I had fun at last week's Indie label market, and picked up some good stuff (Crystal Stilts/Comet Gain split 7", Butterflies of Love vinyl), but the Dolly Mixture "Everything and More" box set, released last year, was easily my best find. It's the first time their stuff's been reissued on CD I think, but it's difficult to see why.
They emerged in the post-punk boom of the turn of the eighties, one of my favourite periods for music. I suppose in that sense, and being an all-girl band, you can compare them to the Slits, Raincoats or Girls at Our Best! (all great bands), but what Dolly Mixture really make their own is the pop influences that some of those other bands tend to hide. This song, in particular, sounds like The Pastels meets the Shangri-Las.
The Dolly Mixture story, as told in the liner notes, is quite sad: they seem to have been victimised in the music press for some reason, and never really found the right label to support them properly, so they ended up never getting the acclaim they perhaps should have. Hopefully this box set'll correct that a bit. They're a really important band, very influential on the later indiepop we all love (I'm guessing Amelia Fletcher, for one, was a big fan).
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