Dolly Mixture is one of my favourite bands to come out of the British post-punk movement. Tragically, they’re also one of the least acknowledged. They came out of Cambridge in 1978, formed by Debsey Wikes on bass and vocals, Rachel Bor on guitar, and Hester Smith on drums. They collaborated with members of the Damned, played gigs with the Fall, received praise from John Peel and U2 respectively, and foremost, they simply rock in their own right—so why don’t we ever hear about them? 

Their being painfully underrated is partly due to the group’s mismanagement back in the day (trying to label three punks as a poppy teenage girl group is a bad move on many fronts), and partly because a good chunk of their discography was only made public in the 2010s, with the release of Other Music coming in 2019.

Other Music is a collection of demos recorded between 1978-84, pieced together from archived cassette tapes and other storage bin treasures. It’s absolutely full of gems like “Dust to Dust,” “The Same Mistake,” a whimsical cover of “Femme Fatale;” and my favourite of theirs, “Our Tune.” It’s homey, it’s fast, it’s got a sick guitar track; it’s twee-pop before twee-pop had ever twee’d. It’s black tea with brown sugar and a shot of Baileys. It’s Belle and Sebastian’s cool English aunt. It’s my best song this week—try it on for size!