Cocteau Twins

'Other wordly'. Cocteau Twins are by far one of the most unique bands. Just listen to the elements that compose its sound, Liz Fraser's voice with its unmistakable swirls and warmth, and the peculiarity of the lyrics, which are sometimes made up of random words and even some 'inexistent' ones, the guitars add up an atmosphere of heavenly dreamy fanciness.
They had a dark period which was much faster (early 80s) and later they developed their characteristic ethereal landscapes (late 80s-early 90s).

Favorite Albums:
Garlands
Blue Bell Knoll
Treasure
Victorialand
Heaven or Las Vegas

Favorite Songs: Cocteau Twins – LoreleiCocteau Twins – Garlands
Feather-Or-Blades
Cocteau Twins – Carolyn's Fingers
Cocteau Twins – Pearly-Dewdrops' Drops


Garlands (1982)
Garlands is the 1982 debut album of Cocteau Twins. The result is an album, and a guitar sound, with a strangled, constricted range and a dark ambience. In the post-punk world of the early 1980s the influence of Siouxsie and the Banshees and other proto-goths is clear, but the beginning of the trademark ethereal Twins sound is also here, especially in Elizabeth Fraser's curiously addictive and largely indecipherable vocals.

The songs are simple, repetitive and haunting, with guitar, vocals, bass and the lo-fi drum machine usually entering separately and building to a climax.
The album made a huge impression at the time with its distinctive sound, a still embryonic sound which the band would continue to develop over the succeeding albums and other releases. Garlands ended the year as one of the best-selling 'indy' albums, helped by the fact that band was championed by BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel. With the nurturing of label boss Ivo Watts-Russell, who also co-produced the album, and the band's participation in the successful first This Mortal Coil album, the Cocteau Twins soon became the iconic 4AD band.

With her often opaque textured singing style, Elizabeth's Fraser's lyrics were a source of debate from the start, though Garlands is one of the few Cocteau Twins releases to feature any printed lyrics.




Cocteau Twins - Lorelei (Live 198?)


Cocteau Twins - Carolyn's Fingers (1988)

Swans

Swans only sound like Swans. Their sound has changed dramatically from their early era in the 80s to their later in the 90s. From being a brutal and visceral combo with intense and obscure performances to achieving more atmospheric textures and even heavenly melodies. They can be tagged noise, industrial, ambient, folk, experimental, post-punk, no wave, metal and even post rock. My beloved Swans, I will always have a shelter under their music, either if i am feeling hopeless or hopeful.

Favorite Albums:
Filth
Greed
Children of God

The Great Annihilator
The Burning World

Favorite Songs:
Big Strong Boss
Swans – Saved
Swans – I Am the Sun
Beautiful Child
Swans – Money Is Flesh

Filth (1983)
Another exciting piece of history from one of The Big Apple's meanest, creepiest and uncompromising bands ever. Swans could only have come from New York, no other city other than Berlin could have produced such a glorious cacophony of unrelenting brutality. For me Swans rests somewhere between real industrial (not 90s industrial metal) and noise-rock. Their only peers would have been Glenn Branca, The Butthole Surfers, early Sonic Youth (who were more song based) and Einsturzende Neubauten. On 'Filth' they use repetition to exhilarating effect slowing everything down to a virtual crawl. It's difficult to describe this album but know one thing: nothing produced before or after it can match it in the brutality stakes. Like a wrecking ball it demolishes your weak mind while never overstaying it's welcome. 'Filth' is as the title would suggest an ugly beast of an album that will beat you and leave you paralysed on floor simply because it can.


Warning: This is really intense!

Swans - Beautiful Child (Live 1987)




And this one is from their 'melodious' period. A documentary covering 1995-1997

14 Iced Bears

They could sound poppy, scratchy, dreamy and psychedelic. Any way I love them.
I was first introduced to a song called 'Like A Dolphin' 4 years ago, and even though, this guys existed from 1985-1992, they always sounded fresh to me.

During my indie pop 'period' I could spend entire afternoons listening to tracks like 'Inside' and others (which unfortunately don't have any video).

Favorite Albums:
In the Beginning (Compilation)
Wonder
14 Iced Bears


Favorite Songs:
14 Iced Bears – Inside
Unhappy Days
Cut
Miles Away
14 Iced Bears – Sure to See

In The Beginning - Compilation (2001)

14 Iced Bears' songs alternate between straightforward, catchy pop and more obtuse post-punk-ish art songs. That duality is immediately apparent on In the Beginning, with the first two songs on the band’s first single—the musically gleeful pop of “Inside” and the more complicated rock arrangements on “Blue Suit.” 14 Iced Bears’ lyrical side is persistently multi-faced as well, shifting between enigmatic poetry and straight-from-the-heart raw expressions of love, jealousy, confusion and longing.

The more heart wrenching side of 14 Iced Bears is best capsulated on “Balloon Song,” their second single and a song that no doubt helped give them a following. It appears twice here, in studio and Peel session versions, and it could easily have been here a few more times without me minding. It’s both a truly perfect pop song, with a super glue hook and gorgeous singing, and a heartbreaking portrait of sad love. The chorus is worded just right, with word building upon word until it hits the right bittersweet note: “Don’t call me ever again / I think I’ve lost my only friend/a friend that happened to say that she loved me.”

14 Iced Bears - Mother Sleep (1989)

Pixies

Oh! The Pixies! The band that introduced me to so many other alternative underground sets.
Fast, weird, loud and highly influential. Formed in 1985 and disbanded in 1993. Members: Black Francis, Joey Santiago, Kim Deal and dave Lovering. They were a perfect mix of punk and surf.

Favorite Albums:
Doolittle
Bossanova
Surfer Rosa

Doolittle (1989)

After 1988's brilliant but abrasive Surfer Rosa, The Pixies' sound couldn't get much more extreme. Their Elektra debut, Doolittle, reins in the noise in favor of pop songcraft and accessibility. Producer Gil Norton's sonic sheen adds some polish, but Black Francis' tighter songwriting focuses the group's attack. Doolittle's most ferocious moments, like "Dead," a visceral retelling of David and Bathsheba's affair -- are more stylized than the group's past outbursts. Meanwhile, their poppy side surfaces on the irresistible single "Here Comes Your Man" and the sweetly surreal love song "La La Love You." The Pixies' arty, noisy weirdness mix with just enough hooks to produce gleefully demented singles like "Debaser," -- inspired by Bunuel's classic surrealist short {#Un Chien Andalou} -- and "Wave of Mutilation," their surfy ode to driving a car into the sea. Though Doolittle's sound is cleaner and smoother than The Pixies' earlier albums, there are still plenty of weird, abrasive vignettes: the blankly psychotic "There Goes My Gun," "Crackity Jones," a song about a crazy roommate Francis had in Puerto Rico, and the nihilistic finale "Gouge Away." Meanwhile, "Tame," and "I Bleed" continue The Pixies' penchant for cryptic kink. But the album doesn't just refine The Pixies' sound; they also expand their range on the brooding, wannabe spaghetti western theme "Silver" and the strangely theatrical "Mr. Grieves." "Hey" and "Monkey Gone to Heaven," on the other hand, stretch Francis' lyrical horizons: "Monkey"'s elliptical environmentalism and "Hey"'s twisted longing are The Pixies' versions of message songs and romantic ballads. Their most accessible album, Doolittle's wide-ranging moods and sounds make it one of their most eclectic and ambitious. A fun, freaky alternative to most other late-'80s college rock, it's easy to see why the album made The Pixies into underground rock stars.

Favorite Tracks: (this one is hard)
Pixies – Velouria
Pixies – Gigantic
Pixies – Wave of Mutilation
Pixies – Here Comes Your Man
Pixies – Where Is My Mind?


Pixies - Dead / I Bleed (and small interview) on Snub TV 1988

Galaxie 500

Amazing Dream Pop / Slowcore band formed in the 80s, already disbanded.

Their sound is most of the time slow and intimal but also frenetic and passionate.
Members: Guitarist Dean Wareham, drummer Damon Krukowski and bassist Naomi Yang

Probably one of the best bands doing covers, too.

Favorite Albums:
On Fire
Today
This Is Our Music
(pretty much everything they recorded in studio)

Favorite Songs:
Galaxie 500 – When Will You Come Home
Galaxie 500 – Tugboat
Galaxie 500 – Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste
Galaxie 500 – Snowstorm
Galaxie 500 – Oblivious

(...and many more)


Actually i never heard any bad song by them (including demos)


On Fire (1989)
Galaxie 500 began to play beyond the Boston limits and their stock rose, especially in the UK where Today wasreceived enthusiastically. In the summer of 1989, the band re-entered Kramer’s studio to record their second album,On Fire, and its companion EP, the UK-only release Blue Thunder, both for Rough Trade. The critical acclaim for these recordings was deafening. Sounds described the album as "utter magnificence," Melody Maker called it "astunning collection of daydream pop," even Rolling Stone gave it 3½ stars.The world was beating its head on Galaxie’s door; the On Fire/Blue Thunder pairing expanded effortlessly on theband’s exquisite base. The plaintive threads of the Galaxie 500 sound had been pulled tighter by the technicalproficiency that had enveloped these ex-amateurs, and unlike so many others, technique had sharpened their instinctsrather than masked them. Playing with flash is superfluous, when you have the moxie to cover Red Crayola’s "VictoryGarden" and Joy Division’s "Ceremony," making both of them over in your own image. With the release of On Fire/Blue Thunder, Galaxie 500 took their playing to a whole new level.



Galaxie 500 - Tugboat (1989)

This Mortal Coil

I recently listened to the album 'It'll End in Tears' and is already one of my favorites. It is, in simple words, ethereal majesty.

Almost all of the songs deserve a close listen,
that will give the ear a delicate and mystical experience.


I can't wait to listen to more of this 80s band.



Favorite Songs:
This Mortal Coil – Song to the Siren
Kangaroo
A Single Wish
The Last Ray


It'll End in Tears (1984)
The debut release by this superstar-Goth outfit shined (and still does) in all its glorious misery and despair. Just how can it be so beautiful? the listener wonders. For one thing, when the project is conceptualized by 4AD Records brain-man Ivo Watts-Russell and includes artists from groundbreaking U.K. bands such as Cocteau Twins, Magazine, and Dead Can Dance, and when a chunk of the material is from musical heavyweights such as Tim Buckley (the haunting "Song to the Siren"), Alex Chilton of Big Star (the devastating "Holocaust" and the heartbreakingly lovely "Kangaroo"), and Colin Newman of Wire (the rockin' "Not Me"), you're bound to come up with something that will be remembered and revered by old-school Goths everywhere. This is lush, hypnotic, astonishingly beautiful. --Lorry Fleming




This Mortal Coil - Kangaroo (1984)

Sonic Youth

One of my all-time favorite artists.
No band could ever sound like them.


My Top Albums are:

Bad Moon Rising
EVOL
Daydream Nation
Sister


Bad Moon Rising (1985)
Is an album of inspired contradictions. Chilling yet pastoral, artful yet politicized, it documents a band at odds with its own impulses and the culture that spawned them. You can hear Sonic Youth struggling to define their identity in a medium that turned its back on such pursuits long ago. The album closer, "Death Valley '69" (with vocal contributions from Lydia Lunch) is the group's most rewarding dalliance into straightforward rock to date and a promising sign of things to come. But the song is epilogue to a conflict between posture and innovation. Over the next three years--climaxing with 1988's Daydream Nation--Sonic Youth would pursue the latter of these impulses with peerless results. But Bad Moon Rising is arguably their first essential release. It marks a crucial turning point in the band's history--the moment when an experiment became an institution. --Matt Hanks



Favorite Songs:
Sonic Youth – Expressway to Your Skull
Sonic Youth – Death Valley '69 (w. Lydia Lunch)
Sonic Youth – I Love Her All the Time
Sonic Youth – Brave Men Run (in My Family)
Sonic Youth – Green Light



Sonic Youth - I Love Her All The Time 01/05/85 Live at Gila Monster Jamboree