Velocity Girl came out of Washington D.C. and burned brightly but briefly in the early Nineties, blending pop melodies and noisy guitars.

When is a new song not a new song? When it’s an old song seeing the light of day for the first time. Like this one by Velocity Girl, recorded 35 years ago.

Velocity Girl burst out of Washington D.C.’s new pop underground just as the Eighties bled into the Nineties and as ‘alternative’ music became rebranded as ‘indie.

They followed the template of the Jesus And Mary Chain by presenting perfect pop songs in a feedback-driven racket of fuzzy shoegaze guitars with reverb turned up to ten.

I Know Exactly What You Mean captures that sound, merging melody and energy, euphoric hooks with waves of noisy bliss and lovelorn melancholy. All condensed into two minutes.

The song was recorded in a 1991 session soon after the recruitment of new singer Sarah Shannon, who replaced original vocalist Bridget Cross after their debut single.

It’s being released, backed by their debut single I Don’t Care If You Go, ahead of a new compilation, 1989-1992, of their pre-Sub Pop years on DC’s local label Slumberland Records.

The band had been formed in 1989 by guitarist Archie Moore and bassist Kelly Riles, who had meet at the University of Maryland, and first performed as The Gotterdamacrats.

They became Velocity Girl (named after a Primal Scream song) after the addition of guitarist Brian Nelson, drummer Jim Spellman and lead singer Bridget Cross, who left in 1990, and released a string of seven-inch singles.

After moving to Sub Pop their sound began moving away from the guitar distortion of shoegaze, evolving into a cleaner sound with boy-girl harmonies between Shannon and Moore, before splitting up in 1996 after releasing three albums for Sub Pop.

They reunited for a one-off concert in 2002, and a few more in 2023 and 2024.