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Black Tambourine

Brian, Pam, Archie and Mike have put together a ten-track Soundtrack for us.

Slumberland Records have not long released 90s indie-pop quartet Black Tambourine's 'definitive collection', a deluxe edition gatefold vinyl reissue featuring remastered versions of all the band's tracks, including six previously unreleased songs and four newies - two originals, and covers of Buddy Holly and Suicide.

To celebrate, the band have put together a Soundtrack for us. But this isn't any old Soundtrack, this one comes not with occasional Spotify links, but with a full mixtape of mp3s the band have sourced for us, meaning you can listen to the whole thing by hitting 'play' on the widget below. Hurray for Mixcloud, and fingers crossed this works.

Black Tambourine Soundtrack by Diy on Mixcloud

Julee Cruise - Falling

Archie: For me, David Lynch's Blue Velvet permanently transformed Bobby Vinton's titular song and Roy Orbison's In Dreams from pleasant-but-innocuous pop fare from my parents' era into surprisingly disturbing and surreal dream soundtracks. So when Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti recruited Julee Cruise to be the voice of their custom-made, super-stylised soundtrack dream pop, I was an instant fan. I remember several of us playing copies of this song simultaneously from turntables in different rooms in the house, adding (another) layer of echo and weird ambience. And the Twin Peaks image of Cruise singing in party dress and leather jacket describes Black Tambourine's musical intentions as well as anything could.

The Five Satins - In The Still Of The Night

Mike: My first record collection was handed down to me by my dad: a box of doo-wop and r&b 45s that delighted me with their scratchy mystery. The Tin Pan Alley pop perfection of these records ingrained themselves deeply in my musical consciousness, and one of my favourites was this 1956 side. Swathed in cavernous echo and featuring Fred Perrin's rich vocals front-and-centre, it's almost primitively simple and exudes a one-take naturalism you don't hear much any more. I love this tune and hum it to my little boy when I rock him to sleep at night.

Revolving Paint Dream - Sun, Sea, Sand

Pam: I was always a big fan of Biff Bang Pow! but Revolving Paint Dream, which was made up of some of the same folks and touched in some way by a heap of the Creation posse, was the band I wanted to be in – noisy, melodic, dripping with reverb in all the right places, a total inspiration. Sun, Sea, Sand remains the perfect RVP song  – Christine’s vocals sound wistful and lazy in an effortless way, I always wanted to be able to sing like her. With echoing tambourine schwacks throughout, ace strummy guitars giving off that doo-wop vibe and wonderful harmonies chiming in at the end, this song still gets me *right here*.  I reckon it’s the best thing Creation ever released.

Shop Assistants - Somewhere In China

Brian: As much as buzzsaw noise and squalling feedback was a touchstone for the band, I really enjoyed some of the warm midnight bedroom jangle of songs like this one. Nice xylophone work and wonderful vocals by Alex Taylor, and such a simple guitar part. This is how I always wanted Black Tambourine songs to sounds with the noise stripped away.

Aztec Camera - We Could Send Letters

Pam: How to narrow down to a single Postcard single when I had a rotating cast of favourites depending on what week it was? These life-affirming discs out of Scotland were all earth-moving in some way, unlike anything else any other indie label was putting out, and even now I can’t decide if I should be giving a shout-out to Orange Juice’s Falling and Laughing or Josef K’s Sorry for Laughing instead. But the backing track to Just Like Gold was always a lurking fave and I always come back to it. I could never ever hope to play guitar like Roddy Frame, at the time I’d barely picked one up, but it wasn’t just his mind-blowing way with a guitar that sent me. To write such lyrics, and sing them in heartbreaking fashion? I never have managed it, but it’s good to have a goal.

Jesse Garon & The Desperadoes - The Rain Fell Down

Mike: Over to Scotland's Narodnik label for this one. Jesse Garon were the band I wanted to sound like if I could ever learn how to play. Perfect pop songwriting, three guitars (!) jangling at the edge of feedback, and Fran's amazing vocals on top. This is their second single and it's simply beautiful, an effortlessly fragile example of how transcendent great indie-pop can be. "The world is mine tonight" indeed.

Galaxie 500 - Tugboat

Brian: I was pretty blown away when Mike played me this 7-inch. Their drummer Damon Krukowski's style was something I was trying to cop on songs like Black Car and By Tomorrow. As much as I loved Dean Wareham's simple guitar, it was the drums and bass that really provided the atmosphere of this band.

Baby Lemonade - Secret Goldfish

Archie: I know Pam and I were huge fans of this single on the Narodnik label. It was a typical post-Psychocandy fizzy pop song, but with the psychedelic factor amped up by some Galaxie 500-level reverb abuse and a clarinet solo cutting through the noise. And it pulls off the great disorientation trick of sounding dizzy and lightheaded while simultaneously charging ahead.

The Nightblooms - Never Dream At All

Mike: This would be the original version from the Fierce 7-inch. Lovely melodies almost completely obscured by insane, out-of-control guitar racket. It was this combination that was a huge inspiration for me when we were working out our songs, and this single is a prime example. After one of our gigs our mate Dan said we sounded like this record, and I could have wept.

Beat Happening - Pajama Party In A Haunted Hive

Archie: I have a very vivid, happy memory of listening to this song with Mike three or four times in a row, while we were in a somewhat, umm, altered state. Steve Fisk gave this track an amazing, Cramps-like fake-spooky vibe with crashing feedback and cavernous reverb, and Calvin Johnson gave a typically awesome vocal performance. Calvin, Heather, and Bret, more than anybody else, inspired me to be in bands.