The Scottish indie-pop label Postcard Records wasn’t around for very long. But between 1980 and ’81 it released handful of records by bands that became legendary: Orange Juice, Josef K, and Aztec Camera, all of which mixed post-punk with jangly, romantic pop in various beautiful ways. But Postcard had other releases in the pipeline before it folded—and some of those recordings by the Glasgow band The Bluebells are seeing the light of day in the new anthology Exile On Twee Street. The collection unearths 20 tracks, all previously unreleased except for one, that were captured in the early ’80s and originally intended for release on Postcard—including the chirpy, swooning “Everybody’s Somebody’s Fool,” a starry-eyed throwback to the Merseybeat bounce of The Searchers and The Hollies. The Bluebells sound up signing to a major label and enjoying a string of more polished pop hits in the ’80s, but the warm charm of these early, long-unheard songs helps complete the portrait of the one of the smallest yet most influential indie scenes of the ’80s.
Exile On Twee Street will be released July 28 via Cherry Red Records.