ON THIS DAY ... IN 1989/1994 - STRAX and TINY MONROE

Fascinating Icelandic post-punk gem and mysterious Britpop vanishing act (84 photos)

I’m surprised STRAX aren’t better known with the passing of time. I doubt they got to play Britain very often - I only ever saw them this one time - and maybe this was their only visit, but they had that vibrant tenacity we’d come to expect of Icelandic post-punk. Plus, charismatic singer/actress and keyboard player Jakob Magnússon went on to interesting work with Ragga And The Jack Magic Orchestra

Three albums and two EPs in just three short years, and they’re not really well known, but according to discogs they may somehow have been an intriguing offshoot of a more art-rock type band that has its roots in the early70’s called Stuðmenn, which I don’t quite understand.

Ragnhildur Gísladóttir - website

Ragnhildur Gísladóttir - bandcamp

TINY MONROE really should have done well. So much more natural than most of their desperate Britpoppish contemporaries, they had great songs, looked cool and came over well live but in 1994 when virtually all a band had to do to get into the top 20 was do two short tours, aligned with decent press coverage, London Records somehow failed to do what all the other labels were achieving. And so, it all came to nought. Very sad.

54 more photos of STRAX and 26 of TINY MONROE follow for paid subscribers.