The Sundays 'Joy (Black Session)' (1992)

The Sundays were an intriguing proposition. Just three albums between 1990 and 1997 and then nothing since. They set the indie world alight with their 'Can't Be Sure' single in 1989, such an other-worldly thing of beauty which, if memory serves, was top of the Festive Fifty that year.

Their debut album 'Reading, Writing and Arithmetic' was a fully-realised object of fascination when it came out. Little echoes of The Smiths and Cocteau Twins maybe, but a sound that was uniquely theirs.

The album ended with the song 'Joy' coming in with a patter of drums and little frills of melodic guitar. Sumptuously melodic and graceful, just a slight twinge of melancholy, eventually building to a crescendo with more strident guitar adding depth before Harriet Wheeler exhales the last syllable and it ends.

This version is from France Inter DJ Bernard Lenoir's Black Sessions series, recorded live in 1992.

Download The Sundays 'Joy (Black Session)' (mp3) (Mediafire)