Black Tambourine

Black Tambourine's brand of dark, 1960s-touched twee pop sprouted in 1990s Washington, D.C., when most bands there were obsessed with angst-ridden DIY post-punk. What's most remarkable about the band's two-year career is not that they were going against the grain, but that their sound came so far ahead of others who would dominate college radio with squalling feedback and pop roots a decade later. When it was all but unheard of, they combined '60s pop with elements of shoegazer, draping every track in fuzzed-out distortion and echoing feedback while retaining a dedication to classic pop forms that would make Phil Spector proud. Like the bashful indie vocalists that would follow a decade later, singer Pam Berry's winsome, reverb-wet melodies gets covered by the noisy flourishes, but the overall effect is dreamy, heralding the twilight architects of a sound that was years ahead of its time.