The Pastels

Truckload of Trouble (1993)

Truckload of Trouble gathers the Pastels' singles from 1986 to 1993, the run that made their name. The long, droning "Baby Honey" is its heart, a Velvet Underground sway over which Stephen Pastel half-sings as if thinking out loud. The playing is loose on purpose, the guitars a little out of step, and the tenderness comes through because nothing is polished away. It's the clearest record of where twee's untrained, heartfelt sound began.

Sleeve notes

Truckload of Trouble · 1993

The Pastels formed in Glasgow in the early 1980s around Stephen McRobbie, who has gone by Stephen Pastel ever since. Their records were rough and gentle at once: wobbly guitars, untrained voices and songs about crushes and the town around them, drawn from the Velvet Underground and the Modern Lovers rather than anything slick. Critics called it "shambling", and alongside the bands of the NME's C86 tape they became the model for what would later be called twee.

The band carried on long after that moment, with Katrina Mitchell becoming McRobbie's partner in the songwriting, and grew slower and more ornate on Illumination (1997) and Slow Summits (2013). McRobbie also became a hub for Glasgow's music through the Monorail record shop and his Geographic label, putting out records by friends and favourites from around the world.