Dinosaur Jr - Start Choppin (Blanco Y Negro, 1992)

Riffmungus.

Proto-Grunge, buzz pop, power chord, rifftacular, screaming doozy. A choir of fuzz guitars lay down great sheets of metallic riffing and J Mascis croons a laconic ditty.

Download Dinosaur Jr 'Start Choppin' (Alternative Rock, Indie Rock, mp3) (Divshare)

Aphex Twin - Tha (Apollo, 1992)

Dreamy ambient electronica.

I have to admit that the definition of 'indie' is often somewhat stretched on this blog. However, the burbling, subterranean lo-fi of Aphex Twin's 'Selected Ambient Works 85-92' surely qualifies as indie techno. It doesn't gleam like chrome-plated futurism of Derrick May or Model 500 or have the precision of Carl Craig's minimal funk.

'Tha' is almost murky, with a fug or background noise and an indistinct putter of kick-drum buried in the mix.

Spellbinding stuff though.

Download Aphex Twin 'Tha' (Ambient, Electronica, Techno, mp3) (Divshare)

Moonshake - Home Survival Kit (Too Pure, 1992)

Nick Drake-sampling dub soup.

B-side action from the peerless Moonshake sees NIMBY-bating lyric pitched against a soupy dub that incorporates pattering percussion, scraping guitar and a Nick Drake sample.

Download Moonshake 'Home Survival Kit' (Too Pure, mp3) (Divshare)

Luscious Jackson - Let Yourself Get Down (Big Cat, 1992)

Lo-slung, shambling funky hip hop girlz.

This album was actually the first release on The Beastie Boys' Grand Royale label, appearing in the UK on Big Cat, the label that put out Pavement's first releases over here.

The Beastie Boys reference is kind of relevant as Luscious Jackson deal in a funky, indie hip-hop sound. Later records got smoothed-out a little but the sound on 'Let Yourself Get Down' is groovy but a little lo-fi. It has a relentless flow and some neat sub-bass action and should still be heard on the most discerning dancefloors.

Download Luscious Jackson 'Let Yourself Get Down' (indie, hip hop, funk, rap, mp3) (Mediafire)

Drop Nineteens - Winona (Hut, 1992)

Shifting, droning, soaring slice of preppy Shoegaze.

No big fanfares seem to be marking the twentieth anniversary of Drop Nineteens' debut album but 'Winona' is a thrilling piece of slidey-guitared Shoegaze business.

Obviously in thrall to 'Loveless', Boston (USA, not Lincolnshire) band Drop Nineteens rise above their influences with the dreamy, melodic noise pop which sounds like about three records playing at once. The vocal and drums hold it all together as guitars churn and spin around, mixing sweetness with dischord.

Download Drop Nineteens 'Winona' (Shoegaze mp3) (Divshare)

Supermarket - Supermarket (Felt, Lawrence) (Icerink, 1992)

Minimal vocoder pop classic.

Somewhat like 'Around The World' by Daft Punk, this vocal of this record features only the word "Supermarket" repeated ad infinitum. Apparently, "around the world" is repeated 144 times in the Daft Punk classic. I haven't counted how many times "supermarket" is repeated.

Delightful, checkout-friendly spartan pop from the Saint Etienne-curated Icerink label. The story was that Supermarket was two boys from Denmark but it was, allegedly, Lawrence of Felt, Denim and Go-Kart Mozart fame.

Download Supermarket - Supermarket (Icerink, Saint Etienne, mp3) (Divshare)

Included in the 'We Are Icerink' compilation which is featured over on Archive:Live+Rare.

Pavement - Conduit For Sale (Big Cat, 1992)

Spindly-then-shouty indie mastery.

'Slanted & Enchanted' = Gel Pen bonus find situationz.

Early singl sparx memory blast.

Elton John combs scrubland for signz of Rickie Lee Jones' Dreft spill while Alex Lifeson returnz Smokie and the Bandit VCR tape for thrift shop bonus.

Great early Pavement b-side.

Download Pavement - Conduit For Sale (indie rock mp3) (Divshare)

Pale Saints - A Thousand Stars Burst Open (Brass Band Version) (4AD, 1992)

Brassed Off treatment suits Shoegaze masterpiece.

Across two awesome albums, Pale Saints were genius, marrying proggy time signatures with skyscraping, yearning guitar pyrotechnics and angelic vocals. One of my absolute favourite bands ever.

This track was given away as a 7" with initial copies of 'In Ribbons' and just works perfectly.

Layers of gorgeous brass recreate the soundwash of the original, creating a wide open, In The Bleak Midwinter vibe that rouses to a joyful crescendo.

Stunning.

Download Pale Saints 'A Thousand Stars Burst Open (Brass Band Version)' (Brass Band, Shoegaze, 4AD mp3) (Rapidshare)

The Boo Radleys - Spaniard (Creation mp3, 1992)

Widescreen, Spaghetti Western-meets-Shoegaze doozy.

'Spaniard' is the opening track from The Boo Radleys' 'Everything's Alright Forever' album.

The use of the trumpet right up-front seems to signal their intent to break-free of the noise-pop confines. It succeeds and ushers in one of the best albums of that or any other era whilst paving the way for another one ('Giant Steps').

Download The Boo Radleys 'Spaniard' (indie, Shoegaze mp3, Creation mp3) (Mediafire)

#indiechristmas - The Wedding Present 'No Christmas' (RCA, 1992)

Utterly desolate Christmas song. December's release in their 1992 single-a-month series.

Crikey, what shoddy gifts did The Wedding Present's David Lewis Gedge receive to inspire this take on the bleakness of midwinter? The Book of Bunny Suicides for the seventh year in a row?

Came on cherry red vinyl, the final 7" in their 1992 series of a single every month. (Yes, that's where Ash got the idea.)

Download The Wedding Present 'No Christmas' (indie mp3 download) (Mediafire)

Stereolab 'Super Falling Star (Moog Mix)' (Volume, 1992)

Delicious, delicate take that exposes a different side to early Stereolab.

Gentle layers of synth interweave, able to breathe and unwind even more without the guitars.

Stereolab were always more of a cerebral band more akin to Seefeel than the gutsier, more instintive music of Too Pure bands like Moonshake and Th' Faith Healers.

This version of the 'Peng!' album track you hear Laetitia's vocal's more clearly, though, of course, you still don't know what she's on about. The waves of melody remind me of Plone or the hauntological sounds of the Ghost Box label and BBC Radiophonic Workshop experiments.

Lovely.

Download Stereolab 'Super Falling Star (Moog Mix)' (indie mp3 download) (Mediafire)

The Sundays 'Here's Where The Story Ends (Black Sessions 1992)' (Parlophone, 1992)

Nice Black Session live version of 'Reading, Writing & Arithmetic' stand-out.

The Sundays' 'Here's Where The Story Ends' is a chocolatey smooth, comforting piece of whimsical indie from their Rough Trade debut album.

Like the previously posted version of 'Joy', this version is from their Black Session for French radio in 1992. It was eventually released as a b-side of 1997 single 'Summertime'.

'Here's Where The Story Ends' is a gorgeous, rolling piece of indie-pop, a hybrid of Cocteau Twins vocal arcs and the solid acoustic guitar-based songwriting of 'The Queen Is Dead'-era Smiths. The live setting gives the song a more muscular edge that makes it sound more like 'Can't Be Sure' b-side 'Don't Tell Your Mother' than the more, ahem, ethereal mood of the debut album.

Lovely is the word.

Download The Sundays 'Here's Where The Story Ends (Black Session 1992)' (indie music mp3) (Mediafire)

Codeine 'Realize (Live)' (1992)

Funereal post-rock, nay, Slowcore captured live.

New York's Codeine beat a deathly slow trail across the early stages of post rock and slowcore, setting the bar low, low, low in terms of stretching each note to an infinity of anticipation.

Codeine's music builds on the beauty of Galaxie 500, has kinship with the likes of Low and Slint and created a framework for Red House Painters, Explosions In The Sky and Mogwai to operate in.

This track from their 'Barely Real' mini-album was my first contact with the band way-back-when. It was recorded here at a Sub Pop festival in Vermont and it has a kind of crunchy beauty.

Apparently, they've reformed with the original line-up including Chris Brokaw and will be playing All Tomorrow's Parties' I'll Be Your Mirror festival next year.

Enjoy.

Download Codeine 'Realize (Live)' (slowcore, post rock mp3 download) (Divshare)

Download the whole live set Codeine Live at Sub Pop's Vermonstress Festival, October 1992 (slowcore, post rock mp3 download) over on archive:live+rare mp3s

Swallow 'Lovesleep (Vocal Version)' (Volume, 1992)

Shimmering, chugging homage to the Cocteau Twins. Gorgeous though.

Whether Swallow had been on 4AD or not, they would have been compared to the indie alternative majesty of Cocteau Twins (mp3). Swirling mists of FX-laden guitars and oozing, angelic female vocals set against a metronomic drum machine. It's a particularly poised and precise strain of Shoegazer music.

Swallow were a male-female duo who released one proper album and a remix collection on 4AD in the early nineties. They had a hint of My Bloody Valentine's sturm und drang guitar abuse and a dash of Curve's arch frostiness (mp3). However, to be fair to them, they did pre-date Seefeel's gauzey shapeshifting guitar slide plus dub vibe (mp3).

Well worth a listen if you've fallen for I Break Horses recently.

Download Swallow 'Lovesleep (Vocal Version)' (indie alternative, shoegaze mp3) (Mediafire)

Buffalo Tom 'Taillights Fade' (Situation Two, 1992)

Trailblazing wistful indie rock genius.

Taking their cues from the rumbustuous, ragged guitar scree of Dinosaur Jr, Buffalo Tom were a more thoughtful version of Nirvana - certainly with a stronger country influence - unleashing powerful waves of loud-quiet guitar attack.

Sadly, they never really broke through but did leave behind a string of lovely, panoramic tracks like 'Taillights Fade', some raging indie rock monsters and a single on Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne's legendary Caff label. 'Birdbrain' and 'Velvet Roof' are good places to start.

'Taillights Fade' is a rolling, resigned track that conjures images of end-credits, our lone hero driving off into the dark orange haze of the desert at dusk, Sebadoh's 'Soul and Fire' (mp3) playing on the stereo.

Download Buffalo Tom 'Taillights Fade' (indie rock mp3 download) (Mediafire)

Afghan Whigs 'Uptown Avondale EP' (Sub Pop, 1992)

Motown/soul covers EP from the heart of Sub Pop.

The Afghan Whigs had already released their cover of The Supremes' 'My World Is Empty Without You' which is an amazing record in both original and cover versions (memo to self: post that one). They followed it with 'Uptown Avondale' a whole EP of covers.

Matching power and twisted melody, it's a true triumph that paved the way for other alt rock bands and should probably have featured on at least one of Quentin Tarantino's soundtracks.

Tracklist:
1. Band Of Gold
2. True Love Travels On A Gravel Road
3. Come See About Me
4. Beware (plus hidden track: Milez Is Dead (Remix)

Download Afghan Whigs 'Uptown Avondale EP' (320k mp3, ZIP) (Rapidshare)

Chia Pet 'Hey Baby' (Kokopop, 1992) (mp3)

Buzzsaw indie pop railing against casual sexism on the streets of Brooklyn, 1992.

Short and sweet, this song burst its way into the indie pop scene of 1992 by way of simultaneous Single Of The Week status in the NME and Melody Maker. Its delightfully sneered, arch vocal recounts a series of sexist interludes in singer Christina Kelly's day - "I'm just walking down the street minding my own business, construction worker says Nice Tits..."

The music is dominated by staccato violin (played by Jane Pratt, then editor of US alt bible Sassy magazine), buzzsaw guitar and the shoutalong chorus, creating a frantic slice of indie rock/indie pop, produced by the mythic Kramer.

Play it again and again and again, it's a Repeater.

Download Chia Pet 'Hey Baby' (mp3) (Divshare)

Red House Painters 'Japanese To English' (4AD, 1992)

Almost desolate, post-rock flavoured songsmithery.

'Japanese To English' is a key track from Red House Painters' debut album, a selection of songs from the demo tape that was sent to label founder Ivo Watts-Russell. He was so blown-away that six tracks were released forthwith with only moderate tarting-up.

It's a stunning record of a soul laid bare over often stark but beautiful music. Not beautiful in the then-typical 4AD way - elaborate cathedrals of sounds and fountains of impressionistic, effects-heavy indie soundscaping like Cocteau Twins, Lush et al - but a more natualistic, austere beauty. It may even have something of the air of Bon Iver's debut album about it.

'Japanese To English' rolls plaintively, guitars chiming over a procession of bass and drums. Rich and sombre but very gorgeous in an alternative kind of way.

Download Red House Painters 'Japanese To English' (mp3) (Mediafire)

Ultramarine 'Saratoga' (Rough Trade, 1992) (download)

Delightful, airy jazz-inflected, chilled, funky.

From the excellent 'Every Man And Woman Is A Star', 'Saratoga' is Ultramarine at their lithe, languid best. Rock an Eagles sample and adding burbling bass and sinuous synths and lots love rhythms and textures.

My introduction to Ultramarine was via a Rough Trade Singles Club 7". They presented a stunningly atypical sound when placed against the fizzing indie Mary Chain-isms of Sweet Jesus, the arch, bookish acoustic pop of The Auteurs and the progressive leanings of Levitation.

If it were a hot summer day, this would be perfect. Even if it's not, it's still a fine, fine track.

Download Ultramarine 'Saratoga' (mp3) (Mediafire)

Teenage Fanclub 'Mr. Tambourine Man' (NME, 1992)

Laconic reading of the Bob Dylan/Byrds classic by Teenage Fanclub from the NME's 'Ruby Trax' charity compilation.

The 12-string sweetness is roughed up with some fuzz guitar and the band do a manful job of matching the original Byrds' version's harmonies. Not a ground-breaking version like Suede's version of 'Brass In Pocket' but ranks alongside their cover of Alex Chilton's 'Free Again'.

Download Teenage Fanclub 'Mr. Tambourine Man' (mp3) (Mediafire)