Complete Recordings

Oh-OK, “Complete Recordings” (Collector’s Choice, 2002; original recordings 1981-84)
This pioneering Athens new wave/post punk band featured Michael Stipe’s sister as one of its two frontwomen, but the only qualities it really shared with early REM were a propulsive minimalism and a soft-spoken, ironic but almost mystical sense of the texture of everyday life in a Southern college town. The sound is bare-bones, boppy and free-ranging in crayon-like strokes (drums-bass-and-singsong-vocals-only on 1 through 4, like a missing link between the early Rough Trade stuff like the Raincoats and Lilliput, and the K/Beat Happening stuff that was soon to come.
3 and 4 [=(the “Wow Mini-LP” 7”) are my favorites, but 5 is cool, too. Really, it’s all great.