Sublime took the day off yesterday, but it’s back. Just about sneaking in by virtue of having released this, their debut single, in 1989, The Sundays recorded only three albums. The last of these, “Static & Silence” was released a full eight years on, in 1997. Touring aside, they were rarely seen or heard, preferring to hone and perfect material privately and at their own pace. There was always the feeling that the music was a hobby, picked up and left alone according to life’s bigger plans. The stately release schedule wasn’t helped by the collapse of Rough Trade in 1991, while they were working on “Blind”, 1992’s follow-up to “Reading, Writing and Arithmetic” which itself was out of print for most of the band’s career.

Right now, The Sundays seem just about the least likely band of all their contemporaries to reform or release a singles and rarities compilation. Three albums and a handful of singles. A crying shame, perhaps, because surely only a fool would deny the beauty of Harriet Wheeler’s voice, countered perfectly by David Gavurin’s repeating guitar phrases. Who wouldn’t want more? And yet, maybe this serves to ground The Sundays and their feather-light songs, giving them a very definite sense of time and place, and an anchoring solidity without which they would threaten to float away. The economy of it, too, is reflective of so much of their material: find the hook, refine the hook, let it play through, and stop when it feels right.

Just don’t ask me where Tin Tin Out fit into this.