The Jasmine Minks

The Jasmine Minks earned early recognition as one of the initial acts signed to Alan McGee’s Creation imprint. They came together in the early 1980s blending jangly psychedelia with punk leanings, an approach they have maintained across later releases. Beginning as a trio built around vocalist Jim Shepard, the group has endured repeated personnel shifts across a long, uneven, yet persistent career. Interests that extended from the Buzzcocks and Subway Sect through experimental acts such as Cabaret Voltaire and DAF, as well as enduring sources like Motown and Love, kept the band from operating as a conventional pop outfit. Although they issued singles and albums most regularly in the second half of the 1980s, the Jasmine Minks continued to produce new material at intervals, placing albums in the early 2000s and returning in 2023 with We Make Our Own History, their first full-length LP in 22 years.

The Jasmine Minks originated in Aberdeen, Scotland in 1983. Alan McGee offered them a deal after attending an extended rehearsal at their Waterloo rehearsal space and chose the tracks that formed their debut single. With organ and production assistance from Joe Foster and Dave Musker of Television Personalities, the Think! single appeared in 1984. Following another single, the 1234567 All Good Preachers Go to Heaven EP arrived and was widely regarded as their strongest early work. Plans for a split EP with the Smiths were abandoned, after which the Minks toured Europe alongside the Jesus and Mary Chain and McGee’s own Biff Bang Pow!

Enthusiastic sessions intended for an EP were ultimately scaled back and trimmed into a single. The band also tracked enough material for an album provisionally titled Everybody Has Got to Grow Up Sometime, a title that reflected its turn toward the classicist songcraft of the Go-Betweens along with added layers of horns and acoustic guitars. Portions of that project were later set aside in favor of tracks from the preceding EP sessions, disrupting the original thematic unity. The resulting 1985 release carried the band’s own name.

Shepard soon entered a period of uncertainty about the Minks’ direction. A young admirer named Walter approached him, restored momentum, and joined the lineup. Additional concerts and a BBC session broadened the group’s modest but loyal audience. After tensions with McGee at Creation, the band placed an EP of live recordings on the Esurient label. A smoother recording process yielded the Another Age album, in which Shepard explored his affinity for gospel and Pet Sounds-era Beach Boys textures while stamping his own character on those influences. Live appearances alongside labelmates Primal Scream, the Jazz Butcher, and the House of Love helped Another Age become the band’s most commercially successful release.

The poorly produced Scratch the Surface surfaced in 1989 and stalled commercially. Although it contained some of Shepard’s strongest and bleakest writing, the album did not extend the success of Another Age. Frustration peaked and Shepard disbanded the group. Nine years afterward he reassembled several former members. A handful of performances prompted fresh recordings that included two singles in 2000 and the album Veritas on Genius Move. Reuniting with Alan McGee on the Poptones label, the band issued Popartglory in 2001. Following the 2002 Bus Stop EP “I Heard I Wish It Would Be Rain,” the Minks again went dormant. Cherry Red’s 2004 double-disc retrospective The Revenge Of… surveyed their catalog, yet no immediate reunion followed. They resurfaced in 2010 with the Poppy White EP—comprising unreleased early-’90s demos—on the Oatcake label. The next year they played two London dates, and the 1985 lineup performed at Indietracks Festival in 2012. Full-time activity resumed in 2017 with regular shows and new songwriting. After several singles and archival radio sessions, the Jasmine Minks delivered their seventh studio album, We Make Our Own History, in 2023, their first LP in 22 years, preserving their characteristic rough-edged jangle pop sound.