The Stick Figures - Archeology

The 80s is a tardis! How many multitudes must it contain? Well, at least one more... The Stick Figures were a short-lived band from Tampa who released one EP before a move to New York precipitated a split in 1981. Floating Mill take that EP and join it with a host of unreleased tracks, an exercise that imagines what a debut album might have sounded like. Well, the album they've imagined might in fact be a lot weirder than what would have happened in reality, bolstered as it is by high energy live recordings and dub experiments. The tracks that made up the original EP make immediate sense of their move to NYC, stressing an affinity with the bass-led dynamics of Bush Tetras and ESG, and it's unusual they didn't 'make it there' (they'll make it anywhere) given how convincingly they nail both post-punk skronk and new wave melodicism. Even the photos i've seen paint a pretty picture: this lot look like a dream. Most interestingly, the extra tracks suggest a much broader set of reference points, channeling the proto-indie idiosyncrasies of early Postcard as well as the oddball spirit of Suburban Lawns and cerebral party-starting of fellow southerners, Pylon and B-52s. Though it must just be the pop experimentalism of The Flying Lizards they most obviously divine. In short, a gem unearthed. Truly, the well never runs dry!