuts were also a tiny bit at odds with the rest of the material on the set. Still, Linda Smith's talents were unique, and if she was making music far too complex to be labelled folk, and too lovely to be shoegaze, she was consistently striking out on her own terms to create something unique. Baroque in spots, stark in others, her songs were DIY but they were also expertly composed, reflecting a neat blending that could earn the tunes comparions to both The Raincoats and Syd Barrett. Collected now, finally, the material is set to charm a new generation.
Till Another Time: 1988-1996, out today via Captured Tracks, is full of the best from this Baltimore / New York musician, and a listener now is likely to be surprised at just how rich and robust this stuff remains. "In This" is a cousin to the stuff Pam Berry did with Glo-Worm, while "All I Did" and "I See Your Face" owe debts to the Velvet Underground and Young Marble Giants. These are drone-y, but still lovely, as is the sublime "Gorgeous Weather", a number that was dream pop decades before anyone thought of that term. Elsewhere, "Wandering You Know" and "I Just Had To" sound like proto-jangle-rock, as if Linda's deconstructing the form in front of us. A comparison to some Galaxie 500 material could be made about lots of what's here but it always seemed as if Linda was a composer more interested in tightly resolving a melody, rather than letting things remain ambiguous and diffuse.
This set really sets the record straight on one of the great underrated talents of the early Nineties indie boom here. Like F.M. Cornog and East River Pipe, and Plush, Linda Smith offered up intimate, yet expansive gems. The instrumentation might be simple, but the melodies are complex enough to continue to enchant decades later. And there's still enough mystery here in these numbers, enough confounding stylistic contradictions to fuel a listener's enthusiasm again and again. Till Another Time: 1988-1996 is, it must be said, one of the best reissues of 2021, and a compilation that a certain set of fans had been waiting for for a long time.
Till Another Time: 1988-1996 is out today on Captured Tracks.
[Photo: Peggy Bitzer]