I say this every year but how is it August already? I am glad to have the hottest month (and the highest electric bills) of the year behind me, but I’m not quite ready for summer to end. In addition to cooler nights (despite what Neil Diamond says), August is also a general slow month for the entertainment industry and you can already feel it this week. I’ve got three new releases, including the final album from LA punk icons X, the dreamlike Cellophane Memories from Chrystabell & David Lynch, and the debut from NightjaR (aka Jimi Goodwin from Doves in beatmaker guise with guests including Quelle Chris, Pan Amsterdam and Sleaford Mods).

This week I’ve added two albums into the Indie Basement Classics cannon: Doves‘ The Last Broadcast and, in tribute to Martin Phillips who died this week, The Chills‘ classic compilation Kaleidoscope World. RIP Martin, you were taken too soon.

For more of the week’s new albums, Andrew reviews the latest from Killer Mike, JPEGMAFIA, Navy Blue, and more in Notable Releases.

If you’ve been on vacation and need catching up, check out Indie Basement’s Best Songs and Albums of July 2024 which features track reviews, a two-hour playlist with the month’s best stuff and more.

Go see the Kneecap movie, it’s great.

Head below for this week’s reviews…

X – Smoke & Fiction (Fat Possum)
The LA punk icons go out with a blazing bang on their ninth and final album

After 47 years together, John Doe, Exene Cervenka, DJ Bonebrake and Billy Zoom are hanging up their collective hats as X. What a way to go out, though, with the LA punk icons’ self-titled ninth album still bearing all the band’s earmarks and energy. From the Smoke & Fiction‘s cover art (the band’s stylized X filling up the image), to the songs, the way they’re performed, and the album’s 28-minute runtime, it all seems to nod back to their 1980 debut album, Los Angeles.* They remember “A tiny little x on a white marquee,” on “Big Black X,” and when the Hollywood sign was in disrepair and “Errol Flynn’s abandoned mansion.” It’s all set against blazing guitars, indebted as ever to twangy early rock n’ roll, and the unmistakable harmonies of John Doe and Exene Cervenka. Their voices, together, is the real sound of X and they truly sound as good and revved up as ever, even on a record about things coming to an end. “Struggle,” “Flipside,” “Winding Up the Time,” and Smoke & Fiction‘s title track all rip in classic X style, with a couple contemplative numbers (“The Way it Is,” “Face in the Moon”) to let you catch your breath. “Sweet till the bitter end,” they declare on on the album’s best song, but X till the sweet end is more like it.

*The ‘Los Angeles’ album art features a giant X set ablaze and, given the title of this album and the parallels between the two and the “final” nature of it all, it might’ve been cool to have a similar X that is just smoldering embers for the ‘Smoke & Fiction’ cover. But I am not their art director.

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Chrystabell & David Lynch – Cellophane Memories (Sacred Bones)
David Lynch’s first album in a decade is an ethereal collaboration with his current muse

When David Lynch teased the world this spring that he would have “something for you to see and hear” soon, most fans were probably hoping he would be announcing a new film or TV project. Instead, it was a video for a song from his first album since 2013’s The Big Dream which is also a collaboration with his current muse, Chrystabell (who you may remember as FBI Agent Tammy on Twin Peaks: The Return). Still, Lynch brings a unique vision to anything he does and sometimes, like on his records with the late Julee Cruise, that genius is in the music. Cellophane Memories is a decidedly more ethereal affair and feels like Lynch trying to conjure, in music, one of his biggest inspirations through all his art, dreams. Specifically the album “comes from a vision that David experienced during a nighttime walk through a forest of tall trees, over the tops of which he saw a bright light. As he recalls it, the light became the lilt of Chrystabell’s voice and revealed a secret to him.” Lynch is not one to give away secrets, or explain things, but Cellophane Memories is quite pretty, with layers of Chrystabell’s voice floating alongside ambient waves of tremolo’d guitar and other atmospherics. (They made the album with Dean Honer, Lynch’s longtime aural collaborator and sound designer, and his skillset feels epsecially present here.) Like a lot of Lynch’s work it is equal parts beautiful and creepy with that surreal sense of “other” that comes naturally to him, but there are a few good pop songs too (“The Answers to the Questions” in particular). Chrystabell may explain it best: “It’s like mood music…not that it creates mood, but more that it reflects your own.”

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Indie Basement Classic: The Chills – Kaleidoscope World (Flying Nun)
This collection of early singles is a great place to start in the wonderful world of The Chills and the late Martin Phillipps.

The Chills’ Martin Phillipps died unexpectedly this week at age 61. That’s too young for anyone to go but it’s especially hard to take given the artistic renaissance Phillipps has had in the last 10 years. He spent much of the ’90s and ’00s mired in addiction and suffering from hepatitis c (the two were related), but he really pulled it together in the late 2010s with a stable new lineup of the band, releasing three excellent new Chills records. All three of those feature the classic Chills sound — masterful pop melodicism, psychedelic and spooky touches, and searching, empathetic lyricism — but for those who are only somewhat familiar with the New Zealand band, the best place to start is with ’80s singles collection Kaleidoscope World.

I liken Kaleidoscope World to The Smiths’ Hatful of Hollow, in that it collected early non-LP singles and b-sides and was released around the same time as the band’s proper, disappointing* debut album, and is the more influential record. The Chills formed in 1980 but didn’t actually release their full length debut album, Brave Words, until 1987; that record had great songs but the production and mix didn’t do them any favors. The year before, they rounded up their many amazing singles and EP tracks for Kaleidoscope World, including the haunting “Pink Frost” (which became one of their signature songs), all three of their contributions to the seminal four-way split The Dunedin Double, the singalong “Rolling Moon,” and more. It got a belated US release via Homestead in 1989 and its CD edition added 10 more essentials, including singles “I Love My Leather Jacket” and unemployment anthem “Doledrums” plus the whole of 1985’s The “Lost” EP. The 2016 Flying Nun vinyl reissue has all those songs and added another six, including an early version of “Oncoming Day” which would show up on their second album, Submarine Bells (one of 1990’s best). Spending a day with Kaleidoscope World is a great way to experience Phillips’ many gifts.

* Phillips got a second whack at The Chills’ debut album, releasing a remixed, remastered version of Brave Words this year that fixes a lot of the original release’s deficiencies. Last year, Phillipps also said that he was working on an album of lost Chills songs, of which there were many, and hopefully that was completed.

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NightjaR – Mala Leche (Lewis Recordings)
Doves frontman Jimi Goodwin proves to be a skilled beatmaker on his debut album as NightjaR, with help from Quelle Chris, Sleaford Mods & more

When Jimi Goodwin isn’t busy fronting Manchester rock greats Doves, he makes instrumental hip hop as Nightjar. It’s not as surprising as it sounds; before they were Doves, Goodwin and brothers Jez and Andy Williams made dance music as Sub Sub (and had a Top 5 UK hit in 1993 with “Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)”), so he knows a good beat when he hears it. Up until the pandemic, this was just a hobby. “I make a beat every other day,” Goodwin says. “There’s no agenda, nothing obscure or clever, it’s just instinctive.” But then he thought to ask some rappers — including Homeboy Sandman, Quelle Chris, Pan Amsterdam, Guilty Simpson, and Cannibal Ox’s Vast Aire among them, not to mention Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson —  if they might want to contribute a few bars, and suddenly an album was taking shape. “The good thing about social media is that it makes everyone available,” Goodwin adds. “Everyone has their contact details or their management’s contact details on their profiles. I could literally just email or DM someone.”

Mala Leche is a classic “beats” album (see also The Creators, Geoff Barrow’s Quakers or, of course, J Dilla) and Goodwin knows what he’s doing and has deep collection of obscure vinyl to sample. It’s mostly on the downtempo tip, with lots of ’60s soundtracks coming into play, and the collabs with rappers are all good: London MC SonnyJim’s blunted style, dropping mentions of Dikembe Mutombo and Tricky in one verse, fit perfectly with the hallucinatory backing and the song’s other contributor, Quelle Chris; Pan Amsterdam, who also recently appeared on a Metronomy track, is terrific on two songs here, especially the jazzy “Space Bar”; and “Piano Heights,” featuring Pruven, Vast Aire and Burgundy Blood, sounds like a lost classic from 2001. The collab with Jason Williamson, meanwhile, “Blood Red Dead,” makes good use of Wilson Pickett’s cover of “Hey Jude” (the only sample I recognized) and Sleaford Mods fit right in here. The best tracks might be the instrumentals, though, with the menacing “Sylvester” and Deadwood-sampling “Harlem Dream” being particularly memorable. Doves are still a group (they put out the terrific The Universal Want in 2020) but Goodwin may have stumbled into a viable and rewarding second career here.

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Indie Basement Classic: Doves – The Last Broadcast (Heavenly)
How do you follow-up a surprise hit debut? Make an even better album.

Listening to Jimi Goodwin’s album as NightjaR had me pulling out my Doves albums, and it had been a long time since I’d listened to them. They feel a bit memory-holed but Doves were a big deal in the early-2000s and were hailed as “the new Radiohead” by the British press. That was never quite true, but their albums from that era hold up great. As mentioned above, Jimi Goodwin, Jez Williams and Andy Williams had all played together in early-’90s dance band Sub Sub but reinvented themselves as the guitar-based Doves by the end of the decade. They made their debut, Lost Souls, on their own for relatively cheap and it was originally going to be released on Rob’s Records, the label run by New Order manager Rob Gretton. When Gretton died from a heart attack in 1999, Doves ended up signing to Heavenly Records and Lost Souls became a surprise hit, going platinum in the UK and sending them around the world on tour (including the US where many shows were opened by The Strokes).

“It’s a massive cliché, but we had 20 years to write Lost Souls,” Goodwin wrote in Heavenly Records retrospective Believe in Magic, “We had a fucking year to write The Last Broadcast.” Instead of going with a big name producer, the band were determined to work the same way, and with a similar budget, as they had on their debut. But they had a strict deadline, Christmas 2001, as they’d committed to opening Travis’ stadium tour that started in January 2002. Some artists don’t work well with fire at their feet but Doves ended up making a better record than their debut. It’s definitely got their best-ever single, “There Goes The Fear,” a seven-minute stunner that is both anthemic and atmospheric. It also holds off the good stuff for nearly two minutes, but it’s the anticipation of what you can feel is about to hit, that makes the rest of the song so fantastic and satisfying when the guitars and chorus finally roll in. The Last Broadcast may not have anything else quite so triumphant but it’s got many that come close, including soaring second single “Pounding,” the guitar blow-out “N.Y.,” and the sweeping, gorgeous album closer “Caught by the River.”

The Last Broadcast sounds spectacular, in all senses of the word, from the subtle electronic touches to the strings which were arranged by Indie Basement Hall of Famer Sean O’Hagan (The High Llamas). I’d forgotten just how big and majestic it sounds. The album was a smash, debuting at #1 in the UK and was nominated for the Mercury Prize. Doves were never the new Radiohead, but they could’ve been Coldplay except they didn’t crave the spotlight in the same way. They’re still going, too  — 2020’s The Universal Want is fantastic — but The Last Broadcast remains their very high point.

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Top 20 Shoegaze EPs of the Early-’90s

20. Bleach – Snag (1991, Way Cool Records)

Formed by brothers Neil and Nick Singleton, Ipswich, UK's Bleach unfortunately ran out of songwriting steam before they released their first album. (Hey, it happens, just ask Elastica.) The band managed to deliver one terrific EP that showcased their moody style, with guitarist Neil providing the haze and bassist Nick providing the mood. Like a lot of shoegaze groups of this era, singer Salli Carson's ethereal vocals seemed more like an equal element of Bleached's sound, as opposed to a focal point. "Bethesda," with its tom-heavy drumming is especially good, as is "Dipping." Extended listening: the cover art is the most distinctive thing about Bleach's 1992 album Killing Time, but it's the only one of their releases on streaming services.

19. Medicine – 5ive (1993, Creation)

Led by Brad Laner, who spent time in the '80s in L.A. cult post-punk band Savage Republic, Medicine were arguably the U.S.'s best shoegaze band, with a firm grip on melody, noise and dynamics, and they weren't afraid of sampling or dance culture. They also had rare bonafides for an American band; they were signed to Creation in the UK. (Rick Rubin's American Recordings put out their records at home.) The 5ive EP, also known as Come Here to Drink Milk, takes the tremolo-heavy title track (originally on their debut album) and pairs it with the ragged version of "Time Baby" (not the version with Liz Fraser & Robin Guthrie), searing slow jam "Lime 6," and the quasi-industrial "Wrought." Extended listening: The Sounds of Medicine EP has the Cocteau-ized version of "Time Baby" from The Crow soundtrack, plus "stripped and reformed" versions of other songs, but the 1993 sophomore album The Buried Life is Medicine at their best.

18. The Telescopes – Flying (1991, Creation)

Having got their start in the mid-'80s, The Telescopes predate shoegaze but were part of the dark neo-psych scene that included Spacemen 3 and Loop (who they shared a split 7" with in 1988). By their fourth EP for Creation, 1990's Flying, The Telescopes had blasted off most of the white noise in favor of groovy psychedelia that put them somewhere between The Stone Roses and Ride, but frontman Stephen Lawrie was always on his own sonic plane. With layers of 12-string guitars -- acoustic and electric -- Flying's title track is one of their best pop songs, while "High on Fire" heads deep into outer space and "The Sleepwalk" showed they could confidently compete with their Creation labelmates that were getting much more ink in NME. Extended listening: 1990's Celeste EP features an amazing 10-minute version of the title track that's worth the price of admission.

17. Blind Mr. Jones – Eyes Wide (1992, Cherry Red)

Their fondness of flute gave Blind Mr. Jones the reputation of being the shoegaze Jethro Tull, but this band from Marlow, UK were one of the more underrated groups of the era, with a distinctively British sound, a decided goth streak, and consistently memorable, melodic (New Order-esque) bass lines. There are no wind instruments on the Eyes Wide EP but it does feature Slowdive's Neil Halstead who gifts the record with some of his transcendent guitar cloud cover. All four songs are terrific. Is your favorite Ride song "Decay" from Nowhere? You should definitely investigate Blind Mr. Jones further. Extended listening: Compilation Over My Head collects everything Blind Mr. Jones recorded, including the Crazy Jazz EP that featured Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood.

16. Adorable – Sunshine Smile (1992, Creation)

While they owed more to Echo & the Bunnymen or House of Love than My Bloody Valentine or Ride, Adorable were signed to Creation Records, peppered their very catchy songs with guitar noise and got not entirely unfairly lumped in with the shoegaze scene...even if frontman Peter Fijalkowski bristled at the word in interviews. One thing's for sure: "Sunshine Smile" was a hell of an introduction that sounds like its title, a wonderful guitar-drenched pop song with a slinky slowburn intro that gives way to a massive guitar riff chorus. The two b-sides -- melancholy-drenched ballad "A to Fade In" and the Madchester-leaning "Sunburnt" -- are great, too, as is the cover art which uses imagery from The Passion of Joan of Arc. Extended listening: The Sistine Chapel Ceiling EP takes its title track from Adorable's debut album, Against Perfection, and adds three good b-sides, especially "Everything's Fine."

15. Catherine Wheel – 30th Century Man (1992, Fontana)

Released in the last week of 1992, this limited edition EP was a step up, sonically, for Catherine Wheel who had never sounded so confident and powerful, giving fans a taste of what they might get with 1993's Chrome. This is probably a controversial pick, given that three of the four songs here are covers, but Catherine Wheel seriously deliver the goods with these killer takes on Scott Walker's "30th Century Man," Husker Du's "Don't Wanna Know if You Are Lonely" and Mission of Burma's "That's When I Reach for My Revolver." Their cover of "30th Century Man" is particularly inspired, while the other two merely rip (while they make them their own). The EP's original, "Free of Mind," is great too. Extended listening: If you just want great Catherine Wheel songs, the Black Metallic EP has four of them, including the title track which was a Modern Rock Radio hit in the U.S.

14. Kitchens of Distinction – Drive That Fast (1990, One Little Indian)

Kitchens of Distinction would probably be classified as dreampop these days; Julian Swales was up there with Robin Guthrie and Neil Halstead for being able to coax out gorgeous waterfalls of sound from his guitar, but bassist/frontman Patrick Fitzgerald was a confident frontman who had a lot to say. (They were probably closer to The Sound or The Chameleons than to Ride or Lush.) Released as a precursor to their second album, Strange Free World, "Drive That Fast" is one of KoD's best-ever singles and the EP's other tracks are all good, with the dark, boozy "These Drinkers" and a piano rendition of single "Elephantine" being standouts. Runner up: The Elephantine EP has the full-on swirling version of the title track, plus three worthy other tracks.

13. Lilys – A Brief History of Amazing Letdowns (1993, spinART)

Kurt Heasley has reinvented Lilys a few times over the last 30 years, but the group began as noisy indie rockers who pulled equally from late-'80s Creation Records and Dinosaur Jr's freak scene. This wonderfully titled EP has some of Lilys' catchiest songs, including "Ginger" (which inexplicably ended up getting used in a 2007 Cadillac commercial), "Any Place I've Lived" and "Jenny, Andrew and Me." It's one of their best releases and, sadly, also one of the rarest...out of print, not on streaming services, and used copies are hard to come by. Extended listening: Lilys' debut single, "February Fourteenth," is a real ripper.

12. Verve – All in the Mind (1992, Hut)

Before they became Britpop stars with “Bittersweet Symphony” and “Sonnet,” The Verve were just Verve (they had to add the "The" after legal threats from Verve Records), a band from Wigan, England who made out-there, super-groovy psych rock. The group pretty much disowned the title track of their debut EP moments after releasing it, but what do they know? “All in the Mind” is a propulsive space-hopper jam that really shows off Nick McCabe’s incendiary fretwork, Simon Jones’ deeply melodic bass, and the indispensable, jazzy style of drummer Peter Salisbury. The other two tracks -- the beautiful “One Way to Go” (featuring a great vocal from Richard Ashcroft) and dreamy “A Man Called Sun” -- are more indicative of where The Verve would go on their debut album, A Storm in Heaven. Extended listening: The Verve E.P. was the band's introduction to the U.S., taking tracks from their first three singles/EPs, including "A Man Called Sun," and edits of their tripped-out A-sides "Gravity Grave" and "She's a Superstar."

11. Swervedriver – Duel (1993, Creation)

Another band who got better when they burned off some of that haze, Swervedriver made a massive leap between their first album, Raise, and their second, Mezcal Head. A big part of that was a new lineup of the band -- which included a much-improved rhythm section of drummer Jez Hindmarsh and bassist Steve George -- that could really rip. But it was also better songs and more muscular production courtesy producer Alan Moulder who was very busy in the early '90s. (He probably worked on half the records in this list.) The soaring, roaring "Duel," arguably the album's finest moment, is backed with two killer B's: the majestic "Planes Over the Skyline," and starry eyed "Year of the Girl," both of which have Jez going full Keith Moon. Extended listening: Standalone single "Never Lose That Feeling," which would be tacked-on the U.S. edition of Mezcal Head, was actually the last record the original lineup of the band made. The EP version melts into the dubby "Never Learn," making for a very worthy 11 minutes.

10. Chapterhouse – Mesmerise (1991, Dedicated)

In the UK, there was a lot of cross-pollination between shoegaze, acid house and the Manchester scene, and few groups pulled all those together as successfully as Chapterhouse. Coming just a few months after releasing their debut album, Whirlpool, the four-song Mesmerise EP -- which is is sometimes listed as a single -- features two great examples of their blissed-out style: the title track, which blasts out thick waves of synthesizers against a piano hook, was as much a Madchester anthem as anything else; while “Precious One” rides a bongo-fueled groove. There’s also the swirling, ambient “Summer Chill” and the windswept guitar haze of “Then We’ll Rise.” Extended listening: 1990’s Freefall EP falls a little more into space rock territory, but “Falling Down” -- which uses The Soul Searchers’ "Ashley’s Roachclip" drum break sample heard in Eric B & Rakim’s “Paid in Full,” Milli Vanilli's “Girl You Know it’s True” (and on many, many, many other records) -- pointed to the direction they would soon be heading.

9. Curve – Blindfold (1991, Anxious)

Curve were an interesting group, as both Toni Halliday and Dean Garcia had been around for a while in the industry; Dean was a live member of The Eurythmics in the early-’80s, and they were both in short-lived ‘80s band State of Play, who made one record and then broke up. Dean played on Toni’s 1989 solo album, and then they decided to take another whack at a group, perhaps taking My Bloody Valentine’s “Soon” as an influence, mixing hazy guitars with dance music. With Halliday’s powerful pipes it was an alluring combination. Alan Moulder, who they’d worked with in State of Play and on Halliday’s solo album -- and who was THE shoegaze engineer -- was the de facto third member of the group. Curve released three EPs in 1991, all of which are great but the first, Blindfold, is the best with the seductive single "Ten Little Girls"  featuring something no other record on this list has: rapping. Extended listening: Curve’s second EP, Frozen, is also killer, featuring “Coast is Clear” -- one of their best-ever tracks. All three of their 1991 EPs were collected onto the Public Fruit album.

8. Velocity Girl – Velocity Girl (1993, Slumberland)

While mainly known for its influential punk scene, Washington DC also had a thriving indie rock scene in the late '80s and early-'90s that was heavily influenced by the UK's C-86 scene and labels like Creation, Cherry Red and 4AD. Velocity Girl, in fact, were named for Primal Scream's song on C-86, and played a similar style of very fuzzy janglepop. The group included former Black Tambourine member Archie Moore and, originally, Bridget Cross who, when she left to focus on Unrest, would be replaced by vocalist Sarah Shannon. The band's gift for melody, and love of shambolic, noisy guitars, is evident on this EP that collects songs from three early 7"s. "My Forgotten Favorite," which would turn up a few years later on the Clueless soundtrack, is the obvious standout (and arguably VG's best song), but the other five songs are equally stellar. Extended listening: Velocity Girl were more fond of 7"s than EPs, but their 1993 debut Copacetic (released, like all their albums, on Sub Pop) has held up well, and gotten better with age.

7. Ride – Today Forever (1991, Creation)

Released just a few months after their debut album Nowhere, the Today Forever EP takes Ride out of the hazy murk and into cleaner production without sacrificing their signature swirl. The EP also shows a growing confidence in songwriting and arrangements, like with the powerful, deliberate “Sennen.” Today Forever was never released in the U.S., and is unknown still to a lot of fans, though three of its four tracks found their way onto the American "Vapour Trail" CD maxi-single...but it leaves off one of Ride’s prettiest songs ever, “Today.” Extended listening: Ride’s 1989 debut EP contains classics “Chelsea Girl” and “Drive Blind.”

6. The Boo Radleys – Lazarus (1992, Creation)

Like a number of shoegaze bands, The Boo Radleys spent a couple years hiding their musical skill and good songwriting behind a wall of MBV-inspired noise. This resulted in some great music but when they came out of their shell, they got even better. Released not long after their wilfully dissonant Everything’s Alright Forever LP, the Lazarus EP felt a bit like seeing the band with a new pair of glasses. The signs had been there all along for The Boo Radleys, but all four songs here are a step up in every way. “Lazarus” would show up on 1993’s Giant Steps, but without the long, dubby EP intro that pays off so well when the song roars into focus. It's also amazing they'd delegate songs as good as "Petroleum" and "At the Sound of Speed" to b-side material. Extended listening: 1991’s Every Heaven EP is pretty fantastic with a nice balance of melody and roar, and has one of the Boos’ best-ever songs, “The Finest Kiss.”

5. Slowdive – Holding Our Breath (1991, Creation)

While clearly influenced by the Cocteau Twins' shimmering style, Slowdive didn’t really sound like any other group from the original shoegaze era, with an oceanic guitar swell that remains unique and mysterious. “Catch the Breeze,” which would also show up on their 1991 debut album, Just for a Day, is an all-time classic but the rest of this EP is just as captivating. Rachel Goswell’s ethereal harmonies on “Shine” will never not send shivers down your spine, and their cover of Syd Barrett's "Golden Hair" is rather titanic. Extended listening: Slowdive’s debut EP, Morningrise, nods to the band’s ‘80s goth youth while pointing toward the direction they’d soon head.

4. Moose – Jack (1991, Hut)

If it wasn't for Moose, this list might have to be called something slightly different, as the word "shoegaze" was first used in a Sounds review of one of their early gigs. That is probably enough to warrant an inclusion here, but luckily Moose were a great band who carved out a distinct corner in The Scene That Celebrates Itself. Their first of three 1991 EPs, Jack, was as dissonant as they got, but underneath the bandsaw guitars were melodies rooted in a classic songwriting style that owed as much to Burt Bacharach as the Velvet Underground. That would bubble up to the surface more as the band progressed, but you can hear it on both "Ballad Of Adam & Eve" and "Boy." The EP kicks off with the awesomely drony title track, and wraps with moody ballad "I'll Take Tomorrow." Extended listening: By the release of their third 1991 EP, Reprise, they were already halfway to the breezier style they'd adopt for XYZ and subsequent albums, and it features the gorgeous, country-ish ballad "This River Never Will Run Dry." Songs from Moose's early EPs were cherry-picked for the Sonny and Sam EP, the only record Moose ever got released in America. Criminally underrated, I

3. Pale Saints – Flesh Balloon (1991, 4AD)

In between their first and second albums, Pale Saints added singer-songwriter-guitarist Meriel Barham to their lineup, changing the dynamic of the group for the better. She made her debut on this EP, singing lead on a playful, dreamy cover of Nancy Sinatra's "Kinky Love." The whole EP is fab, though, with the sprawling, dramatic "Hunted" -- which would show up on second album In Ribbons -- and is one of the best examples of the group's unique mix of beauty and noise. There's also a demo of "Hair Shoes," which shows up in full studio version on In Ribbons, but the real standout here is spectacular instrumental "Porpoise." Extended listening: 1990's Half-Life Remembered is pretty great too, especially "Half Life" which toys with Madchester beats. The title track is great.

2. Lush – Mad Love (1990, 4AD)

Cocteau Twins’ Robin Guthrie was behind the boards for this four song 12” that remains the perfect distillation of everything Lush did so well. Quintessential Lush song “De-Luxe” leads the EP that also includes the equally wonderful dreampop track "Thoughtforms" both of which feature Miki Berenyi and Emma Anderson's signature guitar and vocal interplay. plus great minor chord slashers “Leaves Me Cold” and “Downer.” Lush made many great records during their brief run, but if you can only have one, make it this. Extended listening: Lush’s debut, the six-song Scar mini-LP is excellent too, if a little rough around the edges. You don’t have to choose, either: Gala compiles Mad Love and Scar, plus a couple other tracks, on one album. It's also hard to argue with picking up Ciao! Best Of Lush which includes their dabblings in Britpop (like the title track which was a duet between Miki and Jarvis Cocker).

1. My Bloody Valentine – Tremolo (1991, Creation)

While My Bloody Valentine’s 1990 Glider EP features their danceable classic “Soon,” the 1991 Tremolo EP has an overall higher hit-count, and sees Kevin Shields and the rest of the band continuing to break new ground. Tremolo features the swirling, transportive “To Here Knows When,” the beautiful “Swallow,” glide guitar ripper “Honey Power” and the churning, Brian Wilson-esque “Moon Song.” Nearly 30 years later, listening to this dazzling EP's four songs will have you wondering "How did they make this?" and "are my stereo speakers functioning properly?" A must-own companion to Loveless. Extended listening: Then again, Glider does have “Soon.” Get them both!