THE landmark that triggered this punk grave dig was the 40th anniversary of the British musical revolution heralded by the Autumn 1976 rude awakening of the Sex Pistols' Anarchy In The UK and The Damned's New Rose.

Neither the Pistols nor The Clash feature among the 111 tracks – yes, 111 – gathered here, given that they both signed to major labels, but the first dawn chorus of The Damned, the visceral thrill of New Rose, leads off a four-CD box set that is the first to collate the deeds of the disparate indie punk movement.

As ever with Cherry Red's comprehensive retro collections, most notably the indie pop set Scared To Get Happy and the shoegaze memoir Still In A Dream, the history is documented with impeccable detail, in this case spread over a 64-page booklet with a biography of each band and the story behind each song.

More than punk devotees will be familiar with such brisk thrills as Stiff Little Fingers' Suspect Device, The Ruts' In A Rut and The Rezillos' I Can't Stand My Baby, or the rough and ready works of the Angelic Upstarts, The Skids, Cockney Rejects, The Lurkers, The Fall, Patrik Fitzgerald and Chelsea.

The greater pleasure lies in the new exposure given to early obscurities by post-punk luminaries such as Adam & The Ants (Zerox), Joy Division (Failures) and Tubeway Army (That's Too Bad) with the unmistakable sting of Gary Numan's voice.

Numan is not alone in being heard in fledgling days. So too are Dexys' Kevin Rowland, leading The Killjoys in Johnny Won't Get To Heaven; The Pogues' Shane MacGowan in punk-rockabilly mode on the Nipple Erectors' King Of The Bop and protest singer Billy Bragg in his pre-Army days on Riff Raff's Cosmonaut.

Plenty of these punk pyrotechnics are suitably nasty, brutish, and short with nihilistic titles and band names to match. Take your pick from Big G's I Hate The Whole Human Race; Satan's Rats' You Make Me Sick and The Snivelling Sh*ts' Terminal Stupid. How punk! How quaint now!