The Heart Throbs

The Heart Throbs came out of Reading in 1986, started by college students Rose Carlotti and Stephen Ward, who brought in Rose's sister Rachel DeFreitas and Mark Side. Rose and Rachel's brother was Pete DeFreitas, the late Echo & the Bunnymen drummer. A first single appeared in mid-1987 on Marc Riley's In-Tape label, then Rough Trade put out two more that both became hits on the UK Independent Chart, and two further singles came out on their own label, Profumo, named with a wink at John Profumo.

One Little Indian signed them next, and guitarist Alan Barclay, also known as Alan Borgia, joined at that point, freeing Ward to move over to keyboards. Cleopatra Grip, their 1990 debut album, was handled in the States by Elektra, and "Dreamtime" is where to start: hazy, hypnotic guitar pop that drifts in on a cloud of reverb and lingers.

A&M picked them up in America for Jubilee Twist, but sales disappointed, and the label passed on the third album, Vertical Smile. That was the last of three records for One Little Indian, and the band split in 1993.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.