Marine Girls

The Marine Girls brought Punk's DIY ethic to breezy bossa-jazz Jangle Pop in the early 1980s. With Everything but the Girl still around the corner, Tracey Thorn was given the opportunity to learn to play and sing with each member of this egalitarian collective. Their sound was at best ragged and at worst a mess, but always utterly charming. Their percussion, for example, sounds like coconut halves being struck together. Listening to them is like hanging out on the beach with friends and singing around the campfire. Excepting the cast of Baywatch, who doesn't need more beaches, campfires and friends? EBTG and such current bands as Saint Etienne, Arabesque, and Belle and Sebastian have since refined the Marine Girls' approach but their two albums still offer nostalgic thrills -- even if you're hearing them for the first time.