Bassist Leslie Langston had left Throwing Muses before the band went in to record their fourth album, The Real Ramona (CAD 1002). It was produced by Dennis Herring (Camper Van Beethoven), and featured some of Kristin Hersh's most powerful songs, including the indelible "Counting Backwards" (BAD 1001) - a track which gave the band their first significant US radio exposure. Tanya Donelly's "Not Too Soon" (BAD 1015) became the album's second single - but not long afterwards, she left the group, re-appearing the following year with a new band of her own : Belly.
The Wolfgang Press returned from a long period of studio hibernation with the propulsive "Time" (BAD 1003). They followed it a few months later with a radio-friendly cover of Randy Newman's "Mama Told Me Not To Come" (BAD 1007) before unveiling Queer (CAD 1011), their finest album to date. Drawing inspiration from De La Soul's Three Feet High And Rising, the Wolfgangs (and producer Drostan Madden) fashioned an endlessly listenable crazy-quilt of a record, built from samples, found sounds and the best batch of songs they'd ever written. Two distinct versions of Queer exist : in order to get the album released in the United States the following year, the group were obliged to remove and / or re-record many of the album's more recognizable samples; the U.S. edition also includes three additional tracks, including "A Girl Like You".
Spirea X was a vehicle for the 60's pop-art visions of ex-Primal Scream member Jim Beattie. Two EPs appeared - Chlorine Dream (BAD 1004), whose lead track managed to reinvent the sound of the Byrds for the 1990s, and Speed Reaction (BAD 1006), a fiendishly catchy melding of harmonies and the Who - prior to the arrival of a full-length album, Fireblade Skies (CAD 1017), in the autumn. Jim left 4AD shortly thereafter, subsequently making records as Adventures In Stereo.
Ivo had been working on new This Mortal Coil material on and off since the release of Filigree & Shadow four years earlier. A musical reflection of a turbulent period in his life, Blood (DAD 1005) was always intended to be the final installment of a TMC trilogy. Recorded with many of the same personnel as the previous album - John Fryer, Jon Turner and Martin McCarrick all played significant roles in shaping the music - Blood also included vocals from such TMC newcomers as Caroline Crawley (Shelleyan Orphan), Heidi Berry, Kim Deal and Tanya Donelly. Cover versions this time out included songs by Chris Bell, Syd Barrett, Rain Parade, Rodney Crowell and Mary Margaret O'Hara, while Ivo's own lyrics graced several of the album's originals.
The Pixies heralded the arrival of a new album with the Planet Of Sound EP (BAD 1008), which included a bizarre cover - "Evil Hearted You" by The Yardbirds - sung in Spanish. The ferocious fourth and final album Trompe Le Monde (CAD 1014) saw the band bowing out in a blaze of glory. The Pixies dissolved after an string of opening dates on U2's Zoo TV tour and a series of European dates which found the band playing to enormous audiences. Their demise came just as a new generation of bands, on whom the Pixies had been a crucial influence, were beginning to find a vast new audience.
Pale Saints, who toured with the Pixies during 1991, checked in with a new EP, Flesh Balloon (BAD 1009). It featured a dreamy version of Nancy Sinatra's "Kinky Love" that was released - with one eye wistfully on the charts - as a separate 7-inch single (AD 1009).
Dead Can Dance's A Passage In Time (CAD 1010) was a compilation album intended as the group's first American release (via Rykodisc). Assembled by Brendan Perry and Lisa Gerrard, it brought together fourteen songs from their previous four albums, as well as a brace of newly recorded tracks.