Francoise Hardy

Three songs from her hard-to-find One Nine Seven Zero album. It's largely comprised of English reworkings of her older songs; these are English tracks which were Frenchified for Soleil.

The picture is from Jean Marie Perier's website. There's plenty more pretty stuff there, although sadly he's recently introduced (perhaps inevitably) rather hideous digital watermarks on the pictures.

Francoise Hardy - Song of Winter
Francoise Hardy - Strange Shadows
Francoise Hardy - Magic Horse

The Chesterf!elds

OK, not for Christmas, exactly, but you can't complain about getting a present early. This is an excellent (and somewhat rare) track from their split single with Japanese band Johnny Dee. It really should have been on their recent(ish) best of.

The Chesterfields - Open to Persuasion

Saturn V

Post-Razorcuts, pre-Sportique, underrated.

Saturn V - Machinegun Head

BB

Brigitte Bardot - Contact
Brigitte Bardot - Mister Sun

Medalark 11

A later incarnation of The Bodines, pretty much, with a slightly increased emphasis on choppy ACR-influenced groove. These are my two favourite songs on their debut (and only) album, Shaped Up, Shipped Out; perhaps not coincidentally, they're both reworked Bodines tunes.

Medalark 11 - Coffee
Medalark 11 - I Call Your Name

Sneaky Feelings

Along with the Able Tasmans, perhaps the most consistently underrated Flying Nun band. They don't have the ragged goofball drone of early Clean; in fact, they don't really fit the archetype of the Dunedin Sound at all. It'd be tempting to describe them as power pop, but that implies a degree of muscularity they rarely show. Perhaps 'sixties-tinged popular music bearing faint traces of the Sound of Young Scotland' would be a more apt (if less snappy) tag.

Here's three songs from their three albums, none included on their recent(ish) best of, Positively George Street.

Sneaky Feelings - In the Shape of a Heart
Sneaky Feelings - It's So Easy
Sneaky Feelings - Someone Else's Eyes

Paris Angels

Remembered (if they're remembered at all) for 'Perfume', or for stealing Kingmaker's instruments (reason enough for their canonization), The Paris Angels were a much better band than their 'baggy also-ran' status would suggest. Someone (LTM, maybe) really needs to reissue Sundew.

The Paris Angels - Fade
The Paris Angels - What Goes On
The Paris Angels - Louise

The Sleepers

Nothing to do with Louise Wener and her cohorts, this mob emerged from Mansfield, Ohio in 1966. The perfect combination of fuzztone crunch and jangle, compiled on Teenage Shutdown Vol 9 - Teen Jangler Blowout.

The Sleepers - I Want a Love

Adventures in Stereo

Songs from their first album, pretty record cover logos from here.

Adventures in Stereo - When We Go Back
Adventures in Stereo - Don't You Worry Little One
Adventures in Stereo - Waves On