The Wild Flowers- The Joy of It All LP & Blue Hollow- Stealing a Whisper LP
Hope you’ll all indulge me for a little two-for-one post here. While these two records are generally unrelated, they sound incredibly complementary and it’s no stretch that if you love one, you’ll probably love the other. Also, both LPs have been posted by other blogs in the past. I only double dip today to offer fresh rips and hopefully to turn you guys on to two excellent, if but vastly under-appreciated post-punk masterpieces from the mid-80s.
First up is the debut LP from The Wild Flowers, which you may have heard via Curious Guy’s excellent post from 2006. There, he mentions that the band was the original outlet of guitarist David Newton, who left soon after to form the also excellent Mighty Lemon Drops. I’m on my second copy of this LP, between DJing and home listening, so that should speak highly of this particular record, which calls the lush majesty of bands like The Chameleons, Icicle Works, The Lucy Show, Breathless, The Sound, and of course, Echo & the Bunnymen’s Heaven Up Here to mind. You can grab their first two 7”s here. I do have the third LP, 1988’s Sometime Soon. It’s been a while since I’ve heard it so I don’t remember how it stacks up, but I’m very interested in hearing 1987’s Dust.
The second LP is the one and only release by Blue Hollow, who rose from the ashes of Gluons, a darker and more dissonant band from Massachusetts. Stealing a Whisper, which was released three years later, would shed much of the cacophony and offer up a record that sits comfortably alongside The Wild Flowers on sheer strength of songwriting. Equally lush and romantic songs and catchy hooks, clearly pulling from the same set of influences and delivering a similarly striking album…
It’s a shame that neither of these records are more well known, even in these circles, so hopefully this post brings them to a wider audience. Enjoy!
The Wild Flowers- The Joy of it All (1984)
1. Melt Like Ice
2. Beggar Man
3. The Promised Land
4. After All These Years
5. Dark Times
6. The Joy of it All
7. Bamboo
8. Hold the Torch
9. Things Have Changed
10. From the Sky
Blue Hollow- Stealing a Whisper (1986)
1. Color of Night
2. Inhale
3. Running Down
4. Blue Hollow
5. We Fall
6. Hearts Hang Souls
7. Wildskin
8. Stranger
Thanks for indulging me here today… For those who are looking for something new and unheard, hang tight- as the next few posts will feature very rare cassettes, demos, and more! Thanks to all who have sent things over in the past few weeks- it’s always appreciated!
January 28, 2013 at 11:35 pm
Frank –
I’ve still never heard anything off of “Dust” or “Sometime Soon”. How do those Wild Flowers LP’s rate????
Both are impossible to find (no surprise, esp. right now, in today’s less-than-tepid web-climate)
Wow. OK. I’m on Discogs ; they seem to have had a fourth album: “Tales Like These”.
“The Joy Of It All” is top stuff… I can only surmise that their other records kicked…. serious tightass?
January 29, 2013 at 5:42 pm
i’ll try picking up a copy of dust soon and will post both if/when i do! hang tight. to answer your question, i don’t recall liking ‘sometime soon’ as much as this LP, but it’s been a few years since i’ve listened to it….
January 28, 2013 at 11:44 pm
I mean…
(J’essss – what DO you mean, Mikey B?)
That is to say…
Is it even the same band?
E Music has “Somehwere Soon” (*the label is listed as Cherry Red), so I’m guessing it is the same band?
But then… E Music also has 2 Wild Flowers (or “Wildflowers”) albums.. one with “hardly chix” on the cover(ya know..femmes d’ mediocre punims) …the other boasts a full bleed image of gnarly skunk-bud (classy!) ; I am muy confuse-a-mey!
This band,the post punk WF… How many records did they have ; are they all worth hunting for?
January 28, 2013 at 11:54 pm
Now I feel X-tra , bonus-pak dumb.
I did not doth dain to read (rather, I skimmed) your post.
You had most of the answers (to my un-nessa questions) in your description. Me = silly rabbit…. paaaaaay attention!
January 29, 2013 at 2:56 am
I remember buying the Blue Hollow LP a few years back and not knowing a lick about it. It’s a great record with strong songs all the way through. Nice one!
January 29, 2013 at 12:19 pm
Thank you for these!
January 31, 2013 at 12:51 am
All I have to say is WOW!
I have never heard of these bands and I have to once again thank the music blog community for hooking me onto something new!
I absolutely love the Wild Flowers LP and singles and the Blue Hollow LP is good as well.
Many thanks again for introducing/sharing! Much appreciated!
May 27, 2013 at 3:10 pm
thank you for all the good stuff, i dl Blue Hollow as i already have “Joy of it all” and “Dust”
btw help needed to id a track from mid 80’s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qnjlSha40w
October 17, 2013 at 8:08 pm
Thank you for the Wild Flowers album been looking for this album for a while now. My cousin was the drummer in the wild flowers but left after making sometime soon.
I loved kind of kingdom from the second album Dust! even remember watching the video for it on the tube (won best video i think).
Also thanks for the Blue Hollow album going to give that a listen.
April 8, 2019 at 1:48 am
both albums are so beautiful…
always loved the wild flowers, but blue hollow….. well, i really don’t know why, but it was only yesterday that i sat and listened to that album and it is absolutely gorgeous.
thank you
( the gluons’ “surface to” is nowhere to be found on the internet,by the way)
cheers
September 24, 2020 at 3:13 pm
I had dust on vinyl and cassette and I lost them in a move from SF to LA. I have been searching for “Something To Mention” via download… Are there available downloads for DUST and this particular song?
Thanks posting the other albums.