Some weeks there are maybe three or four new albums out that fall under the Indie Basement banner. Then there are weird weeks like this where it’s an absolute avalanche. Today we’ve got 13 records — including The Libertines, Cindy Lee, Mount Kimbie, Pernice Brothers, Khruangbin, Einstürzende Neubauten, Jane Weaver, Gustaf and Duchess Says singer Annie-Claude Deschênes — and a few of them have a good shot of making my Year End list in December. With so many titles, I tried to keep my reviews compact and with as few parenthetical diversions as possible. You’re welcome!

It’s not quite as big a week in Notable Releases where Andrew listens to the latest from Vampire Weekend, Phosphorescent, Wisp, and more.

You can catch up on last month with the Indie Basement Best Songs and Albums of March. and look forward to BrooklynVegan’s most anticipated spring albums.

Head below for this week’s baker’s dozen of reviews….

ALBUM OF THE WEEK #1: Cindy Lee – Diamond Jubilee (Realistik)
Despite being just over two hours long, this is Patrick Flegel’s most fully-realized, inviting Cindy Lee album yet. 

Patrick Flegel hasn’t released a Cindy Lee album since 2020 (when they released three albums) but has clearly been busy. Diamond Jubilee is a two-hour and two-minute magnum opus that encompasses a wide variety of styles that showcase Flegel’s many talents as a songwriter, musician and producer. It’s a lot to take in. The album was originally announced as triple album Darling of the Diskoteque to be sold on tour, but then last weekend dropped as a pay-what-you-can download on Cindy Lee’s geocities site, renamed and resequenced as a theoretical double CD (wav files). I’m really only beginning to digest everything, but am also very wowed by it all. While still very much in the Cindy Lee lo-fi dreamworld of early-’60s pop, country and rock n’ roll, there are less weird-for-weird’s-sake sonic tapestries and instead a parade of memorable song after memorable song.

Lyrically these are mostly straightforward tales of longing, love and heartbreak — “Dreams of You,” “All I Want is You,” and “Always Dreaming” all come within a few tracks of each other on the first disc — which fit perfectly with Flegel’s love of Everly Brothers and Phil Spector productions. Though there are plenty of what I call “Lady in the Radiator” moments, Flegel is not singing all high falsetto this time, and the variety makes Diamond Jubilee a richer, more listenable experience and the daunting runtime sail by. It’s also the most guitar-oriented Cindy Lee album yet, and a real showcase for Flegel’s skills in that department; there are moments with gorgeous filigree throughout that are not that far from what you might hear on a Khruangbin album, just used to very different ends. Diamond Jubilee is a world that is easy to give yourself over to, despite length, and is peppered with amazing moments even very deep into its 32 songs, like the elegiac, stunning “What’s it Going to Take?” I have a feeling more sonic revelations will present themselves as this incredible record stays in my rotation throughout the foreseeable future.

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ALBUM OF THE WEEK #2: Mount Kimbie – The Sunset Violent (Warp)
The former UK electronic duo are now a full-blown indie rock band, and a very good one at that

Despite being signed to Warp Records, having participated in the acclaimed DJ Kicks mix series and regular appearances on electronic music festivals, London’s Mount Kimbie have never been ones to be pinned down. They’ve long collaborated with King Krule, and since 2017’s Love What Survives they’ve sounded more like a band than other UK electronic duos of which there are many. For their fourth studio album, founding members Dominic Maker and Kai Campos have, with the addition of Andrea Balency-Béarn and Marc Pel, turned Mount Kimbie into an indie rock band, albeit one that is still very interested in all manner of electronics; The Sunset Violent is one of the more unique, surprising, and memorable pop records of the year. Making time in their busy schedules of working with Rosalia, slowthai, and James Blake, Maker and Campos decamped to the deserts of California’s Yucca Valley in 2021 to work on songs. It was there they found a newfound love of guitars, the classic ’80s Linn Drum machine, and the endless vistas of the desert. “I think when you see the horizon just go on forever, it does something to your brain that creates space for ideas,” Campos told Grammy.com. “It’s definitely the most American record we’ve made.” King Krule is back again, collaborating on the moody “Boxing” and motorik closer “Empty and Silent,” but Archy Marshall’s influence can be felt all over the album, especially on hazy single “Shipwreck” that’s driven by melodic and mutated bass. What makes this album so special is the way Mount Kimbie blend guitars and electronics into something that doesn’t quite sit in either world, as gleaming chords sheer off into distorted fragments and melt into the keyboards. The very best songs here, “Figure in the Surf” for example, are an android-like hybrid that owe a little to early-’80s proggy art-pop practitioners like Bill Nelson and Japan. Elsewhere, songs like “Yukka Tree” have more than a whiff of shoegaze to them, but Mount Kimbie fold it all into the distinct sound of this fascinating, engrossing album.

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ALBUM OF THE WEEK #3: The Libertines – All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade (Casablanca / Republic)
Across 20+ years and countless troubles, The Libertines’ genuine cameradie shines through on their fantastic fourth album

What’s the bigger surprise? That Pete Doherty is still with us or that The Libertines have released a record as great as All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade. The band, led by best mates Doherty and Carl Barât, somehow survived the magnifying glass spotlight of the early-’00s indie renaissance where they were a genuine sensation (and source of many tabloid headlines) in England. Not unscathed; Doherty’s very public battles with drug addiction led to his split from the group, who officially broke up in 2004 not long after releasing their second album. Ten years later, Doherty and Barât patched things up and, with fellow bandmates John Hassall and Gary Powell, reformed The Libertines and released comeback album Anthems for Doomed Youth in 2015. That record was pretty good, but All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade finds the likely lads older, probably wiser, but sounding very much like the Libertines you remember.

The band recorded the album over a four-week period in early 2023 with producer Dimitri Tikovoï (The Horrors/Charli XCX) at Doherty’s Albion Rooms studio in Margate, UK. “We really came together as a band,” said Doherty. “It was a moment of rare peace and unity, with all the members contributing.” Barât adds, “Our first record was born out of panic, and disbelief that we were actually allowed to be in a studio; the second was born of total strife and misery; the third was born of complexity; this one feels like we were all actually in the same place, at the same speed, and we really connected.” It really does, with the band’s swagger, camaraderie, lyrical style that intertwines band lore with tales of early 20th century England, and Doherty and Barât’s unique interplay. It’s not the shambolic party that Up the Bracket was, but who would want it to be with the band in their 40s. The songs are uniformly great and distinctly Libertines-esque, even when drenched in horns and strings. All Quiet on the Eastern Esplanade is their best since their first.

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Pernice Brothers – Who Will You Believe (New West)
Neko Case and a string section enliven the best, most inspired Pernice Brothers albums in two decades

Few songwriters today imbue frustration and anguish into the sweetest of melodies as Joe Pernice. It’s a winning combination and as leader of Pernice Brothers since 1998, Joe has wrapped his darkest thoughts in music that references Jimmy Webb, The Left Banke, Big Star and Bread. He’s not all doom, gloom and self-loathing, but usually any hope in a song is tempered with a little despair. (He grew up a Smiths fan and was a colleague of late Silver Jews frontman David Berman, it all makes sense.) “I fell in love with the possible world,” Joe sings on the title track of Who Would You Believe. “Then I smashed my heart against the stones.” Joe’s musical output slowed to a trickle by the late-2000s but like a lot of artists, pandemic lockdown and the world events of the last four years rekindled a spark. You can feel that in what is the best, most inspired, most Pernice Brothers-y album we’ve gotten in more than two decades. It’s also the group’s first for Nashville label New West after 25 years self-releasing records on Pernice’s own Ashmont label.  Having a budget for things like a string section — such a huge part of Pernice Brothers’ 2001 masterpiece Overcome by Happiness — makes these already great songs soar just  a little higher. Who Will You Believe is also a bit of a Pernice Brothers Greatest Hits, with weepy acoustic ballads, sunshine pop, seething screeds against fallen idols wrapped in a bubblegum chorus, a fantastic duet with Neko Case, and Joe’s new wave youth rears its head on the anthemic “Hey, Guitar.” The album ends with its most affecting song, “The Purple Rain,” a heartfelt tribute to friends lost (Berman, Rhino Records founder Gary Stewart and Pernice’s cousin Joe Harvard [who founded Fort Apache Studios]) where, for once, the music is sad as the words, and when the strings kick in as Joe sings “I remember you” even the driest eyes may well up.

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Khruangbin – A LA SALA (Dead Oceans)
The Houston trio’s chillest album yet, and all the better for it

I don’t spend a lot of time hanging out in fancy hotel bars these days but for whatever reason I did back in the late ’90s. (Tribeca Grand and Soho Grand in particular.) It was the era of chillout and you couldn’t go through a hotel lobby (or hair salon) without hearing Kruder & Dorfmeister’s K&D Sessions or Air’s Moon Safari, records that I own and like (or love, in the case of Air), but still associate with such spaces. Kruanghbin occupy that space now, at least to me, crafting very groovy, suave music that makes a perfect soundtrack to bespoke cocktails. Music that you’ll find your head bobbing to and maybe even Shazaming. A LA SALA doesn’t mess with the formula but is more successful than 2020’s vocal-heavy Mordechai by being even more chill and a return to their (mostly) instrumental ways. When they do sing, like on the wonderful “May Ninth,” it’s almost whispered or as if its coming from another room. Nothing on this album would wake a dog, but the performances are as skilled and nimble as they are hushed, like on standout “Pon Pón” which could redefine the term “silent disco.”  The sheer unobtrusiveness of A LA SALA makes it highly replayable — I have let it repeat five or six times in a row more than once, partially because I forget, but also because I was digging it. Can a record be too chill? In this case, no, and what some might see as a bug, Khruangbin use as a feature. A LA SALA is enjoyable and engaging with or without a $17 negroni. 

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Jane Weaver – Love in Constant Spectacle (Fire Records)
Jane Weaver and producer John Parish are a match made in the stars on her 12th and best-sounding album yet

After years of making records more or less on her own, Jane Weaver tried something new for her 12th album — using a producer. Specifically, the very talented John Parish who is known for his collaborations with PJ Harvey, Sparklehorse, Aldous Harding, and more. Love in Constant Spectacle was made at Parish’s studio of choice, Rockfield in Wales, along with some time at Geoff Barrow’s Invada Studios in Bristol and, probably no surprise if your still reading this review, Weaver and Parish make for a very good match. The songs, as usual, are top notch, especially proggy opener “Perfect Storm,” the swaying, windswept “Romantic Worlds,” and the pleasingly precise “Is Metal.” Weaver is also still crafting cosmic folk from fuzzy guitars, old synthesizers and other vintage equipment but Parish brings a warm earthiness, a perfect balance between the organic and the synthetic, and lots of headroom in the mix for what might be her best-sounding record yet.

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Gustaf – Package Pt 2 (Royal Mountain)
One of Brooklyn’s best live bands still haven’t quite figured out the studio on their second album

Gustaf went from being Brooklyn’s hardest working band to being the opener of choice for all manner of shouty UK indie bands on US tours, including IDLES and Yard Act. Good reason, too: Gustaf are amazing live and their songs are all designed for maximum audience engagement, from the funky post-punk rhythm section, to the call and response vocals and sloganeering choruses. Plus, the band are led by the very smart, funny and charismatic Lydia Gammill who you can’t take your eyes off of, nor should you; she might bound into the crowd and sneak up on you at a show if you’re looking at your phone. I still think there’s too much of their live aesthetic in their recordings, though. Those response vocals, pitched down a la Will Powers, come off a little gimmicky. I do however love “Happiest Thought,” which slides along a very slinky, synth-and-guitar-harmonics groove that sounds distinct from the rest of the album. I hope they play that one the next time I see them live, which I hope is soon.

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Einstürzende Neubauten – Rampen (apm: alien pop music) (Potomak)
After a couple of stately, rather reserved albums, these industrial icons add some noise back for their 13th long-player

German industrialists Einstürzende Neubauten have come a long way from the days when they used live explosives and power tools at shows. Blixa Bargeld, Alexander Hacke and the rest of the group are now more likely to wear suits onstage, and records like 2020 Alles in Allem conjure adjectives like “dignified.” The band’s 13th album, Rampen: apm (alien pop music), however, brings back a little of the noise that made their name — which translates to “collapsing new cities” — so appropriate. What make their albums interesting is they’re often a direct repose to the previous one. In this case very directly, with songs starting as live improvisations — what they call a “rampen” — on their 2022 Alles in Allem tour and later honed in the studio. “On the album, I found a few solutions and formulated things in ways I haven’t formulated them before, because they were never so clear to me,” says Bargeld. “I follow the conviction. I’ll find something in the music that I didn’t know before. And sing something that I didn’t know.” It’s reassuring to know that this group featuring men in their mid-to-late-’60s are still willing to blow things up and start again, even if it’s just figuratively.

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The KVB – Tremors (Invada)
Darkwave duo go widescreen for their latest album on Geoff Barrow’s Invada Records

UK duo The KVB call their new album “dystopian pop” which honestly I think would apply to everything they’ve ever released. Tremors is straight-up darkwave post-punk that borrows from the best: basslines from The Cure, synths and vocals from New Order/Joy Division, and the sweep (but not the bombast) of Sisters of Mercy. Nicholas Wood and Kat Day know how to construct satisfying, hooky songs and really understand genre sonics. On that note, Tremors is their biggest, best sounding record yet with a few curveballs in the mix, like the widescreen pop sheen on “In The Silence” and the sexy noir atmosphere and extremely satisfying chorus on “Overload.” There are no shortage of groups who sound like this, but few do it as well as The KVB.

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Annie-Claude Deschênes – LES MANIÈRES DE TABLE (Italians Do It Better / Bonsound)
The Duchess Says singer argues French Canadians Do It Better on her new wave-y and very fun solo debut

This week might hold the record for sheer number of dark, synthy records in a single edition of Indie Basement. In addition to The KVB, Pye Corner Audio, and Einstürzende Neubauten — Jane Weaver and Still Corners fit in, too –we have the solo debut from Annie-Claude Deschênes who you may have experienced wreaking havoc as singer and mischief-maker for Montreal’s Duchess Says. LES MANIÈRES DE TABLE is, surprisingly, out via Italians Do It Better and while it’s much tamer than her band’s releases, this still has to be one of the most whacked-out, bangingest records the label has ever released. These nine tracks take French, English, new wave, electro, glam, minimal wave, techno, house and a variety of other electronic pop styles and drop them into a Cuisinart. There are vocoders, sampled orchestra hits, and endless rolls of electro-toms. There are moments that sound like Cyndi Lauper and others that could be an obscure synthave 7″ from 1980. LES MANIÈRES DE TABLE never lets up, is a lot of fun, and sounds great loud. “Manners” is not something I associate with someone who I’ve seen strike fear in an unsuspecting crowd member who somehow ended up at a Duchess Says show, but if Annie-Claude is hosting a dinner party, I want an invite.

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Pye Corner Audio – The Endless Echo (Ghost Box)
More cinematic, phantasmagoric analogue synth music from Martin Jenkins

Martin Jenkins’ latest as Pye Corner Audio is another luxurious, otherworldly and cinematic trip through hazy atmospherics and darkwave beats, all powered by his amazing array of analogue synths. According to Ghost Box, whose label founder Julian House did another amazing sleeve design here, “this time around Jenkins draws inspiration from scientific and science-fictional notions about the nature of time and the idea that it may be entirely unreal.” I’ll have to take their word on that but there’s no denying The Endless Echo sounds eerie and fantastic.

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Mei Semones – Kabutomushi (Bayonet)
Debut EP from this very talented singer-songwriter

Brooklyn singer-songwriter Mei Semones makes ethereal, folky indie rock that is jazzy, dexterous and string-laden with more than a dash of bossa-nova. Her debut EP is a real treat, showcasing an incredible amount of talent and firm grasp on a few different styles that she weaves togehter effortlessly. Kabutomushi opens with the rather dazzling tropicalia number “Tegami,” and from there heads to mathier but still sunny territory on “Wakare No Kotoba,” and even into ’90s indie rock on “Inaka.” The playing is muscular and nimble, and the string arrangements swoonworthy. I’m looking forward to hearing what Semones does next.

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Still Corners – Dream Talk (Wrecking Light Records)
Sixth album from this UK dreampop duo doesn’t break any new ground but is expertly crafted

Much like Khruangbin, Still Corners have carved out a niche in the world of chilled-out music, though their style falls into drive-by-moonlight, lonesome road territory that sounds like the answer to, “What if Chris Isaak joined Mazzy Star, but they were English?” Dream Talk is the duo’s sixth album and if they’re not exploring any new territory here, they are expert drivers behind the wheel of a pristinely maintained ’60s convertible, piloting under a beautiful desert sky full of stars.

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Creation Records’ 21 Best Records

21. Biff Bang Pow! – Oblivion (1987)

Alan McGee wasn't just the head of Creation Records, he was also one its musical artists, involved in a few projects over the years, including Laughing Apple, Revolving Paint Dream and his longest-running group, Biff Bang Pow! that also featured, at various points, label co-founders Dick Green and Joe Foster, as well as Primal Scream's Andrew Innes. Oblivion, the second of two albums Biff Bang Pow! released in 1987, is the group's best record, full of the sort of jangly pastiche psychedelia you'd expect from a band that, like his label, were named after '60s beat group The Creation. McGee's a better songwriter than he is a singer but his fey vocal style works just fine on terrifically titled tracks like "A Girl Called Destruction," "The Only Colour in the World is Love" and "She's Got Diamonds in Her Hair." The band's other 1987 album, The Girl Who Runs the Beat Hotel, is worth checking out too and contains the band's best-ever single, the Andrew Innes-sung "Someone Stole My Wheels."

20. Various Artists – Creation Soup Vol 1-5 (1990)

Most people associate Creation Records with their '90s heyday of Oasis, Primal Scream, Ride, Super Furry Animals and My Bloody Valentine, but the label's first five years were full of singles from jangly, '60s-inspired bands who most people have probably never heard of, most of which were only released on 7". In 1990 Creation gathered them all up for a five volume CD set. McGee notes that "The first twenty came in hand folded sleeves which Joe Foster and I used to stay up and fold all night four or five times a week." They include great early singles by Primal Scream, Felt, The Loft, The Weather Prophets, The Jasmine Minks, The Pastels, House of Love, Biff Bang Pow!, The Bodines, and more. Noticeably absent from these, though, is the label's breakthrough -- The Jesus & Mary Chain's 1984 debut single "Upside Down" (due to rights issues). Creation Soup is still a fascinating look at the formative years of a label that would become an indie powerhouse.

19. The Jesus & Mary Chain – Munki (1998)

The Jesus and Mary Chain's 1984 debut single, "Upside Down," turned the UK indie scene upside down with its then-novel approach of taking a Phil Spector-eque pop song and wrapping it in pummeling noise and feedback. It also put Creation Records on the map, paving the way for House of Love, My Bloody Valentine, Ride and many more of the label's most famous groups. JAMC made the leap to Warner Bros immediately after this single but Creation founder Alan McGee stayed the band's manager, and JAMC quickly became alt-rock stars. By the late-'90s, though, Jim and William Reid felt chewed up and spit out by the music industry and weren't getting along with each other so well, either. If Warner had lost interest in the band after five albums, McGee had not, and welcomed the Reids back to Creation with open arms. Bookended by the supercatchy "I Love Rock N' Roll" and tinnitus-inducing "I Hate Rock N' Roll," the sprawling, 17-track Munki plays like a career retrospective, including buzzsaw pop, semi-acoustic numbers, duets with Hope Sandoval, and dissonant noise jams. Munki served as a great final word on the JAMC...till they reformed and made a new album 19 years later.

18. The Loft – One Round the Fair (1989) / The Weather Prophets – Diesel River (1988)

You can't really tell the story of Creation Records without including Peter Astor, the label's first shining star, who wrote charming, literate songs with his Television/VU-esque bands The Loft and The Weather Prophets. (The Loft's original name was The Living Room, which was also the name of Alan McGee's pre-Creation London club night; Astor changed it to avoid confusion.) Astor also had a face meant for magazine covers, as well as a fine if not exceptional Tom Verlaine-esque voice that probably kept his groups from crossing over into more mainstream success. Not that Creation Records' Alan McGee didn't try. The Loft broke up before making a full length record but their excellent singles "Why Does the Rain" (which Astor recorded with The Weather Prophets, too) and "Up the Hill and Down the Slope" are among Creation's best early singles and, along with the b-sides, make up compilation Once Round The Fair. Astor and Loft bandmate Dave Morgan formed The Weather Prophets who continued in much the same direction, releasing three albums that never quite captured the magic of the band's Creation singles, most of which are collected on Diesel River (though your best bet is 2004 best-of comp Blue Skies & Free-Rides).

17. Adorable – Against Perfection (1993)

Making their debut with the undeniable "Sunshine Smile," Adorable were initially lumped in with the shoegaze scene, because almost everything on Creation in 1992 was kinda shoegaze, but the band were closer in spirit to House of Love's textured, romantic pop than My Bloody Valentine or Swervedriver. They owed a lot to the Pixies and The Wedding Present, too, held Echo & The Bunnymen in the highest regard, and Fijalkowski had no shortage of big hooks and mile-wide choruses in his arsenal. Their debut album, Against Perfection, is one of the great, underrated UK indie records of the early '90s, jam-packed with memorable melodies, roaring/chiming guitars, clever/heartfelt lyrics and lots of swagger. The American release, via SBK records, betters the UK version by adding "Sunshine Smile" and another early single, "I'll Be Your Saint," alongside killer album cuts like "A to Fade In," "Homeboy," "Favorite Fallen Idol" and "Still Life."

16. The Jazz Butcher – Fishcotheque (1988)

With the Jazz Butcher's mid-'80s albums for Glass Records, which featured a band that included bassist (and ex Bauhaus member) David J, The Jazz Butcher (Pat Fish) had gained the reputation for whimsical indie a la Robyn Hitchcock. Signing to Creation, Pat started a new version of the group with collaborator Kizzy O'Callahan, intent on changing his image. That makeover began with 1988's Fishcotheque, one of his best albums that showed a new, more serious side to The Jazz Butcher. "I was keen to get as far away from all those 'w, words that had followed my group around," Fish wrote later of the album, "to make it as clear as I could that this was a rock & roll thing, not some 'eccentricity.' I had my shades and I had my fringed suede jacket and I had the Weather Prophets rhythm section." Witty without being wacky, Fishcotheque is loaded with great songs, including the punky "Looking for Lot 49," the wistful "Swell" and "The Next Move Sideways," terrific pop number "Let's Get it Wrong," and one of his best-ever songs, "Susie," which features Sonic Boom on feedback. Pat didn't entirely abandon his "w" side, though, which rears its head on "Living in a Village" and vegan rap song "The Best Way" (which isn't as kooky as it may seem).

15. Momus – The Tender Pervert (1988)

Named after the Greek god of satire and mockery, Momus (aka Scottish artist Nic Currie) was Creation's most idiosyncratic artist on record*, writing almost exclusively about sex and death but in a high-minded style that was likely to quote the bible or ancient literature, and playing in a style somewhere between Donovan and Jacques Brel. (Most eccentric in real life: Felt's Lawrence.) As the '80s went on, Currie would incorporate Pet Shop Boys-style synthpop into the Momus sound. The Tender Pervert was his first real flirtation with drum machines, and was a deeply twisted, angry record fueled by disgust with Margaret Thatcher's response to the AIDS crisis. "I'm so furious about this that I decide that, if gay people are not only dying but being gagged by the government while dying, it's up to straight people to promote homosexuality in their place," Currie wrote reflecting on the record. Momus is at the height of his witty, erudite powers here on tracks like "The Angels Are Voyeurs," "The Homosexual," "A Complete History of Sexual Jealousy (Parts 17-24)" and the elegant, complex "Bishonen." Currie is not wrong when he writes that The Tender Pervert is "my best and most definitive album" -- it's also the best place to start for this artist who is definitely an acquired taste.

14. Swervedriver – Ejector Seat Reservation (1995)

Swervedriver were one of the best groups of the original shoegaze era, but by 1995 interest in the genre in their home country (and label, Creation) had fully moved on to Britpop. Unlike some bands (Ride, Lush), Swervedriver stuck to their guitar pedals while trying to expand upon their sound with their third album, Ejector Seat Reservation. It was still heavy, but there was an equal emphasis on melody and maelstrom, adding elements of Bowie and Bolan to the mix, not to mention a string and horn section. It's Swervedriver's best album and loaded with memorable songs, including pile-driver "Bring Me the Head of the Fortune Teller," the poppy/heavy "The Other Jesus," elegant first single "Last Day on Earth," and soaring closing cut "To the Birds." Unfortunately there was no time to celebrate: Creation Records dropped Swervedriver the week after Ejector Seat Reservation was released and deleted the album from their catalog, making it for years the band's hardest-to-find album.

13. Saint Etienne – Good Humor (1997)

Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs formed Saint Etienne in 1990 as a way to mix their obsession with '60s and '70s pop, R&B, soul and reggae with the indie dance and rave culture that had taken over the UK at the time. They originally envisioned the group as having a different vocalist for every single, but that changed when they met Sarah Cracknell, and Saint Etienne became a trio. After three albums of sample-based dance pop, Saint Etienne changed course, and decamped to Malmo, Sweden to make a full-band album with Cardigans producer Tore Johannsen at his famed Tambourine Studios. Armed with a group of crack session musicians, Good Humor is unlike any other record in Saint Etienne's catalog before or since, working in elements of exotica, acid jazz and Beach Boys/Phil Spector wall of sound pop. While Saint Etienne's previous albums had been released by Heavenly Recordings through Creation, Good Humor was the first -- and last -- to be released by Creation proper. Singles "Sylvie" and "The Bad Photographer" were both Top 30 UK hits and Good Humor remains Saint Etienne's biggest seller in the US (where it was released by Sub Pop).

12. The Boo Radleys – Giant Steps (1993)

Liverpool band The Boo Radleys began as one of the noisiest of the '90s shoegazers, with some songs on their 1991 Creation debut, Everything's Alright Forever, sounding like a garbage truck in a rockslide. But deep down, guitarist Martin Carr was a lover of the classics -- The Beatles, Kinks and other late-'60s psychedelic pop -- and that side of him was ready to emerge. The watershed moment was the title track of 1992's Lazarus EP which took a roaring, anthemic melody and built it up slowly with an extended, dubbed-out intro. It's one of their best-ever tracks. "Lazarus" turned out to be the first taste of what would be their magnum opus -- the boundary pushing, Coltrane-referencing, appropriately named third album, Giant Steps. Noise and hazy effects still rang through songs like "I Hang Suspended," "Butterfly McQueen," "Rodney King - Song for Lenny Bruce" and "Take the Time Around," but nothing was obscuring the massive hooks Carr loaded the songs with. There were also just straight-up pop songs like "Wishin' I Was Skinny," "Barney and Me," and "If You Want it, Take It." It's a record that, in its own way, is every bit as ambitious as Screamadelica or Loveless, and one that opened Creation's door for Britpop's coming surge. "I felt that everything was moving towards this big pop thing," Carr says in David Cavanagh's The Creation Records Story. "Loads of bands -- young bands with guitars -- were getting into the charts. Blur were getting there. Suede were having hits. We didn’t sell that many records with Giant Steps but everyone was dying to see what we were going to do next." Next would net them a massive UK hit single -- 1995's "Wake Up Boo!" -- but Giant Steps is still their finest hour.

11. Super Furry Animals – Radiator (1997)

Oasis may have been Creation's biggest selling act of the '90s (by a mile) but, pound for pound, Super Furry Animals were probably the best. The band were proudly Welsh, not afraid to sing in their native tongue, and wildly creative, with a wide anarchic streak. Their terrific 1996 debut album, Fuzzy Logic, paid tribute to Welsh drug smuggler (and national hero) Howard Marks both on the cover art and on song "Hanging With Howard Marks," and the same year they released single "The Man Don't Give a Fuck" which sampled Steely Dan and held the record, at 50 utterances, for most "fucks" given in a song (till Insane Clown Posse's "Fuck the World" beat it in 1999). Just a year later, SFA were back with Radiator, a record that was leaps and bounds better than their debut, and where they went from being a lot of fun to one of the more consistently great, wildly creative bands of the era. (They still are.) Radiator incorporates Madchester-y shuffle ("Play it Cool," "The Placid Casual"), Bowie-style spacerock ("Demons," "Bass tuned to DEAD"), punk, and mutant pop ("Herman Loves Pauline") into a style that became distinctly their own.

10. Slowdive – Souvlaki (1993)

Influenced by the Cocteau Twins' ethereal style, not to mention The Jesus and Mary Chain and probably a fair amount of goth, Pink Floyd and prog, Slowdive didn’t really sound like any other group from the original shoegaze era, riding a massive wave of shimmering guitars that were at times so transformed by effects pedals, they resembled synthesizers. Like their early EPs, the band's debut album, Just for a Day, was hypnotic and sensuous, wrapping listeners in layer upon layer of gorgeous haze, but it was maybe a little lacking in focus and A-level material. Not a problem with their sophomore album that nestles memorable songs and a stronger rhythmic backbone into their signature aural cloudwork. Their best album to date, Souvlaki features some of their catchiest songs ("Alison," "When the Sun Hits," "40 Days") with muscular material like "Machine Gun," vivid trip-out "Yellow Melon" and two songs ( "Sing," "Here She Comes") featuring keyboards and treatments by Brian Eno. Best of all, though, is "Souvlaki Space Station" which takes their spiraling sound deep into dub territory. Never as popular at the time as their shoegaze contemporaries Ride or Lush, Slowdive's records have aged better than most things from the '90s, and the group have led one of the most satisfying second acts in recent memory.

9. Teenage Fanclub – Grand Prix (1995)

Teenage Fanclub's third album, Bandwagonesque, is one of the three pillars in Creation's 1991 crown (the other two are slightly higher up on this list), and an album that, along with Ride's Nowhere, helped the label realize its place as a home for classic guitar pop done in new and exciting ways, or at least by new and exciting groups. What Teenage Fanclub did wasn't exactly new -- they drank deep from the well of Big Star and Dinosaur Jr. -- but they did it very well and had three three talented singer-songwriters who had yet to reach their creative potential. That hit with 1995's Grand Prix that, to carry on the Formula One racing theme, had Norman Blake, Gerrard Love and Raymond McGinley firing on all cylinders, with such instant earworms as "Sparky's Dream," "Neil Jung," "Mellow Doubt," "Verisimilitude," and "Don't Look Back." The album was also released at the height of Britpop and pulled the Fannies into that orbit, even though they were never really part of that scene. While they may not equal Oasis in the ambition and swagger department, Grand Prix delivers just as many classics as (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, just in a more humble way.

8. Sugar – Copper Blue (1992)

Spoiler alert: this is the only American-made album on this list. Creation did release a few records by U.S. acts (Medicine, Guided by Voices, The Cramps) but not many, and most were more licensing deals than actual signings. But Bob Mould put together separate deals with Creation in the UK and Rykodisc in North America for his new band Sugar who rivaled MBV for being loudest-ever group on the label. With their roaring, punk-injected guitar pop sound, the trio (Mould, bassist David Barbe and drummer Malcolm Travis) were definitely a more natural fit with a label of noisemakers like Creation than Rykodisc (who were mainly known for being the first CD-only label). In any case, Sugar's classic debut album is one of 1992's best, and one of the greatest albums Creation Records released, with Mould's signature mix of rippers ("Changes," "A Good Idea") and pop songs ("Helpless," "If I Can't Change Your Mind") and even a little prog ("Hoover Dam"). Copper Blue was actually more of a hit across the pond first, reaching #10 in the UK album charts and with NME naming it the Best Album of 1992; the record really caught on with American alt-rock radio and MTV in 1993. Sugar burned bright and hot, releasing Beaster a mere six months later, yet flamed out during sessions for their second album. Still, Copper Blue remains one of Mould's best collection of songs.

7. Felt – Forever Breathes the Lonely Word (1986)

Led by the decidedly eccentric but frequently brilliant Lawrence Hayward who was prone to 2 AM vacuuming and still only goes by his first name, Felt set out to release 10 albums and 10 singles in 10 years -- "In and out in a decade," he put it. He accomplished his goal, making crystalline guitar pop that owed much to Tom Verlaine (and just a little to Bob Dylan) with two sharply defined eras of the band. Felt's first four albums were on Cherry Red and featured guitarist Maurice Deebank's distinctive arpeggiated guitar style; the second began with the group's move to Creation, with Deebank out and keyboardist Martin Duffy in, adding wonderful, rich organ to the band's sound. Forever Breathes the Lonely Word was Felt's first album for Creation and is Felt's masterwork, with shimmering production, Lawrence at his most lyrically romantic, and Duffy's brilliant playing all over it. It's just great song after great song, including "Rain of Crystal Spires," "Down But Not Out," "All The People I Like And Those That Are Dead," and "A Wave Crashed on the Rocks," being particular highlights. Creation's first great album.

6. Ride – Nowhere (1990)

Oxford's Ride released their debut album in 1990 and perfectly split Creation Records' two decades in existence down the middle. The band were clearly a product of the student indie scene that Creation was at the center of, owing much to House of Love, My Bloody Valentine, The Jesus & Mary Chain and early Primal Scream, but they were a half step generation younger, savvy, and ambitious. You could easily imagine songs like "Seagull" and "Kaleidoscope" being released with thinner production by the label just a couple years earlier, but Ride were not a group who just wanted to play to 150 people the rest of their lives. While undeniably part of the psychedelic shoegaze scene -- they remain of the genre's most iconic bands -- Andy Bell and Mark Gardner were great songwriters, too, and underneath Nowhere's beautiful murk, haze and feedback is some serious musicianship and craft. Nowhere owes as much to The Byrds as it does MBV and is loaded with great tunes, as can be heard on the undeniable classic "Vapour Trail" -- perhaps the greatest song to come out on Creation Records and not get released as a single. Ride would get more ambitious (and pop-savvy) on 1992's excellent Going Blank Again, and would make a grab for the Britpop ring on 1994's Carnival of Light, but Nowhere is the sound of a scene and a label at the dawn of the '90s.

5. House of Love – House of Love (1988)

While The Jesus & Mary Chain's "Upside Down" put Creation Records on the map, The House of Love's debut album was the first album released by the label that really registered shockwaves beyond the indie charts. Led by Guy Chadwick, whose deep voice matched his high cheekbones, House of Love had some of JAMC's squall but fed it through Chadwick's graceful songwriting and guitarist Terry Bickers' inventive playing. Opening salvo "Christine" is such a stunner, from the roaring guitars to the "Bah bah be dah dah" hook, if the rest of the album had been a dud it still might've made this list. But House of Love is all hits, from the dark, sexy cool of "Road" and "Hope" to the riff-heavy "Sulfur" and "Salome" to the ethereal grandeur of "Man to Child," and the album's second best song, "Love in a Car." The album was also as big an influence on the burgeoning shoegaze scene as My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything, and it's hard to imagine groups like Ride and Catherine Wheel existing without House of Love.

4. Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (1995)

As Andy Bell of Ride, who would end up joining Oasis by the end of the '90s, told us, Oasis "were the band Creation had been waiting for, and I think the label was also exactly what the band needed." Oasis fit Creation head Alan McGee's rock n' roll ethos, ticking every box possible with a cup-runneth-over mix of attitude, razor-sharp wit, hedonistic joie-de-vivre and arrogance. It might've all been too much if Noel Gallagher wasn't a one-man hit factory, losing songs in the couch that were better than many bands wrote in their whole career. They were definitely the guitar band McGee had always wanted, turning out singles like his '60s and '70s heroes, but putting a fresh face on them just in time to lead in the new Britpop movement that pushed grunge out of the country much like the USA had done to the King's army some 200+ years before. While 1994's Definitely Maybe was a fantastic debut, Oasis managed to follow it up just a year later with an even better album, one of the best of 1995 and without a doubt the peak of Gallaghers' powers. (What's the Story) Morning Glory? even managed to be a hit in America, something a British rock band hadn't done in years. The album is filthy with classics, from singles like "Wonderwall," "Don't Look Back in Anger," "Champagne Supernova," and "Roll With It" to deep cuts like "Cast No Shadow," and "She's Electric." While Oasis stayed popular throughout their existence, creatively, it was diminishing returns after this -- but in 1995 the band could do no wrong.

3. My Bloody Valentine – Isn’t Anything (1988)

If Loveless was the sound of "how'd they do that?," Isn't Anything was the sound of "I wanna do that!" It's hard to imagine Ride, Swervedriver, The Boo Radleys or any of the rest of the soon-to-erupt shoegaze scene -- or half the indie rock of the '90s -- happening the way it did without the visceral impact of My Bloody Valentine's first album for Creation. Songs like "(When You Wake (You're Still in a Dream," "Feed Me With Your Kiss" and "Sueisfine" hit like a brick and sound like you've already been knocked senseless. Kevin Shield's glide guitar sound -- a unique mix of tuning and playing style -- was mysterious, instantly distinctive and deceptively attainable. The band used less effects pedals than most people thought. "The sound is purely physical," MBV Svengali Kevin Shields said at the time. "It's movement, a manual moving of the string: the short travel of he Jazzmaster and Jaguar tremolo that gives it that characteristic sort of upwards drone to the chord." My Bloody Valentine even managed to make acoustic guitars seem heavy ("Come Cupid") and the band's more ethereal tracks like "Lose My Breath" were aptly named. The album has a reputation for thin, tinny sonics, but Kevin Shields' all-analog 2018 remastered edition really shows what a gorgeous monster it is.

2. My Bloody Valentine – Loveless (1991)

A record so monumentally important to popular music it's all but impossible to overstate its importance, Loveless is a bonafide classic. It's also a record that took forever and somewhere around £250,000 to complete, that nearly bankrupted Creation, forcing the label to drop the band shortly after Loveless' release, and sell 49% of its stake to Sony Music. ("Overdue" and "over budget," meanwhile, are words associated with the band to this day.) Even though countless artists have stolen from Kevin Shields' signature "glide guitar" style, what the band get from their instruments on Loveless still sounds like nothing else. The four dry snare hits that open the album do not prepare you for the sludgy, white-dwarf heavy riff of opener "Only Shallow," or when the song shifts into pure beauty and back again. Moments like that happen throughout Loveless, from the ethereal slipstream of "To Here Knows When" to the poppy indie rock of "When You Sleep," to the dreamy, danceable perfection of "Soon." So many rock critic cliches and adjectives were created -- and wore out their welcome -- with folks trying to describe Loveless, yet you can't not be in awe 30 years on. It nearly destroyed the label but has always stood as one of its finest moments.

1. Primal Scream – Screamadelica (1991)

Led by gangly, cocksure Bobby Gillespie (who was The Jesus & Mary Chain's original drummer and grew up with Creation boss Alan McGee), Primal Scream were Creation Records' longest-running band, having released their debut single, "All Fall Down" on the label in 1985, and XTRMNTR in 2000, the last album released by the label before it dissolved. Like McGee, Gillespie seemed to live and breathe rock n' roll and he and his bandmates, including the invaluable Andrew Innes, at times managed to stay cool purely on attitude while releasing less-than-stellar early records. Things for them changed, though, when they gave their lackluster, Stonesy single "I'm Losing More Than I Ever Had" to DJ Andrew Weatherall to remix. He took out almost all the vocals, threw a beat under it and added a sample of Peter Fonda From The Wild Angels yelling "We wanna be free to do what we wanna do! We wanna get loaded and we wanna have a good time!" Released in February 1990, "Loaded" was one of the cornerstones of the acid house/Madchester scene and forever changed Primal Scream's trajectory. They spent nearly two years on one continuous party, working with Weatherall, Jah Wobble, Stones producer Jimmy Miller -- whatever suited their fancy and vibe -- and releasing singles along the way which would eventually be collected as the era-defining Screamadelica. It shouldn't have worked, but that sense of freedom made it come together beautifully. "Instead of having two guitars, bass, drums, vocals... we destroyed that," Gillespie said in The Creation Records Story. "It was anything goes - synth, tabla, drum machine, no vocals, instrumentals, gospel singers, sitars. The whole range of anything goes noises and suddenly the band were freed. It was a much looser approach to making music. And then getting people like Andy and Hugo, and Alex Patterson and Thrash from The Orb, Jimmy Miller, Wobble, you know – these people, Messing with our music, taking it somewhere else, making it more interstellar, as far out as… It was incredible. The greatest time." You still feel that listening to Screamadelica, too.