The Greatest Post-Punk Bands You Never Heard

Dan - thanks for that excellent expabded Bridge, I am going to compile that immediately!

Is it just me or has the crush of great post-punk comps ended? In the 00s it felt like there were many great ones every year, covering scenes all around the globe. But the last few years has seen a dearth of them. Even the Messthetics series has slowed to a crawl.

hey what about Five or Six?

Oh boy, LOVE Portrait, which I knew from Pillows and Prayers, and Another Reason, which I think maybe was on Seeds Electronic? Then I got the LP A Thriving and Happy Land which is really wonderful if a bit all over the place. Kind of the post-Syd/pre-Dark Side Pink Floyd era of Post-Punk. There's a 12 minute song called "Consider This" that's just beautiful. Then when Cherry Red finally did an Five or Six collection, I was surprised none of Thriving was on it. Really don't know much about them as a band. I see I have another track, The Building Kind, from a Where to Now? compilation (UK post-punkish club night). But that track's not on the Cherry Red Best of.

Certainly if they had an album's worth of "Portrait" they'd be talked about as a key proto-jangle band w/ Orange Juice, Monochrome Set etc.

my friend put out an LP & CD of Irish Post-Punk, DIY and Electronic Music 1980-1983 last year. got good reviews from RA & FACT so might be more electronic than post-punk in appeal but here it is anyway
http://www.finderskeepersrecords.com/discog_cache03.html

http://www.factmag.com/2012/11/30/the-40-best-reissues-of-2012/27/
http://www.residentadvisor.net/review-view.aspx?id=11312

dan--re Five or Six--their Polar Exposure mini-lp is great; a-side produced by Kevin Coyne. very mysterious band.

Is that stuff that's on the Cherry Red CD?

looks like the track Polar Exposure and two from the other side are on the Cherry Red comp.

Proto-jangle! If this poll spawns/popularizes even more sub-genre names, that would be excellent! And if someone could shoot a documentary called "Jangle," even better, though some may confuse it with Django.

There is/was a documentary in the works called "The Sound of Young Scotland" but I don't know what happened to it. Your basic Postcard/Fire Engines etc story.

xpost Yeah, that Irish post-punk comp was good if a bit inconsistent (as these things tend to be). Very glad to have it, it was my sole comp bought last year!

The fact that there's bands mentioned in this thread for whom I have no tracks on compilations indicates there's still room for more archival releases.

Check out the Instant Pop Classics bootlegs. Turned me onto Desperate Bicycles.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Random thoughts at 11 pm...

Far worse things than the Modern Eon LP have seen the light of day recently. There'd be a nice cd of that with the singles and the comp tracks. I'm rather fond of the Street to Street vol. 1 track. Sounds rougher, and earlier, than the LP. Not a bad thing—not every moment is all breathless importance.

That Scars cd was, to my ears, a travesty. Somebody may have won the loudness wars on that one. And not being able to include one of the all-time post-punk greats, "Adult/ery," is rough. There's some talk of another attempt by these folks: https://www.facebook.com/scaredtogethappy?fref=ts

Exposing the Individuals to a list that includes Josef K, Liliput, and the Lines is almost actionably cruel.

And I've had this Systematics song on the brain of late. Can be found on the M-Squared box set.

Decent stand-in for all its ignored Aussie brethren. Title is wrong on YouTube. Should be "International Voltage."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvZGCrtOt24

And my Australian fave, though here the high end (amongst other registers) has been excised by shoddy transferring, so all the proto-jungle skittering of the drum machine has to be imagined. Wollongong, 1983. Second of two albums (if we're trying to satisfy the LP quotient mentioned above), which came after three singles and some cassette stuff. 250 copies....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYRdsf79E2E

yeah that's my favourite systematics too xpost

that sunday painters song is cool, i haven't heard that one before

I wish the YouTube version sounded better. So much missing. Though the crappy-stylus crunchy distortion has its points, too.

Oh, and to close the circle, the Sunday Painters' 15-minute "Rema-Rema" cover from their live, early '82 cassette (Any Port in a Storm, is a great thing. Beat This Mortal Coil and Albini to the punch.

You sure know a lot about The Sunday Painters!

I never really got into Modern Eon. A friend who I think now runs SXSW or something tried to pitch me on doing a reissue. Don't know if knew them or had a connection or just thought I should do it. He burned me a CD-R, back when that's what you'd do. I liked it but didn't really get into it.

I did a playlist of Joy Division-influenced/likeminded grey raincoat post-punk stuff that I called Nightshift. This is the tracklisting:

Artery-Into the Garden
Dance Chapter-New Dance
The Associates-Amused as Always
The Cure-A Forest
Section 25-Friendly Fires
The Gist-Dark Shots
Comsat Angels-Independence Day
The Wild Swans-Revolutionary Spirit
Wah! Heat-Better Scream
2.3-Where to Now?
Article 58-Echoes
23 Skidoo-Another Baby's Face
The Sound-Night Versus Day
Nocturnal Projections-You'll Never Know
The Durutti Column-Spent Time
New Order-Ceremony
U2-Gloria
Garage Class-Terminal Tokyo
Josef K-It's Kinda Funny
Gardez Darkz-Winter Scene
Modern Eon-Child's Play
The Names-Nightshift
Stockholm Monsters-Death is Slowly Coming
The Wake-Favour

Dan - I just put the finishing touches on your expanded Bridge comp. Did you leave off the SLF and Raincoats tracks intentionally?

No. You know that probably happened? I made the playlist, and sometime since then, deleted those files and replaced them with different versions, or just didn't have them and forgot to put them in the playlist. Or I had removed the SLF already because I knew it'd be a licensing issue. The Raincoats I don't know what happend.

So you found David Gamson and Missing Scientists?

Oh I should mention regarding Acute's 2 Lines CDs that although thanking and credits were minimal, ILX poster Michael Train was a part of that. I had all the 7"s but couldn't find Cool Snap. Michael burned me a CD-R with the cover artwork being Cool Snap and a few of the singles (though I think you were missing one? Maybe House of Cracks?). It basically looked just like Memory Span, which makes sense because that looks just like Cool Snap. Anyway I never owned Cool Snap until well after the first Lines CD came out and my friend Joseph Colbourne, a disco DJ in boston, was in NY and had a copy and I told him that he had to sell it to me because it was ridiculous that I didn't own a copy of Cool Snap, and he was generally selling off post-punk singles to buy more disco singles, so everyone came out on top.

Yup, I found Gamson on a blog and Missing Scientists on slsk. Everything else I had one place or another. I'll spin it tomorrow but I know it'll be great as I love most of it already. Boy, I sure wish Rough Trade put together a giant singles box set like Cherry Red did a few years back.

The big difference there is that Rough Trade, in it's creator-owned hippie attitudes, let all rights remain with the artists, many of whom have since sold to bigger/major labels, whereas Cherry Red own mechanicals or publishing for 80% of all music, and know how to license what they don't own!

So if anybody's gonna do a Rough Trade comp, maybe Cherry Red should!

Voting Lilliput/Kleenex, the same way I voted for "Surfin' Bird" on the other thread.

Yeah, full disclosure suggests I should admit to being in the middle of trying to reissue everything by the Sunday Painters, as great an unreissued art punk band as I know. Sorry for using this space promotionally....Seemed sort of the right audience.

And if I were to attempt a quick distinction between art punk and post punk, it'd have to do with the centrality and distortion of the guitars. Of course, some bands wander across the line repeatedly. Or pass through one on the way to the other. As with...

The cd of Wire demos, Behind the Curtain, is maybe the best instruction manual. Several demos from each period: they go from thrash, to pub, to punk, to art punk, to post punk, to experimental in three years and thirty songs.... Ontology recapitulating phylogeny. Out of print, I'm sure, but well worth tracking down. includes many album songs, but without the keyboards and production, which is often a very nice thing.

Co-sign Wire's "Behind The Curtain". Shockingly great versions, and one or two tracks they never recorded I believe. Very few bands demos are worth more than a single listen, this album get regular plays. Indeed it is way out of print, going for a minimum of $30. Pity.

Would make an excellent double Lp these days.

How do you know they're great if you haven't heard them?

Most people in general haven't heard most of the bands, but this is ILM, where most people have heard some, and as grown-ass music nerds in 2013 are fully capable of giving at least a handful a listen if they're so inclined. Handholding and spoonfeeding even including providing a mix with 13 of the bands. Youtube links galore upthread, and some are on Spotify. I don't know what else to tell ya. Poll ends in a few hours.

xp Behind the Curtain used to be pretty widely available. I have it and am happy to hook up anyone who wants a rip. I should give it a listen today, Wire are one of my all-time faves. Their new album Change Becomes Us comes out March 25. Hope it's good!

Thanks for sharing news about Sunday Painters, it's absolutely welcome here. This poll has exceeded expectations, turning into a goldmine of recommendations beyond the list I did my best to come up with. If there's enough interest perhaps someday there can be a proper Greatest Post-Punk Albums poll with nominations and up to 50 album ballots.

And don't get Dan and me started on Nocturnal Projections, NZ's best post punkers. That cd is out of print, too. Dont know what it goes for now. Time for a double Lp?

I must MUST track down Behind the Curtain. I didn't even know it existed!

Has anyone mentioned the Homosexuals? That multi-disc comp from several years back is pretty cool (headed out the door and blanking on title, sorry). Some of it goes back so far, maybe not so much post-punk as para-punk. Also, since Theoretical Girls came up, should we conaider no wave? If Mars and DNA are too radical for this loose round-up, maybe Contortions/James White & The Blacks, Material, some of the bands Arthur Russell passed though?

Also, early Flesheaters, when they incl. members of X and the Blasters: punk, in terms of abrasive elements, like some sounds associated withe wilder side of early "roots", also with free jazz, lurid/ominous/deadpan camp b-movie imagery, grooves best danced to/in when really blitzed, which danceablity, though challenging, can be part of the "post-" (some long live performances posted in YouTube from time to time)

xposts then you probably don't know about "Turns and Strokes" either?

http://www.discogs.com/Wire-Turns-And-Strokes/release/1871722

The Homosexuals were absolutely my favorite for a long time and I was really obsessed with their various incarnations and off-shoots and trying to learn about them. There was so much mystery back in the day that people really didn't even know what was or wasn't a Homosexuals release, or if something was related or not. Unfortunately I have to say I don't listen as much any more. It's kind of strange. The Homosexuals and Arthur Russell were two MAJOR obsessions of mine that were not shared by many people. I assure you I didn't stop listening because they suddenly became familiar to your listener, I just think I overdid it. I compiled a 2cd Homosexuals CD-r that I used to trade which became canon prior to the release of the ReR/Morphius "Record" CD and Chuck's Astral Glamour. The funny story there is that some of the material had come from a guy I knew who wrote for Perfect Sound Forever and he had gotten a CDr from Johan Kugelberg. Johan had put a version of Rainy Day Sunshine Girl as recorded by one of his bands or a friends band or something on the CD, so by the time I got it I was like "omg The Homosexuals covering Faust, and not sounding like the Homosexuals one bit!" and put it on my best-of, so for years during the soulseek days people thought that was the Homosexuals. It was only way later when Chuck was working on the CD that he asked Bruno and Bruno was like, "that's not us" and Chuck asked me about it did I realize my complicity in the spreading of misinformation.

I helped out on Astral Glamour. At 1 point Chuck was going to release it through Acute but things got confusing. I did a couple comps for the cover design, which somewhat influenced (but isn't) the final cover, so I get credit in the liner notes.

Wire's "Turns And Strokes" is decidedly less critical than "Behind The Curtain". It's a companion piece to "Document And Eyewitness", which I find unrewarding. The best thing about it is that it has the final studio b-sides before they broke up the first time.

Nocturnal Projections! Brilliant band, yes. I can only find the CD on discogs.com or $60+. It wasn't even a complete anthology. Someone needs to put that out, and probably a good Peter Jefferies career overview as well.

Yeah, "Turns and Strokes" is kinda rubbish

Michael gave me Graeme Jefferies contact info years ago and I wrote him then annoyingly waited too long to follow up and missed our chance. Maybe I'll suggest it to Captured Tracks.

Finished listening to the "expanded" Wanna Buy A Bridge. The version of "Sugar Sugar" is loopy but holy cow the Epic Soundtracks/Robert Wyatt "Jelly Babies" is stunning! As far as I can tell it only just got a CD release on the recent Epic anthology.

Sugar Sugar is def a stretch, but I love it and thought it was a fun excursion. I was turned onto it by Danny Wang. Or I turned him onto it. I can't remember. Gamson had one other song I know of, No Turn on Red, which was on one of the NME comps and a sorta new wave dance comp from the early 80s. After that I think he moved to New York and collaborated with Green on Scritti Politti's big hits.

but holy cow the Epic Soundtracks/Robert Wyatt "Jelly Babies" is stunning! As far as I can tell it only just got a CD release on the recent Epic anthology.

It was supposed to have been included on a Robert Wyatt anthology, Flotsam Jetsam, and appeared on early publicity sheet track listings. But didn't make it on the CD.

Hah, just looked up that RW anthology and it goes for stupid money, too. I thought CDs were supposed to be dirt cheap these days! ;-)

Speaking of those long live Flesheaters experiences, there's the punk-associated tradition that goes against punk austerity: the jam, man. Or at least, the performance outward bound, however covertly charted or not. Thinking of Velvets, 10-60-75 The Numbers Band, ca. Jimmy Bell's Still In Town (they did some more compact stuff later), Television, Sonic Youth---UK in this vein--?

I feel like Polyrock should be on this list.

oh yeah, I never heard them much--did see an early long video performance, "live" or live (fancy lighting, no audible/visible audience). Produced by/some kind of connection to Philip Glass, right?

First album co-produced by Glass, yeah. Unlike many of the bands above they made it to the US hinterlands, so I saw them twice in Minneapolis.

^^^ Second album also, I guess.