Black Tambourine

Among the most influential American indie pop acts of the eighties despite their brief existence, Black Tambourine crafted a shadowy, distortion-heavy style that foreshadowed the shoegaze explosion of the decade ahead. After the group disbanded, its participants achieved wider acclaim inside the flourishing independent music landscape across America.

Established in Washington, D.C. during 1989, the lineup featured Pam Berry on lead vocals together with instrumental work from Archie Moore and Brian Nelson of Velocity Girl and Mike Schulman of Whorl. Eschewing the capital’s prevailing punk sensibility, the ensemble drew from Phil Spector’s celebrated 1960s Wall of Sound productions as well as British noise acts such as the Jesus and Mary Chain and the Shop Assistants.

The band first surfaced in 1990 with the song “Pam’s Tan,” included on the seven-inch What Kind of Heaven Do You Want?, the inaugural release from Schulman’s own Slumberland label. The track “We Can't Be Friends” later appeared on spinART’s One Last Kiss compilation, after which Black Tambourine issued its proper debut single, the Pastels homage “Throw Aggi Off the Bridge,” on the fledgling Audrey’s Diary imprint. Slumberland followed with “By Tomorrow,” yet the group dissolved in 1991 after releasing only nine songs officially and performing live on just four occasions.

Berry then moved through several projects including the Shapiros, Glo-Worm, and the Castaway Stones, while securing lasting recognition as co-founder of the Chickfactor fanzine. After a handful of Slumberland singles, Moore and Nelson’s Velocity Girl signed with Sub Pop and became one of the more beloved indie bands of the early nineties. Schulman sustained Slumberland as a leading American independent label whose roster has encompassed Rocketship, the Aislers Set, and 14 Iced Bears; in 1999 the imprint released the Black Tambourine retrospective Complete Recordings.

In 2009, while preparing a fresh reissue of the band’s complete output, Slumberland recorded several numbers that had appeared in the original live sets. The four tracks—two originals plus covers of Buddy Holly’s “Heartbeat” and Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream”—were added, along with demos of “Throw Aggi Off the Bridge” and “For Ex-Lovers Only,” to the 2010 collection Black Tambourine.