Collecting studio and live recordings, hit singles that never were, and enticing stray oddities all conceived in the span of one fecund year, 1983 chronicles the life and sonic adventure of the Torn Boys, a Stockton, California band comprising future members of Shiva Burlesque, Gary Young's Hospital and Grant Lee Buffalo. It is, in fact, the first ever release from a group made for cultdom. Formed in late '82 by Jeffrey Clark (vocals, electric guitar) and Kelly Foley (vocals, acoustic guitar), the Torn Boys soon welcomed Duncan Atkinson (synths, drum machine) and then nineteen-year-old Grant-Lee Phillips (lead guitar) into their ranks. At once urgent and literate, their recordings fend off basic categorisation, conjuring the darker corners of neo-psychedelic California, infusing New Wave-era sensibilities with the moodier angle of home-grown, art-punk-surrealism.

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