STRAWBERRY SWITCHBLADE - 1982 4-Piece Demo - 7" - Vinyl [MAY 8]

LP - Black Vinyl

Originally released in limited formats in 2017 and having since been repressed several times, 2025 sees a new pressing to acknowledge the enduring legacy of this recording. In 2024, the song Trees & Flowers became an unexpected hit on TikTok, introducing a new generation to these timeless songs.

1982 4-Piece Demo is the first official, fully licensed, and unreleased material to be released under the name Strawberry Switchblade in 30 years. Since disbanding amid major record label acrimony and personal differences in 1986, the already-cult band has only grown in stature and legend. Trailblazers in many ways, the band’s mythology justifiably centers around the charismatic duo of Jill Bryson and Rose McDowall, but that isn’t the full picture.

Bryson and McDowall’s growing friendship—having met years earlier on the punk scene—became a creative partnership: Bryson’s art school background and McDowall’s history in avant-punk group The Poets meant Strawberry Switchblade was a band pitted against many established norms. The band’s very first incarnation, an all-female four-piece, recorded one demo at Glasgow’s Hellfire Club and played a handful of gigs. Friends Janice Goodlett and Carole McGowan completed the lineup on bass and drums, respectively. Strawberry Switchblade would eventually pare down to a duo and go on to chart success, but in these raw, passionate recordings, the songwriting and vocal elements were being hammered out and explored in real time.

Spanish Song is a previously unreleased track. With McDowall’s instantly recognizable lead vocal dovetailing with Bryson’s harmonies and lead guitar, it offers the first glimpse at an alternative history of Strawberry Switchblade. This incarnation could easily have been featured on a Nuggets compilation or seen as a precursor to the indie-pop revolution that would take over British bedrooms a few years later. Trees & Flowers is instantly recognizable—a bona fide classic that earned the band its first record deal. Here, it’s given a more forceful rhythm section, with Goodlett and McGowan’s playing sounding remarkably accomplished, belying the band’s youth. Go Away would also later surface on the band’s debut LP, but here it appears as a moody garage stomper with a psychedelic, haunting refrain. These three songs point to a tantalizing future for the band that was never realized.

Remastered and restored by Sean Pennycook from the original cassette, this release features artwork based on a single photographic contact sheet—the only visual evidence of the band in this form. It also includes a booklet of photographs and new text from contemporary Stephen Pastel.

Tracklist: 

SIDE A: Spanish Song
SIDE AA: Trees & Flowers / Go Away