Entertainment

Box set go: C87 offers three discs of vintage indie

The Wedding Present and friend, circa 1987
The Wedding Present and friend, circa 1987 The Wedding Present and friend, circa 1987

INDIE kids over the age of 40 and born-too-late believers rejoice: Cherry Red's new C87 boxset offers a smorgasbord of jangly/fuzzy tweecore delights from the favourites and forgotten (wo)men of the year before indie broke.

As indicated by its title, this triple-disc set serves as a belated sequel to the NME's now legendary C86 cassette tape.

Curated by ex-NME journo and C86-mastermind Neil Taylor, who's penned a scene-setting introduction for the box's booklet (which also features a track-by-track guide), it's a snapshot of post-The Smiths, pre-Madchester sounds featuring 74 tunes from a mix of familiar names (including a few returning from C86) and also-rans.

In the former camp, we have period musical representations from the likes of The Wedding Present, Inspiral Carpets, The Wonder Stuff and Pop Will Eat Itself, four bands who scrambled from the indie trenches to become prominent, chart-bothering British alternative contenders during the 1990s, along with selections by cult faves such as CUD, The Primitives, The House of Love, The Vaselines, 14 Iced Bears, BMX Bandits, Talulah Gosh, The Motorcycle Boy, Kitchens of Distinction, The Darling Buds, Gaye Bikers on Acid and Ireland's own A House.

As well as reminding us that a good chunk of Teenage Fanclub's sonic template was established via Norman Blake's Beach Boys-harmonies cribbing outfit The Boy Hairdressers (check the chucklesomely titled ballad Golden Showers), 90s dancemasters The Shamen began as psyched-out indie kids (via their phased guitars-laden early tune Young 'Til Yesterday) and that baggy chancers The Soup Dragons were once a fun, fast 'n' frantic indiepop outfit (see early anthem Hang Ten!), C87 offers listeners the chance to familiarise themselves with a selection of rather more obscure acts.

Some of these might well become new obsessions: take the wonderfully named Hangman's Beautiful Daughters, for example, whose clanging guitars-laden Dan 'TV Personalities' Treacy-penned garage pop rave-up Don't Ask My Name offers a Nuggets-y tale of seedy drug deals set off by Emily Green's Chrissie Hynde-esque vocals that should leave listeners hungry for the rest of their tiny discography.

Dogfaced Hermans are a name many indie fans will be familiar with, even if they might not necessarily have managed to get an earful of their hard-to-find music yet: here, the shouty, jazz-funk grooves of Catbrain Walk offer a handy taster.

Elsewhere, poor old C86 veterans Bog-Shed had their name taken in vain by the British music weeklies for years.

Routinely used by hacks as a jokey byword for terminally unfashionable indie with zero commercial potential, the appealingly oddball rockabilly skronk of Tried and Tested Public Speaker suggests that such a label was actually no bad thing and that these John Peel-favourites had idiosyncratic charm to spare.

Now that the churning, clanging Fall-isms of fellow C86 grads Stump's fantastically titled Tupperware Stripper have battered my lugs, I'll be sure to investigate them further, along with the intriguingly named Stitched-Back Foot Airman, whose Tears In The Gutter offers a funky, mesmerising racket to be reckoned with.

As for Shop Assistants/Meat Whiplash offshoots The Motorcycle Boy, I suspect Dee Dee of Dum Dum Girls may have Big Rock Candy Mountain and a few other singles by these leather-clad "frank and furious speed pop" merchants stashed in her record box.

There's plenty more where that lot came from – indeed, you'll need to set aside a whole afternoon to get stuck into C87 in full.

Here's a handy taster selection from 'when indie was indie' to get you started:

THIS WEEK'S MOST ANNOYING C87 NOISES

Real Animal – The House of Love

The Anti-Midas Touch – The Wolfhounds

Big Rock Candy Mountain – The Motorcycle Boy

Don't Ask My Name – Hangman's Beautiful Daughters

Tears In The Gutter – Stitched-Back Foot Airman

Sweet Sweet Pie – Pop Will Eat Itself

Tupperware Stripper – Stump

We Three Kings of Orient Aren't – Jamie Wednesday

Talulah Gosh – Talulah Gosh

These Animals are Dangerous – Rote Kapelle

:: C87 is released on June 10, available for pre-order now priced £17.99 via Cherryred.co.uk