Funny coincidence: Slumberland Records has announced the forthcoming release of a Black Tambourine anthology, which wouldn’t mean much to Listen, Dammit, except that we’ve been listening the past few weeks to a lot of Black Tambourine.

The Washington D.C. band, a side project for members of Whorl and Velocity Girl, only lasted for two years between 1989-91, recording a relative handful of songs explicitly meant to be pop tunes (if noisy ones) in an era dominated by the rise of punk rock via grunge.

Lately, younger bands have been generous in citing the influence of Black Tambourine, including the Vivian Girls, Wavves and the Pains of Being Pure at Heart. Pains singer Kip Berman told Listen, Dammit, last year that Black Tambourine was among his favorite bands, in the company of similarly obscure acts like Rocketship and the Manhattan Love Suicides.

Slumberland’s anthology collects all the songs the band ever recorded, which, with any luck, will raise the band’s profile even further. The record is due March 30 and called simply “Black Tambourine.”

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January 29, 2010 at 8:30 am | Share |