Sonic Power Pop

About Shoegazing.co.uk

2006-06-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Shoegazing.co.uk, the online archive of everything to do with shoegazing music. Ever since I first heard My Bloody Valentine's Strawberry Wine (which is playing as I type this), I have been a fan of this torpid, effects-driven atmospheric pop music. But for years, there has never really been any kind of online presence for everything, certainly not in one place. This is what this site attempts to achieve, simply to gather as much information together as we possibly can on our favorite bands, and put it all in one place. By doing this, we hope that you can also enjoy some of the greatest music ever made, and perhaps find some new music that you'll love just as much. After much procrastination, this site is now underway, and very much a work in progress - it's success is dependent upon assembling as much great content as we can find. We need your help to do this.

We should also mention that if for any reason, anyone wishes us to remove any material from this site for any reason, drop us a line and we will do so immediately. This is a fan site, assembled for fans, by fans. In respect of potential infringement of copyright proposed by the respective owners of original source material posted on this site, please request the removal of such imagery, which will be deleted willingly and as soon as possible. We realize that pulling together an online archive such as this may cause these issues to arise, but more importantly, we hope that you enjoy what you find here.

Let us know what you think, and enjoy,

Matthew
Algorithm NYC, Sunday 11th 2006

Linkage Other Shoegazing Sites
Shoegazing Forum (Not updated since 2004)
Shoegazing's entry at allmusic.com
Shoegazing's entry at wikipedia.org
Shoegazing.com (Not really shoegazing.com but for years this site was the only thing online that archived anything)
Shoegazing's entry at answers.com
Amazon.com's shoegazing results
The Tunnel
Last.fm's Shoegazing Forum
Artist Direct's entry for Shoegazing
The real shoegazing.com (Daniel Ekman's Fotoblog)
Dream Pop Links
Somewhere Cold
Metafilter article on shoegazing revisited
Eric Shea's Shoegazing classics (Rhapsody.com)

Sigur Rós

2006-06-09T13:17:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sigur Rós is an Icelandic post-rock band with melodic, classical and minimalist elements. The name is Icelandic for "victory rose" and is pronounced "see oor roce", or ['sɪɣʏr rous] in the International Phonetic Alphabet, although a more popular (and incorrect) variation in the English-speaking world is 'sigger ross' or 'sigger roy-ss'. The band is known for their ethereal sound and lead singer Jónsi's near flawless falsetto. Some of the band's contemporaries include Múm and Amiina; both of which hail from the same creative and vibrant Icelandic post-rock music scene.

History
Jón Þór (Jónsi) Birgisson, Georg Hólm and Ágúst Ævar Gunnarsson formed the group in Reykjavík in August 1994. Their name is taken from Jónsi's younger sister Sigurrós, who was born the same day. They soon won a record deal with a local record label, Bad Taste. In 1997, they released Von (Hope) and in 1998 a remix collection named Von brigði. The name is Icelandic wordplay: Vonbrigði means "disappointment", but Von brigði means "hope alteration". (In English, the album is sometimes known by the alternative name "Recycle Bin".)

International acclaim came with 1999's Ágætis Byrjun ("An alright start") for which the band were joined by Kjartan Sveinsson. The album's reputation slowly spread by word of mouth over the next two years. Soon many critics worldwide hailed it as one of the best albums of its time and the band was playing with Radiohead and other big names. Three songs, Ágætis Byrjun's title track, its first single "Svefn-g-englar", and a live take of the then-unreleased "Njósnavélin" (to become "Untitled #4") appeared in the Cameron Crowe film Vanilla Sky. Their music has also appeared in the television series 24, and in the 2004 films Mysterious Skin and The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou where the song Starálfur was heard.

After the release of Ágætis Byrjun, the band became perhaps most well known for Birgisson's signature style of playing guitar with the bow from a cello, accentuated with reverb, creating a sweeping, fluid sound that is unique for an electric guitar.

Drummer Ágúst left the band after the recording of Ágætis Byrjun and was replaced by Orri Páll Dýrason. In 2002, their highly anticipated follow-up album ( ) was released. Upon release all tracks on the album were untitled, though the band later published song names on their website. Some lyrics are sung in "Hopelandic", nonsensical vocalisations which resemble the sound of the Icelandic language. It has also been said that the listener is supposed to interpret their own meanings of the lyrics which can then be written in the blank pages in the album booklet.

In October of 2003, Sigur Rós joined Radiohead in composing music for Merce Cunningham's dance piece Split Sides; Sigur Rós' three tracks were named Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do and released in March of 2004. The band's 1997 debut album Von also finally found a U.S. and U.K. release in October of 2004. Their latest album, Takk... (Thanks...), falls between the styles of their first two albums, and was released on September 13, 2005, with a legal download of their first single, Glósóli, made available on August 15. For North American fans, Sæglópur was made available for download on August 16. Hoppípolla, the second official single from Takk..., was released on November 28 alongside a new studio remake of Hafsól, a song which was previously released on the band's 1997 debut, Von. Hoppípolla was used in the trailers for the BBC's natural life programme Planet Earth in 2006, as well as the closing credits for the 2006 FA Cup final and following this, demand for the single grew. It was made more widely available by EMI in consequence.

An extended Sæglópur EP has been pushed back from its original release date, May 8. This is likely due to Hoppípolla's sudden demand. The EP will likely see release some time this summer. Sigur Rós have recorded four songs to appear on the EP (Sæglópur, Refur, Ófriður, and Kafari).

Sigur Rós has sold over 2 million albums worldwide.

Sigur Rós is currently on a major world tour with stops in throughout Europe, United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Japan.

Band members
Jón Þór "Jónsi" Birgisson - Vocals, Guitar
Georg "Goggi" Hólm - bass guitar
Kjartan "Kjarri" Sveinsson - keyboard Piano, Organs, Guitar, Flute, Tin whistle, Oboe, Banjo (1999-present)
Orri Páll Dýrason - drums (1999-present)

Former members
Ágúst Ævar Gunnarsson - drums (1994-1999)

Discography
Albums
Von (Hope) (1997)
Von brigði (Hope alteration) (1998)
Ágætis byrjun (An All Right Start) (1999) Voted best Icelandic album of the 20th century
( ) (2002) #51 US, two Grammy nominations, one for Best Alternative Music Album, the other for Best Recording Package
Takk... (Thanks... or Thank you...) (2005) #16 UK (Gold Album), #27 US, #1 Iceland, #5 Portugal (Gold Album) #18 AUS

Singles and EPs
Svefn-g-englar (1999)
Ný batterí (2000)
Hjartað hamast (2000)
Viðrar vel til loftárása (2000)
Olsen olsen (2000)
Starálfur (2000)
Flugufrelsarinn (2000)
Steindór Andersen / Rímur EP (2001)
Untitled #1 (A.K.A. Vaka) (2003)
Untitled #8 (A.K.A. Popplagið) (2003)
Ba Ba Ti Ki Di Do (2004)
Glósóli (2005) (Europe only)
Hoppípolla (2005) #24 UK
Gong (2005)
Sæglópur (2006) (Japan only)

Other works
Smekkleysa í hálfa öld (1994)
Popp í Reykjavík (album) (1998)
Popp í Reykjavík (film) (1998)
Englar alheimsins (album) (2000)
Englar alheimsins (film) (2002)
Hlemmur Soundtrack (2002)
Hrafnagaldur Óðins (2002

Medicine

2006-06-09T11:45:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Medicine is an alternative noise-pop/rock band from Los Angeles, USA. They were formed in 1991 by guitarist Brad Laner and signed to Rick Rubin's American Recordings label the following year. Medicine was/is considered the American response to such shoegazer bands such as My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Chapterhouse. With a signature guitar tone, created by running guitarist's Brad Laner's guitar through a Yamaha 8-track recorder, Medicine's music managed to distinguish itself from some of the more noisier and ambiguous endeavours of the shoegazing movement.

Medicine made a brief appearance as themselves in the film The Crow.

Members
1990s lineup
Brad Laner: Guitars, Vocals, Keyboards, Bass, Noise.
Beth Thompson: Vocals
Jim Goodall: Drums
Eddie Ruscha: Bass on Shot Forth Self Living
Justin Meldal-Johnson: Bass on Her Highness

2000s lineup
Brad Laner: Guitars, Programming
Shannon Lee: Vocals

Albums
Shot Forth Self Living (Def American/Creation, 1992)
The Buried Life (American, 1993)
Her Highness (American, 1995)
The Mechanical Forces of Love (Wall of Sound, 2003)

Singles and EPs
Aruca (Creation 1992)
5ive (a.k.a. Come Here To Drink Milk) (Creation, 1993)
Never Click (Beggars Banquet, 1993)
Sounds Of Medicine (American, 1994)
Time Baby 3 (Beggars Banquet, 1994)
Off The Vine (double 7") (Ectoplasm, 1995)
Wet on Wet EP (Wall of Sound, 2002)
I Smile To My Eyes (Wall of Sound, 2003)
As You Do (Wall of Sound, 2004)

Compilation appearances
The Crow OST (Atlantic, 1994)
The Doom Generation OST (American, 1994)
Tigerbeat6 Inc. (Tigerbeat6, 2001)
The Faint - Danse Macabre Remixes (Astralwerks, 2003)
Themroc - Into the Light (Wall of Sound, 2003)
Wall of Sound 10th Anniversary (Wall of Sound, 2003)

Medicine Aruca

Medicine Time Baby 3

Medicine 5ive

Mogwai

2006-06-09T11:13:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mogwai are a Scottish band formed in 1995 that have become one of the most influential and best known "post-rock" bands. They compose lengthy instrumental guitar-based pieces in the post-rock tradition, usually focused around the elaboration of a single theme, and are known traditionally for dynamic contrast, melodic bass riffs, and their use of guitar distortion and effects.

The band were originally signed to renowned Glasgow indie label Chemikal Underground, but are now distributed by different labels, such as Matador in the US and Play It Again Sam Records in the UK. They have also developed their own label, Rock Action Records, named after Stooges drummer Scott Ashton who had his name changed to Rock Action.

Their style has been influenced by bands including The Dirty Three, Joy Division, The Jesus & Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, and post-rock pioneers Slint. During 2004 the band supported tours by two major influences, Pixies and The Cure. Mogwai's style has easily identifiable connections to genres like shoegaze, math rock, art rock, and occasionally instrumental metal. While their sound bears little resemblance to traditional punk rock, the band seems to identify closely with the punk ethic.

Mogwai are named after the creatures from the film Gremlins, although guitarist Stuart Braithwaite comments that "it has no significant meaning and we always intended on getting a better one, but like a lot of other things we never got 'round to it.".

Mr Beast, the latest Mogwai album, was released in the UK on 6 March 2006. It returns to the heavier sounds of 1997's Mogwai Young Team. Mogwai produced the remix track of 'Plans' on the British group Bloc Party's 2005 album Silent Alarm Remixed.

Band members
Stuart Braithwaite (guitar)
Dominic Aitchison (bass)
Martin Bulloch (drums)
John Cummings (guitar)
Barry Burns (keyboards, flute, guitar, etc)

(Noteworthy former member: Brendan O’Hare, original drummer of the indie rock band Teenage Fanclub, Telstar Ponies, Fiend and now with Macrocosmica.)

Luke Sutherland (guitar, violin) was never a member of Mogwai, but has often recorded and performed with them.

Discography
Albums
Ten Rapid (1997) - Collected recordings 1996-1997
Mogwai Young Team (1997)
Kicking A Dead Pig (1998) - Remix album, reissued in 2001 with an additional CD containing two extra tracks
Come On Die Young (1999)
EP+6 (2000) - 4 Satin, No Education... and Mogwai:EP on one CD
Rock Action (2001)
Happy Songs for Happy People (2003)
Government Commissions (2005) - BBC Sessions 1996-2003
Mr Beast (2006) #31 UK, #96 AUS, #128 US

EPs
Tuner/Lower (1996)
Angels vs Aliens (1996) - Split EP with Dweeb
Summer (demo) (1996) - Split EP with Urusei Yatsura & Backwater
Summer/Ithica 27φ9 (1996)
New Paths to Helicon, Parts 1 & 2 (1997)
4 Satin (1997)
Club Beatroot, Part 4 (1997) - Split EP with PH Family
Do The Rock Boogaloo (1998) - Split EP with Magoo, covering Black Sabbath songs
No Education = No Future (Fuck the Curfew) (1998) - EP title refers to a youth curfew scheme piloted in a Scottish town where the band recorded their first album
Mogwai:EP (1999)
Travels In Constants Vol. 12 EP (1999) (3 tracks, recorded for Temporary Residence's Travels In Constants series)
US Tour EP (2001) - Split EP with Bardo Pond
My Father My King (2001) - Features only one track, albeit one lasting 20 minutes and 12 seconds (the Australia/New Zealand version also includes two bonus live tracks)
UK/European Tour EP (2001)

Singles
Friend of the Night (2006) #38 UK

Mogwai Dial.Revenge

Mogwai Stanley Kubrick

Mogwai Summer

Mogwai Hunted By A Freak

Mogwai Travel Is Dangerous

Mogwai Friend Of The Night

Mogwai Making Of Mr Beast (Part One)

Mogwai Making Of Mr Beast (Part Two)

Verve

2006-06-08T07:22:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Verve were a British rock and roll band of the 1990s, originally formed in Wigan, England in 1989 by vocalist Richard Ashcroft, guitarist Nick McCabe, bassist Simon Jones and drummer Peter Salisbury.

One of several British alternative rock acts of the last decade, the band endured major breakups, health problems, drug abuse and various lawsuits. After its most commercially successful point in 1997, amid creative struggles between guitarist Nick McCabe and vocalist Richard Ashcroft, the band quit in 1999.

(1989–1992) Formation and Verve EP
The Verve (originally called Verve) were formed in the town of Wigan in Lancashire in 1989. Led by British rock singer Richard Ashcroft, the band caused a buzz in early 1991 for their ability to captivate audiences with their musical textures and sonic aptitude. As bandmembers sharing a collective liking for the Beatles, Pink Floyd, Funkadelic, and Krautrock — and a legendary appetite for psychedelics — they were signed to Hut Records and their debut studio release, Verve EP became a critical hit, making an impression with ethereal guitar work by Nick McCabe and psychedelic space rock. The album, featuring the artwork of designer Brian Cannon, came out in fall 1992 and produced the singles "All in the Mind", "She's a Superstar" and "Gravity Grave".

(1993–1994) First album
1993's A Storm in Heaven, the band's full-length debut, produced by Britpop producer John Leckie (both in the UK and the US), was a critical smash, but critical acclamation failed to translate into commercial success.

The second single, "Slide Away", topped the indie rock charts. The band played at the alternative rock festival, Lollapalooza, in 1994. The tour was disastrous for the group as Ashcroft was hospitalised for dehydration caused by overdosing with Ecstasy, and Salisbury was arrested for destroying a hotel room in Kansas. After the tour, the Jazz label Verve sued the band for copyright infringements and forced the group to officially change their name to The Verve.

(1995–1996) Turbulent recordings and a breakup
The turmoil continued well into the recording sessions of the follow-up album, 1995's A Northern Soul. The sessions started off well; McCabe even called the first three weeks of recording the happiest in his life (due to the massive intake of Ecstasy). However the rampant drug abuse and the strained relationship between Ashcroft and McCabe during the sessions took its toll on the band. Richard Ashcroft later described the recording experience as "Four intense, mad months. Really insane. In great ways and terrible ways. In ways that only good music and bad drugs and mixed emotions can make".

The band departed from the neo-psychedelic sounds of A Storm in Heaven and focused more on conventional alternative rock. The singles "This Is Music", "On Your Own", and "History" all reached the UK Top 40. The latter two singles were particularly new for the Verve as they dabbled with soulful ballads.

Around this period, Oasis guitarist and friend of Ashcroft, Noel Gallagher, wrote the classic "Cast No Shadow" for the troubled front-man. The song can be found on the album (What's the Story) Morning Glory?. Ashcroft returned the gesture by writing the title song "Northern Soul" for Noel Gallagher.

Album sales were once again disappointing and Richard Ashcroft broke up the band 3 months after its release in July.

(1997–1998) The height of fame
Ashcroft reunited the group just a few weeks after the breakup, but McCabe refused to rejoin the line-up. As a replacement, the band chose old Wigan schoolmate Simon Tong to fill in the lead guitar duties for the remainder of the tour.

Ashcroft, Jones, Salisbury, and Tong went ahead and started writing songs for the upcoming album, with most of 1996 passed through recording sessions. In 1997, Nick McCabe returned to the fold alongside Tong - a crucial moment for the band. With the lineup back together, the group went through a "spiritual" (i.e. full of drug intake) recording process to finish the epic Britpop classic, Urban Hymns. For the first time in their careers, the Verve experienced commercial success. Not only was the album a hit in the UK, but the band also "broke" into the US and much of the rest of the world. The first single from Urban Hymns, "Bitter Sweet Symphony", entered the UK charts at #2. The single reached #12 on the US charts, their highest position ever in the Billboards. The song borrows a reversed looped sample of a symphonic recording of the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time".

ABKCO Music, which runs the Rolling Stones' back catalogue, and which had warned The Verve against using the Rolling Stones sample in "Bitter Sweet Symphony," successfully sued the Verve for 100% of the royalties for "Bitter Sweet Symphony"; further, as a result of the lawsuit, Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were given songwriting credits and full publishing rights to the song, which later appeared in a Nike commercial against The Verve's will. Then, as the band was on a tour to promote the album, bassist Simon Jones collapsed on stage. Nick McCabe suddenly pulled out of the tour and decided he couldn't tolerate the constant life on the road any longer.

The band continued with established session guitarist B.J. Cole replacing McCabe but the spark of their return seemed to be deserting them. After two headline performances at the V98 festivals and one at Slane Castle outside Dublin, everything went quiet. Rumours began circulating that the band had called it quits for good. Finally, in April 1999 it was announced that The Verve had split up.

(1999–present) Post-breakup activities
After the band's final collapse, Simon Jones and Simon Tong formed a new group called The Shining as well as working with former Stone Roses-guitarist John Squire on a group that never properly formed. Tong has also appeared as a live replacement for ex-guitarist Graham Coxon in Blur and the additional guitarist for Gorillaz. Nick McCabe has mostly remained quiet after the breakup, although he has recently worked with a few artists, notably John Martyn and Leeds based band, The Music. Besides working with Ashcroft, Salisbury also filled in as the drummer for a UK tour in 2004 for Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, when their original drummer briefly left due to alcohol and drug abuse. Salisbury also owns a drum shop in Stockport, England.

(2000-present) Richard Ashcroft solo career
By the time the band finally split, Richard Ashcroft, who had quit taking drugs by the early 2000s, had already been working on solo material accompanied by, among others, the band's ex-drummer Peter Salisbury and B.J. Cole. In April 2000, his first solo single, "A Song For The Lovers", was released and hit Number 3. He debuted with Alone With Everybody (June 2000) and followed it by Human Conditions (October 2002). Recently, backed up by Coldplay, Ashcroft performed "Bitter Sweet Symphony" at the Live 8 concerts on 2 July 2005 at Hyde Park, London. Many felt this would help to revive his solo career and, though receiving mixed reviews, his third solo ablum, Keys to the World (January 2006), peaked at #2 in the UK charts (being kept off the top spot only by Arctic Monkeys' record breaking debut) with the first single, "Break the Night with Colour" reaching #3.

Line-up
The Core
Richard Ashcroft - vocals, guitar (1989-1999)
Nick McCabe - guitar (1989-1995)(1997-1998)
Simon Jones - bass guitar (1989-1999)
Peter Salisbury - drums (1989-1999)
Simon Tong - guitar, keyboards (1995-1999)

Replacement guitarists
Bernard Butler (1997)
B.J. Cole (1998-1999)

Discography
Studio Albums
Verve EP (December 7, 1992)
A Storm in Heaven (June 21, 1993) #27 UK
A Northern Soul (July 3, 1995) #13 UK
Urban Hymns (September 29, 1997) #1 UK, #23 US

Compilations
No Come Down (May 17, 1994) (B-sides collection)
This is Music: The Singles 92-98 (November 1, 2004) #15 UK

Singles
"All in the Mind" (9 March 1992)
"She's a Superstar" (22 June 1992)
"Gravity Grave" (5 October 1992)
"Blue" (10 May 1993) #69 UK
"Slide Away (Burn Away)" (20 September 1993) #98 UK
"This Is Music" (1 May 1995) #35 UK
"On Your Own" (12 June 1995) #28 UK
"History" (18 September 1995) #24 UK
"Bitter Sweet Symphony" (16 June 1997) #2 UK
"The Drugs Don't Work" (1 September 1997) #1 UK
"Lucky Man" (24 November 1997) #7 UK
"Sonnet" (2 March 1998)

Verve Bittersweet Symphony

Verve History

Verve Slide Away

Verve Lucky Man (US Version)

Lush

2006-06-07T20:13:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lush was a British shoegazing band, formed in 1988 by Steve Rippon, Emma Anderson, Meriel Barham, Chris Acland and Miki Berenyi. Barham left nearly immediately, eventually settling in fellow shoegazing band Pale Saints. Robin Guthrie helped the band sign to 4AD and released Scar, an EP, in 1989. Critical praise for Scar and a wildly popular live show established Lush as one of the best-selling bands in the new shoegazing genre of pop music. That year the EPs Mad Love, produced by Robin Guthrie, and Sweetness and Light followed.

In 1990 the LP Gala, which combined the material from their first three EPs, was released by Reprise in the United States, the first exposure of Lush in North America. Their first LP made up of completely new material was Spooky in 1992. Produced by Robin Guthrie, Spooky featured a sound very similar to Guthrie's band Cocteau Twins, with walls of sound and a great deal of flanging. Reviews were mixed and critics of the album hold that Guthrie's production brought the sound away from the band's original creative vision.

Rippon left the band at this stage in order to concentrate on writing, though his book Cold Turkey Sandwich - a fictionalized chronicle of his time in touring - was rejected by publishers. He was replaced by Phil King. Also in 1992, Lush toured America as part of the Lollapalooza festival.

Split was released in 1994 and featured a more industrial sound. Split sold poorly, however. After adapting to the newly popular sounds of Britpop, Lush's Lovelife became the biggest seller of their career, including the hit singles "Ladykillers" and "Single Girl."

In 1996, drummer Chris Acland hanged himself in his parents' house allegedly due to depression. In 1998 the three remaining members of Lush decided to disband. Emma Anderson has since formed a new band, Sing-Sing, which has released two full-length albums to date.

The song "Sweetness and Light" was used in a commercial by Volkswagen, and the song "Ladykillers" was part of the soundtrack for EA Sports' NCAA Football 06 video game.

Discography
All releases by 4AD, catalogue numbers in brackets.

Singles and EPs
Mad Love (1989, 12"/CD, BAD 0003)
Sweetness And Light (1989, 7"/12"/CD, BAD 0013)
Black Spring (1991, 7"/12"/CD, BAD 1016)
Nothing Natural (1991, CD, US release)
For Love (1992, 10"/12"/CD, BAD 2001)
Superblaster (1992, CD, Japanese release)
Hypocrite (1994, 7"/12"/CD, BAD 4008)
Desire Lines (1994, 7"/12"/CD, BAD 4010)
Single Girl (1996, 7"/2*CD, BAD 6001)
Ladykillers (1996, 7"/2*CD, BAD 6002)
500 (1996, 7"/2*CD, BAD 6009)

Studio albums
Scar (1989, MP/CD, JAD 911)
Spooky (1992, LP/CD, GAD 2002)
Split (1994, LP/CD, GAD 4011)
Lovelife (1996, LP/CD, GAD 6004)

Compilations
Gala (1990, LP/CD, CAD 0017)
Cookie (1994, CD, Japanese release)
Topolino (1997, CD, Japanese/Canadian release, 276862)
Ciao! - The Best of Lush (2001, CD, GAD 2K22CD)

Lush Transmission Interview

Lush Superblast

Pale Saints

2006-06-07T20:01:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Pale Saints began their existence as a three-piece ethereal pop band based in Leeds, England. Forming in 1987, the band was signed to 4AD records after their first London show by 4AD chief Ivo. Their first EP, Barging Into the Presence of God, was critically praised, but received minimal press, especially in the United States.

1987:
Ian Masters - Bass, Vocals
Graeme Naysmith - Guitar
Chris Cooper - Drums

Early band interviews showed them to be a fun-loving bunch in contrast to their dark, lyrically pessimistic pop music. They described themselves as enthusiastic football fans and were perpetually excited about touring. Lead vocalist Ian Masters was often wont to gratuitously lie in interviews, helping the group to successfully build up a certain party reputation.

The band's first album was recorded in 1990 and entitled The Comforts of Madness. Tracks from the album were separately produced by both John Fryer and Gil Norton. A mixture of atmospheric, unique male-ethereal vocals along with noisy pop-oriented guitar created a heretofore unheard of combination. The album includes a cover of "Fell From the Sun" by Opal (pre-Mazzy Star).

1991:
Ian Masters - Bass, Vocals
Meriel Barham - Guitar, Vocals
Graeme Naysmith - Guitar
Chris Cooper - Drums

In late 1990, the band added Meriel Barham, the original vocalist from Lush, as second guitarist and vocalist. Meriel added backing vocals and guitars to the Half-Life EP, then joined permanently for the Flesh Balloon EP.

In 1992 the band recorded their second full-length album, entitled In Ribbons. Produced by Hugh Jones, the album reached modest sales in the UK, but was largely ignored in the US. In this year they also recorded the Hugh Jones produced EP Throwing Back the Apple.

1993:
Meriel Barham - Vocals, Guitar
Colleen Browne - Bass, Vocals
Graeme Naysmith - Guitar
Chris Cooper - Drums

Ian Masters departed the band in 1993. By most accounts, he became more and more disenchanted with pop music and wanted to go in a more experimental direction with minimal drums and ambient sounds. He also seemed to have lost all joy for touring and live performance. He subsequently began a collaboration with colleague Chris Trout which led to the group Spoonfed Hybrid. Spoonfed Hybrid recorded their eponymous debut album, produced by the band and Duncan Wheat, in 1993. Ian and Chris shared the vocal and songwriting duties, and also played all of the instruments. The album was somewhat sparse and quite experimental in comparison to the Pale Saints catalog.

Pale Saints added former Heart Throbs bassist Colleen Browne in 1993. They then wrote and recorded the EP Fine Friend, which was produced by Hugh Jones and released in mid 1994. Following these sessions, they returned to the studio to complete the fall 1994 album Slow Buildings, also produced by Jones. This album was almost universally less appreciated by critics and fans alike, who seemed to miss the unique qualities which Ian Masters brought to the band. The group toured Europe and the United States in late fall of 1994. Their final studio recording was a version of "Jersey Girl" for the Tom Waits tribute album Step Right Up. Meriel Barham departed in September of 1995 and the band eventually came to an end in early 1996, partly as a result of weak label support and relative disinterest.

Albums
1990: The Comforts Of Madness
1992: In Ribbons
1994: Slow Buildings

Singles/EPs/Demos
1988: Children Break
1989: Barging into The Presence Of God
1990: Half-Life (12" contains a bonus spoken-word track "Colour of the Sky")
1991: Flesh Balloon
1991: Kinky Love
1991: Porpoise
1992: Throwing Back The Apple
1994: Fine Friend
1994: Fine Friend (US promo including "One Blue Hill live acoustic @ KCRW)

Others
1990: Mrs. Dolphin (Japanese release containing "Barging into The Presence Of God" and the "Half-Life" EPs + the tracks "Colours and Shapes" and "A Deeper Sleep for Steven")
1993: Blue Flower (video)

Compilations
1988: Diamonds and Porcupines - She Rides The Waves (demo version)
1990: Gigantic! 2 - A Deeper Sleep For Steven
1990: Indie Top 20 Vol. VIII - Sight of You
1990: Music for the 90's: Vol 2 - Time Thief (edit)
1990: Peel Session - Time Thief
1991: Indie Top 20 Vol XI - Half-Life, Remembered
1992: ...and dog bones, too - Neverending Night
1992: Lilliput - Throwing Back The Apple, Featherframe, A Thousand Stars Burst Open (Tintwhistle Brass Band version)
1992: Precious - Kinky Love
1993: 4AD Presents The 13 Year Itch - One Blue Hill (demo)
1994: All Virgos Are Mad - Fine Friend
1995: No Balls - One Blue Hill
1995: Step Right Up: The Songs Of Tom Waits - Jersey Girl
1997: Joyride - 1000 Stars Burst Open
1997: Shoe Pie - A Thousand Stars Burst Open

Further info
Ian Masters has continued to create interesting experimental music. Spoonfed Hybrid released their second album, Hibernation Shock, in 1996. He has also teamed up with His Name is Alive auteur Warren Defever to release music under the name ESP Summer in 1994 and later. In Fall 1998, Ian released a 7" under the name Friendly Science Orchestra entitled Miniature Album. As of 2005, Masters lives in Japan. His current projects can be viewed on his website, The Institute of Spoons.

As to the other Pale Saints, the following information was taken from, (http://www.wolfson.ox.ac.uk/4ad-l/whatever.html#PALEST). The text from this report is as follows:

Disbanded sometime after their Slow Buildings LP was released and not a commercial success, circa December 1996. Ian Masters had already gone onto Spoonfed Hybrid and projects with Warren Defever before this album. Ian Masters is now working on his Friendly Science Enregisterments label as well as being a graphic designer for IPC magazines.

Other members of Pale Saints went on to other bands after they split. Colleen Browne said in April 1998: "I can tell you that Graeme Naysmith and Chris Cooper are still in Leeds and are currently in a band called Lorimer with their friend Phil Pettler, who was once in Leeds-based band The Edsel Auctioneer. I had stints in London-based bands Rialto (eastwest) and Warm Jets (Island) and am currently in an unsigned band called White Hotel with drummer Jean-Marc Butty, who played with PJ Harvey for 3 years during the To Bring You My Love period and singer/songwriter/guitarist Ken Low who has played on some Barry Adamson (once of The Bad Seeds) albums."

Meriel Barham has gone on to record melodic electronica under the name Kuchen. She has released two albums on the Karaoke Kalk label: "Kids with Sticks" (2001) and the collaboration "Kuchen Meets Mapstation" (2003) with Stefan Schneider of To Rococo Rot (who also records as Mapstation).

Pale Saints Time Thief

Pale Saints Throwing Back The Apple

The Telescopes

2006-06-07T17:53:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Telescopes were formed in 1987 by Stephen Lawrie and could best be described as a noise/ space rock band - the Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine and Spacemen 3 being influences and contemporaries.

Original Line-up
Stephen Lawrie
Vocals And Acoustic Guitars
(b. 28 March 1969, East Hartford, Northumberland, England)
Joanna Doran
Backing Vocals And Rhythm Guitars
(b. Wednesbury, West Midlands, England)
David Fitzgerald
Lead Guitars
(b. 30 August 1966, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, England)
Robert Brooks
Bass Guitars
(b. 11 April 1969, Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, England)
Dominic Dillon
Drums And Percussion
(b. 26 September 1964, Bolton, Lancashire, England)

History
Their debut release was a split flexi disc with Loop on the Cheree label in 1988. There followed their debut single, "Kick the Wall", and "7th# Disaster" also on Cheree Records. They moved to What Goes On Records and released their debut LP, "Taste" and "The Perfect Needle" single which is perhaps their most famous song. A live album appeared on Fierce Records and following What Goes On’s bankruptcy they signed to Creation Records. A more laidback, baggy influenced sound followed and the band scraped the lower reaches of the UK singles chart with singles like "Flying", and released "The Telescopes", their second album, in 1992. It was a commercial failure and the band disappeared from the public eye.

They toured again with a different line-up, new sound and all new songs in 1994 and later evolved into Unisex releasing a number of records. Unisex were Stephen Lawrie (Vocals) Jo Doran (Guitars/Backing Vocals) Nick Hemming (Guitars/Keyboards) Dan (Drums) Foz (Bass)

In 2002 they made a surprise return with "The Third Wave" on Double Agent Records. By this time they were a core of just Stephen Lawrie and Jo Doran and were a much more experimental band specialising in electronic soundscapes. In 2005 they released their fourth album "The Telescopes #4" on their own Antenna Records. They continue to tour, release singles and make numerous appearances on compilation CDs.

Discography
Loop / Telescopes split flexi 7" (Cheree / CHEREE 1) Dec. 1988
The Telescopes - Forever Close Your Eyes, Loop - SoundHead - Live at ULU

Kick the Wall 7" (Cheree / CHEREE 2) Jan. 1989
Kick the Wall, This is the Last of Whats Coming Now
(Ltd editon initital pressing of 1,000 in blue sleeve, followed by a re-press of 500 in numbered red sleeve.)

7th# Disaster 12" (Cheree / CHEREET4) Apr. 1989
7th# Disaster, Nothing, This Planet, Cold

The Perfect Needle 12" (What Goes On / WHAT GOES 15T) Aug. 1989
The Perfect Needle, Sadness Pale, S.H.C. Burn, You Can Not Be Sure

Taste LP/ CD (What Goes On / GOES ON 32 / GOES ON CD 32) 1989
And Let Me Drift Away, I Fall, She Screams, Oil Seed Rape, Violence, Threadbare, The Perfect Needle, There Is No Floor, Anticipating Nowhere, Please, Before You Go, Suffercation, Silent Water, Suicide

Re-released in 1990 on Cheree (CHEREE 9 / CHEREE 9CD)
Re-released in March 2006 on Rev-Ola (CR REV 152) with bonus live tracks: There Is No Floor, Sadness Pale, Threadbare and Suicide.

To Kill A Slow Girl Walking 12"/ CDS (What Goes On / What Goes 18T / What Goes 18CD) Jan. 1990
To Kill A Slow Girl Walking, Treasure, Forever Now,Pure Sweetest Ocean

Trade Mark Of Quality LP/ CD (Fierce / Fright 039 / Fright 039CD) 1990
There Is No Floor, Sadness Pale, The Perfect Needle, 7th# Disaster, Threadbare, Violence, Anticipating Nowhere, Please, Before You Go, Suicide

Precious Little 7"/ 12"/ CDS (Creation / CRES 081 / CRES 081T / CRESCD 081) Apr. 1990
Precious Little, Deep Hole Ends, Never Hurt You, I Sense

Everso 7"/ 12"/ CDS (Creation / CRES 092 / CRES 092T / CRESCD 092) Dec. 1990
Everso, Never Learn Not To Love, Wish Of You

Celeste 7"/ 12"/ CDS (Creation/ CRES 103 / CRES 103T / CRESCD 103) Feb. 1991
Celeste, All A Dreams, Celestial

Flying 12"/CDS (Creation / CRES 108T / CRESCD 108) Jul. 1991
Flying, Soul Full Of Tears, High On Fire, The Sleepwalk

The Telescopes LP/CD (AKA Higher'n'Higher) (Creation / CRELP 070 / CRECD 070) May 1992
Splashdown, High On Fire, You Set My Soul, Spaceships, The Presence Of Your Grace, And, Flying, Yeah, Ocean Drive, Please Tell Mother, To The Shore

Re-released in 2004 on Rev-Ola as "# Untitled Second" (CR REV 81) with bonus tracks dnaanb and tornado,br>

Third Wave LP / CD (Double Agent / DA017LP / DA017CD) Apr. 2002
A Cabin In The Sky, 3D Jesus Ashtray, Tesla Death Ray, My Name Is Zardak [Drop Your Weaponz], A Good Place To Hide, When Nemo Sank The Nautillus, Winter #2, Moog Destroya, The Atoms Of The Sea, You And I Are The Foxboy Noises

As Approved by the Committee CD (Bomp / EVIL 10) Jun. 2003
I Fall She Screams, There is No Floor, Threadbare, Anticipating Nowhere, Please Before You Go, Silent Water, Suicide, Pure Sweetest Ocean, Everso, Never Learn Not to Love, Celeste, Flying, The Sleepwalk, Celestial

Where The Sky Is Low 7" (Mind Expansion Records) 2003
Where The Sky Is Low
Split w/ Füxa. Limited to 500

Mooga Destroya 7" (Jonathon Whiskey Records / Brian Whiskey 37.) 2003
Mooga Destroya
Split w/ Lo Casta. Ltd to 250 copies.

Premonitions 1989-1991 CD (Midsummer Madness) 2003
S.H.C. Burn, You Can Not Be Sure, Please Before You Go, Oil Seed Rape, Threadbare, To Kill A Slow Girl Walking, Forever Now, Precious Little, Everso, Celeste, Flying, High on Fire, The Sleepwalk, Splashdown

Altered Perception CD (Space Age Recordings / ORBIT014CD) 2004
The Perfect Needle, Sadness Pale, 16T#4, Violence, And Let Me Drift Away..., Treasure, Deep Hole Ends, Extended Intro Piece, Wish of You, All A Dreams, Soul Full of Tears, 16T#3, From the Inner Void I Fear..., You Set My Soul, And

Winter 7" (Hungry Audio / YUMS1) Nov. 2004
Winter #7, The Perfect Needle #4

The Telescopes #4 CD (Antenna Records / Antenna 004CD) 2005
The Hypnotic Pulse of the Motor Driven, Link #1, On a Dead Man's Bones By the Light of the Moon Skeletons Dance a Demon Dance of the Doomed, All the Leaves, A Measure of Imbalance, Singularity, Fear the Eye Became the Tone, The Yearning, Winter #4, It Bleeds

The Telescopes Flying

The Telescopes Celeste

The Telescopes Everso

The Telescopes Precious Little

Adorable

2006-06-07T17:43:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Adorable were a British rock band of the 1990s who were associated with the shoegazing movement. They formed in 1991 in Coventry and consisted of band members Piotr Fijalkowski (vocals, guitar), Robert Dillam (guitar), Wil (bass), Kevin Gritton (drums). They signed to Creation Records in 1992 and released their first single "Sunshine Smile" the same year. The single was NME's single of the week and remained three weeks in the UK single charts. This was not only a very good start surrounded by a great amount of hype, but it also turned out to be the peak of their career as all following releases did less well. They released two albums before disbanding in late 1994.

Discography
Albums
Against Perfecion (1993)
Fake (1994)

Singles
Sunshine Smile (1992)
I'll Be Your Saint (1992)
Homeboy (1992)
Sistine Chapel Ceiling (1993)
Favourite Fallen Idol (1993)
Kangaroo Court (1994)
Vendetta (1994)

The Sundays

2006-06-07T11:54:00.001-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Sundays were an influential British indie group of the late 1980s and 1990s. Singer Harriet Wheeler and guitarist David Gavurin formed the band in college at Bristol, soon adding bassist Paul Brindley and drummer Patrick Hannan.

Drawing comparisons with Cocteau Twins and The Smiths, the band was widely heralded by the British music press after early gigs in London in late 1988, followed by the group's first single, "Can't Be Sure", which was released in 1989 and was voted number one in John Peel's Festive Fifty that year. The band achieved a measure of success in 1990 with its debut album, Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, which went gold in the UK and US. Subsequent albums Blind (1992) and Static and Silence (1997) also went gold in the US, though still moderately acclaimed. The band's music, whilst not ground-breaking, is characterised by Wheeler's 'dreamy' beautiful voice, 'jangly' guitars and suspension-rich harmonies.

During his time at Bristol University Gavurin formed a friendship with David Baddiel which would lead to The Sundays providing the song "Another Flavour" from Static and Silence as the theme tune to the Newman and Baddiel in Pieces series.

The band is currently on an extended, possibly permanent, hiatus; like fellow British musicians Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn of Everything But The Girl, Wheeler and Gavurin are a couple and are raising their two children out of the spotlight of the music industry. A survey of various Sundays-related websites show that no significant news or updates about the band has been released since 2000. Despite the length of The Sundays' disappearance, Wheeler remains, in 2006, widely acknowledged as a top female voice - according to various lists and Internet polls that track such things. The uniqueness and subtle power of her voice, coupled with the remarkably melodic machinations of her band, have helped to create a timelessness to their otherwise "old" music.

The Sundays Wild Horses

The Sundays Here's Where The Story Ends

The Sundays Love

The Sundays Goodbye

The Sundays Cry

The Sundays When I'm Thinking About You (Live)

The Sundays Can't Be Sure (US Version)

The Sundays Can't Be Sure (UK Version)

The Sundays Summertime

The Sundays Joy

Catherine Wheel

2006-06-07T10:19:00.000-07:00

Catherine Wheel Black Metallic

Catherine Wheel I Want To Touch You

Slowdive

2006-06-07T07:34:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Slowdive were a shoegazing band formed in 1989, lasting until 1995. The band was formed in Reading, Berkshire, England and signed to Creation Records in the UK. Initially championed by the British music press, the band scored a UK top forty entry with their debut album Just For A Day. However, the band suffered a swift press backlash.

The band consisted of Rachel Goswell (vocals/guitar), Neil Halstead (vocals/guitar), Nick Chaplin (bass), Christian Savill (guitar), Adrian Sell (drums, 1989), Simon Scott (drums, until early 1994) and Ian McCutcheon (drums, 1994 onwards). Goswell and Halstead had known each other since early childhood in Reading, Berkshire.

Initial demos were released as the Slowdive EP in late 1990 - the band's sound was influenced by the Cocteau Twins and Creation labelmates My Bloody Valentine, featuring heavy use of guitar effects and muted vocals. Reviews in Melody Maker and the NME were enthusiastic, and two further well-regarded EPs followed in 1991. The debut album Just for a Day was written and recorded in six weeks, and was generally felt to be a disappointment. Also, the UK music press had started to pick up on the American grunge scene, and the more introspective sounds of Slowdive, labelmates Ride, Chapterhouse and other "shoegazing" bands had fallen from critical favour. American label SBK pushed back the release of the album after a disastrous viral marketing campaign (involving vandalism of a public statue). In early 1992 the band toured the USA with Ride, and returned to the UK to record a second album.

The following album, Souvlaki, is probably the band's most popular and well-received record. Two songs featured contributions from Brian Eno, "Souvlaki Space Station" was influenced by dub reggae, tracks such as "Dagger" and "Here She Comes" were indications of the country-rock direction Halstead and Goswell would take a few years later, and several songs such as "When the Sun Hits" and "Alison" continued the style of the first album, with better songwriting. Initial copies of the UK version came with Blue Day, a compilation of most of the early EP tracks which was originally released as a separate album in Japan and some European countries. Later in the year the band released 5EP, four songs which showed the influence of ambient techno - the lead track "In Mind" was remixed by Bandulu and Reload (both then signed to Creation's dance label).

As with the first album, SBK delayed release, and the band found themselves touring the USA in the summer of 1993, supporting Catherine Wheel, with no product to promote. The US version of Souvlaki was eventually released in early 1994, and included "Some Velvet Morning" (originally recorded for the Volume 7 compilation) and three of the tracks from 5EP. When Slowdive were finally able to tour America to support the second album, SBK withdrew funding halfway through - two further tours in 1994 were entirely funded by the band.

Simon Scott left amidst creative differences in 1994, feeling that the introduction of electronic drums on 5EP had diminished his role in the group. He was, however, replaced on drums by Ian McCutcheon. The band had almost become a Halstead solo project by the recording of their final album, Pygmalion. A misunderstood and widely misinterpreted "ambient" record, it took the dreamy guitar sound and warm yet solemn tone of earlier Slowdive to a newer, more minimalist extreme, similar to earlier "dreampop" bands such as A R Kane, and bands such as Labradford.

Slowdive was dropped by Creation a week after the release of Pygmalion - Halstead had been warned before the recording of the album that the relationship with the label would end unless he delivered a "pop album". A legend arose that the band was dropped due to the Gallagher brothers refusing to sign Oasis to Creation if Slowdive and their counterparts remained on the label's roster, although Oasis had in fact released their debut single almost a year before Pygmalion.

After being dropped from Creation, Neil Halstead, Rachel Goswell and Ian McCutcheon recorded an album of country-influenced songs, and were signed to label 4AD, changing the band name to Mojave 3. Halstead and Goswell have also both released solo albums for 4AD.

Christian Savill went on to form Monster Movie, a dream pop group that continued where Slowdive left off. They have released three albums thus far, Last Night Something Happened (2002), To The Moon (2004) and most recently Transistor (2005).

In 2004, Simon Scott formed Televise, a group which stripped back the lengthy noise swells and experimental song structures that helped define shoegazer to focus on a more radio-ready brand of indie rock.

All Slowdive's albums were reissued in late 2005. Just For a Day included a bonus disc with all tracks from the first three EPs, and the three songs recorded for a John Peel session on 26 March 1991. Souvlaki included a bonus disc with all the remaining EP tracks, and "Some Velvet Morning" (originally recorded for a compilation). Pygmalion (which had become a collector's item in the years since its release, never having been issued in the USA) contained no extra material.

Despite their popularity and prominence in the British music scene of their time, and their importance to the shoegazing scene in particular, they are possibly best remembered for the infamous claim by Richey Edwards of Manic Street Preachers, who declared in an interview with NME that "We [Manic Street Preachers] will always hate Slowdive more than we hate Adolf Hitler". This statement is still quoted often in the British music press today.

Slowdive Catch The Breeze

Slowdive Allison

Slowdive Morningrise

Slowdive Shine

Slowdive Ballad Of Sister Sue

My Bloody Valentine

2006-06-07T07:00:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
My Bloody Valentine were an Irish-British rock band known for their creative use of guitar distortion and vibrato. Sharing their name with a Canadian slasher movie, they formed in 1984 in Dublin and continued into the early 1990s. Original members were guitarist/singer Kevin Shields and drummer Colm O'Ciosoig. The band's lineup during their heyday also included singer-guitarist Bilinda Butcher and bassist Debbie Googe.

Early history
Colm and Kevin met in the late 1970s as teenagers when they both answered advertisements placed by another musician. The two joined the band in question, The Complex, and soon discovered they shared an interest in punk rock.The pair quickly became friends and played in many bands around Dublin over the next six months, including a band with Liam Ó Maonlaí, later the lead singer for Hothouse Flowers.

Toward the end of 1983, the two formed their own band with Dave Conway. The band was filled out by various members and split up and reformed on several occasions during 1984. Also during this period, Conway was travelling through Europe and, on the strength of the band's home recordings and the contacts he made on these travels, had managed to book the band a concert in Holland. The three recruited Conway's then-girlfriend Tina to play keyboards; adopted Conway's suggested name, My Bloody Valentine, for the concert; and moved to Holland. They stayed in Holland for three months before a dearth of opportunities and a lack of correct documentation meant they had to leave. The band then chose Berlin as their next destination, where they recorded the mini-LP This Is Your Bloody Valentine for Dossier Records. Unfortunately, the record failed to have the expected impact, and, after four months, the band left Berlin, returning to Holland briefly before settling in London around the middle of 1985.

The bands early years are often characterized by Kevins low and brooding vocals typical of the 80s.

Settling in London
After a period when My Bloody Valentine members lost contact with each other as they looked for places to stay, the band regrouped and decided to audition bass players. The band lacked a regular bassist; like The Doors before them, they relied on keyboards to fill out the bottom end of their sound. However, Conway's girlfriend had decided to leave the band, not feeling confident in her abilities as a keyboard player, and as the band had taken to using a bassist towards the end of their stay in Berlin, they felt recruiting one was vital to furthering the band. Having been given the telephone number of a bass player in London, Debbie Googe, they invited her to audition, and, ultimately, to join the band, fitting in rehearsals around her day job.

At this point the band were rehearsing at Salem Studios, which was connected to the record label Fever Records. Impressed by what they heard, Fever agreed to release an EP. On the strength of this, Googe left her job, and the EP, titled Geek, was released in December of 1985. The band soon began to play on the London gig circuit, but the record failed to make as much of an impact as the band had hoped. With the band not progressing quickly enough, Kevin contemplated moving back to New York, where some of his family lived.

However, Joe Foster, an associate of Creation Records, had decided to set up his own label, Kaleidoscope Records, and persuaded the group to record for him. The EP, The New Record by My Bloody Valentine, was the result, released in early 1986. The band also began to step up their live appearances, developing a small following and venturing outside London for gigs. Unrecorded songs from this period include Destination Ecstacy, a song in the vein of their later works on Isn't Anything and Loveless.

The band's next record was Sunny Sundae Smile, an EP released in February of 1987 by Lazy Records, which also managed The Primitives. The label had been interested in My Bloody Valentine for awhile, and the band turned to them this time due to Foster's indifference. The band then spent a few months performing in London and managed to secure a support slot with the Soup Dragons. During the shows with the Soup Dragons, Conway announced his decision to leave the band; he had been ill for awhile and felt he was not reaching his potential with the band. Conway has since pursued a career as a writer.

Conway departs; Butcher joins
Conway's departure left the band without a vocalist, a situation they decided to remedy by placing advertisements in the music press. This process proved torturous, Shields noting, "It was pretty dangerous, I made the mistake of mentioning The Smiths because we liked their melodies, the whole thing was disastrous and excruciating, you should have seen some of the fruitballs we got."

The band eventually turned to recommendations and experimented with having two vocalists: Bilinda Butcher and a male vocalist named Joe. It soon became apparent that Joe was unsuited to the band, and Shields took on second vocalist duties alongside Butcher, whom he noted "sounded all right and she could sing one of our songs which sounded fine, we just had to show her how to play guitar."

Under pressure from Lazy Records to produce an album, the band compromised, citing the need for time to stabilize their line-up. The band agreed to record an EP followed by a mini LP. The EP, Strawberry Wine, comprised three tracks and was released in August of 1987. The mini-LP, titled Ecstasy, followed soon after. The EP has been described as "certainly the better of the two releases." Ecstasy has been criticized as showing "a group who appeared to have run out of money halfway through recording," which was indeed the case. Ecstasy also suffered from production difficulties, as Shields described errors in mastering the recordings.

Creation Records
The band were approached by Creation Records and, upon being told "not to worry about anything, just do it," they signed, entered the recording studios, and emerged eight months later with You Made Me Realise. The group followed with Feed Me With Your Kiss and the LP Isn't Anything (1988), which, together with the followup LP Loveless (1991), are considered representative of their sound: a distinct blend of noise rock, ambience, and off-kilter pop. The thick, swirling, multi-layered guitar sound developed by My Bloody Valentine later would be termed shoegazer by the British press because of the band's tendency to look down while performing on stage. The tag was applied to a number of new alternative pop-rock or rock outfits of similarly heavily layered and distorted guitars and soft, hushed vocals like those generally sung by Bilinda Butcher.

Shields wrote the songs, except "Touched", a short instrumental by Colm O'Ciosoig. In 1999 Pitchfork Media declared Loveless to be the greatest album of the 1990s[1]; in their 2003 revision of the list, however, it moved to number two, swapping places with Radiohead's OK Computer. Kevin Shields also has been described by Alan McGee as "a genius artist. A visionary.", while a NME review of Loveless declared, "...however decadent one might find the idea of elevating other human beings to deities, My Bloody Valentine, failings and all, deserve more than your respect."[4]

After leaving Creation Records in 1992 and signing with Island Records, the band did not produce another release, and their final recorded song made available for release was a cover of Map Ref. 41N 93 by Wire, appearing on Whore: Tribute to Wire in 1995. Rumors spread among fans of albums being recorded and then shelved. Debbie Googe left the band to form Snowpony, although she had not played bass on a My Bloody Valentine recording since You Made Me Realise. Colm O'Ciosoig eventually left and recorded an album with Hope Sandoval of Mazzy Star. Kevin Shields collaborated sporadically with other artists, most notably Experimental Audio Research, Curve, Sugar and Primal Scream. He claimed in a fall 2003 NPR interview that Island Records had stopped financing My Bloody Valentine after they had spent half a million pounds of Island's money.

As of 2004, My Bloody Valentine were rumored to be re-recording five additional tracks for the re-release of 1990's Glider EP, however, if anything was recorded, it has yet to surface.

My Bloody Valentine: Soon

My Bloody Valentine: To Here Knows When

My Bloody Valentine: You Made Me Realise

My Bloody Valentine: Feed Me With Your Kiss

Mojave 3

2006-06-07T06:59:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mojave 3 is a British band which consists of members Neil Halstead, Rachel Goswell, Simon Rowe, Alan Forrester, and Ian McCutcheon. Goswell and Halstead previously played in Thames Valley shoegazer band Slowdive.

The band initially existed as a trio consisting of Halstead, Goswell, and McCutcheon (hence the "3" in their name). Rowe and Forrester joined shortly after the release of their first album. Mojave 3 has released four albums to date. Their fifth album, Puzzles Like You, will be released in June, 2006.

Mojave 3: Love Songs On The Radio

Chapterhouse

2006-06-07T06:58:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chapterhouse were a British shoegazing band of the early 1990s, originally from Reading, England. Formed in 1987 by Andrew Sherriff, the band began performing alongside Spacemen 3.

The band comprised Andrew Sherriff (born 5 May 1969, Wokingham, England; guitar/vocals), Stephen Patman (born 8 November 1968, Windsor, Berkshire, England; guitar), Simon Rowe (born 23 June 1969, Reading, Berkshire, England; guitar), Jon Curtis (bass) and Ashley Bates (born 2 November 1971, Reading, Berkshire, England; drums).

Chapterhouse took the unusual step of rehearsing and gigging for well over a year before recording even a demo tape. They were initially lumped in with the British acid rock scene, a mistake hardly rectified by the band's early performances supporting the rather laid-back Spacemen 3. Chapterhouse eventually escaped from that genre only to find themselves thrust amongst the shoegazer groups of 1991 (with Lush, Moose and Slowdive), so called because of the bands' static live shows and insular music.

Bassist Jon Curtis left early on to study, being replaced by Russell Barrett (b. 7 November 1968, Vermont, USA) who also fronted his own garage band, the Bikinis. Chapterhouse eventually signed to the newly formed Dedicated label, releasing a series of lavishly acclaimed singles, including "Pearl," which reached the UK Top 75, and which revelled in distorted melodies and attracted a healthy following.

Their first LP Whirlpool, released in 1991, has been cited as one of the genre's high points, but failed to capture a wider market. In the same year, Chapterhouse also appeared to muted reaction at Reading Festival immediately following Nirvana's UK debut, an event which was seen to sound the death knell for shoegazing.

Blood Music, stylistically different, was released in 1993. Two singles from this album, "She's a Vision" and "We Are the Beautiful", were relatively successful, but otherwise the album didn't sell well. The band released no further new material. Sherriff went on to work with Bionic.

The music of Chapterhouse is mostly out of print on CD, and largely unmentioned by contemporary music critics who continue to cite bands like Ride and My Bloody Valentine. Chapterhouse are not well known except to fans of shoegazing music.

In March 2006 Cherry Red Records reissued the album Whirlpool with bonus tracks, and for the first time, lyrics.

Discography

Albums:
Whirlpool (1991)
Blood Music (1993)
Rownderbowt (1996)

EPs:
Freefall (1990)
Sunburst (1990)

Singles
Pearl (1991)
Mesmerise remix (1991)
Mesmerise (1993)
She's A Vision/Don't Look Now (1993)
We Are The Beautiful (1993)

Chapterhouse Pearl

Chapterhouse Mesmerise

Chapterhouse Falling Down

Shoegazing: Definition & Timeline

2006-06-06T20:18:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Shoegazing is a style of alternative rock that emerged in Ireland and the United Kingdom in the late 1980s. Isn't Anything by My Bloody Valentine, released in 1988 (see 1988 in music) is said to have defined the sound.

Technical definitions
Shoegazing is characterised by a self-deprecating, introspective, non-confrontational feel. Generally employed are distortion and the fuzzbox, droning riffs and a Phil Spector-esque wall of sound from the noisy guitars. Another way to describe the guitar effects would be "lead-guitarlessness", typically with two distorted rhythm guitars interweaving together and giving an exceptionally muddied sound. Although lead guitar riffs were often present, they were not the central focus of most shoegazing songs.

Vocals typically are subdued in volume and tone, but underneath the layers of guitars is often a strong sense of melody. While the genres which influenced shoegazing often used drum machines, shoegazing more often features live drumming. Chapterhouse utilised both samples and live drumming, while drummers such as Chris Cooper of Pale Saints and the late Chris Acland of Lush often displayed complex drum patterns.

The name was coined by the New Musical Express, noting the tendency of the bands' guitarists to stare at their feet (or their effects pedals), seemingly deep in concentration, while playing. Some fans will argue another story, that shoegazing music was originally made with the intention of being listened to while taking heroin,[citation needed] and that the name refers to a passage from the book Naked Lunch. Melody Maker preferred the more staid term The Scene That Celebrates Itself, referring to the habit which the bands had of attending gigs of other shoegazing bands, often in Camden. The key record labels associated with the genre were Creation Records (My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Slowdive) and 4AD.

Influences
The Velvet Underground was often cited as a major influence, as the band had been on the C86 movement before it. Many of the bands eschewed the punk era altogether, although punk-era bands such as The Cramps, Pere Ubu and The Birthday Party proved influential in some cases, especially with the forerunners of the genre. However, artists such as The Jesus and Mary Chain and especially the Cocteau Twins and Spacemen 3 (and later Spiritualized) gave birth to the genre directly rather than through oblique influences.

Michael Azerrad's Our Band Could Be Your Life traces shoegazing to a Dinosaur Jr tour of the United Kingdom. While not generally classified as a shoegazing band, Dinosaur Jr did share a tendency to blend poppy melody with loud guitars. Early Boo Radleys tracks were firmly modelled on the first two Dinosaur albums.

"The scene that celebrates itself"

The first stirrings of recognition came when indie writer Steve Lamacq referred to Ride in a review for the NME as "The House of Love with chainsaws". In the US the music is sometimes now referred to as "dream pop".

The genre label was quite often misapplied. Key bands such as Ride, Chapterhouse and Slowdive emerged from the Thames Valley and as such Swervedriver found themselves labelled 'shoegazers' on account of their own (coincidental) Thames Valley origins - despite their more pronounced Hüsker Dü stylings. Curve were once described as "the exact point where shoegazer meets goth" and the genre did overlap with others to some extent. It was certainly the case that bands such as Blur, on occasion, adopted elements of shoegazing ('She's So High' for instance) on a purely commercial basis. The careers of Thousand Yard Stare and Revolver were caught up in a general backlash which affected the scene. In spite of this, bands like Chapterhouse, Ride and Slowdive ("the My Bloody Valentine Creation can afford" went one wry review) did leave behind several albums that on reflection have stood the test of time as indicative of 90s British indie.

Post movement directions
Slowdive eventually became the alt.country-leaning Mojave 3, while other shoegazing bands either split, or moved in other directions. Andy Bell of Ride, for example, later joined Oasis after his own Britpop project Hurricane #1 faltered. Several former members of shoegazing bands later moved towards post-rock and even trip hop.

Nu-gazing and current trends
After the initial first wave of bands whose careers petered out in the early 1990s, or moved in different directions, a number of bands such as Bethany Curve and Brian Jonestown Massacre were able to take inspiration from these groups and pursue new audiences. In recent years the NME has recently pointed out the shoegazing influence in a number of up and coming bands, which it has called "nu-gazing". Bands of this nature include Televise, Alcian Blue, A Place To Bury Strangers, Air Formation, Scarling., Autolux, Amusement Parks on Fire, Skywave, The Radio Dept, Mahogany, Readymade, Los Sonidos Distantes, Joy Zipper, M83, Ulrich Schnauss, Oppressed by the Line, Heroes of Switzerland, Experimental Aircraft and Engineers, and most recently Serena Maneesh. The genre is very strong within its own ranks, much alluding to the ideal "the scene that celebrates itself." Clubs such as Club AC30 and Club Violaine, along with the support of such labels as The Gaia Project and Bella Union are supporting more and more dream-pop and shoegaze bands. There are many holdouts of devoted players and listeners on both sides of the Atlantic, and a strong following in South America.

The first two albums by Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are influenced by shoegazing.

There is another thread of shoegazer-influenced music, that maintains the emphasis of texture (through the use of guitar effects pedals and digital signal processing) but departs, to some degree, from the rock structures and full band instrumentation of shoegazer music. Also, there are little to no vocal elements. This “post-shoegaze” glitch and experimental electronic music has achieved some critical praise, especially the more recent releases by Fennesz and Tim Hecker. The duo Belong released an album in 2006 that also falls into this category.

Often using the digital studio of a computer, these artists focus a lot of attention on creating space and atmosphere. The Max/MSP software program is one tool that allows for guitar signals to be processed for the creation of music that is characterized as much by its textural aspects as its melodies, if not more so. The outcome tends to be compositions ranging from ambient stretches of droning tones, distorted walls of sound, and reverb-laden atmospherics. What separates this from other strands of glitch or noise compositions and places it in the realm of shoegaze are the inclusion of melodies that call to mind pop and rock music.

The genre, though derided to some extent by the music press at the time, has left something of a legacy, as the new crop of bands demonstrates. The last album by My Bloody Valentine, Loveless, released in 1991 is critically acclaimed to be the landmark album of shoegazing, with Ride's first album Nowhere seen as a close contender.

From 3am Music...
No individual name is as synonymous with shoegazing as Alan Moulder, who produced landmark albums from the likes of the Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Curve and Lush. Through his innovative production techniques, Moulder enabled bands to create feedback-laden soundscapes and his influence was widely felt in the shoegazing movement during the early 1990s. A smaller debt is owed to Flood, who made Curve's Doppelganger and The Charlatans' Between 10th and 11th albums into shoegazer classics - even though the bands were not seeking to record them as such. Finally, another Alan worthy of credit is Alan McGee for signing so many of the bands to Creation Records in the first place.

The History of Shoegazing

Largely a phenomenon confined to the Home Counties in terms of where the bands hailed from, the shoegazing scene enjoyed headline status in both the music press and on the festival and live circuit in the early 1990s, eclipsing the Madchester scene of 1990. With its origins in the distorted sounds of My Bloody Valentine and early Cocteau Twins, the shoegazing movement became known as "the scene that celebrated itself" by virtue of the coterminous fanbases of the bands and their attendance at each other's gigs. However, it did enjoy some commercial success in the form of Ride and My Bloody Valentine (the latter regarded as distinguished artists in their own right) and the influence of the main protagonists of the scene (Ride, Lush, Slowdive) carries on to this day, whereas the others (Adorable, Chapterhouse, Pale Saints) now rank among rock's also-rans. Shoegazing by no means dominated what the passed for the British 'indie' scene -- after Madchester/Baggy, other 'scenes' managed to hold the attention of the nation's music-buying public. The quirky efforts of Carter the Unstoppable Sex Machine and Kingmaker were unfathomably popular for a while in the likes of the NME and Melody Maker, only to be replaced on an almost weekly basis by other bands -- Pop Will Eat Itself, The Senseless Things, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, The Wonderstuff and even Daisy Chainsaw (or as Carter USM described them in 'The Only Living Boy in New Cross': "the grebos, the crusties and the goths"). By 1993, the 'shoegazer' (allmusic.com traces the term to: "the bands' motionless performing style, where they stood on stage and stared at the floor while they played") had become derogatory, the trademark of a spent-out oh-so-brief epoch of Indie Pop history. Indeed, many bands resisted the application of the tag and in some instances it was merely lazy pigeonholing by the music press. The scene itself and some of the bands that were part of it now enjoy cult status and although its heyday was arguably 1992, it could point to origins a full decade before and influence that pervades to this day.

'For information only' - 1982-1987

"Blind dumb deafen offends, I was never part of it"
- 'Blind Dumb Deaf', Cocteau Twins ( Garlands , 1982)

When Elizabeth Fraser added her unique vocals to Robin Guthrie's swirling drone guitar in 1982, they could never have imagined that a full decade later the charts, the indie chart in any case, would be full of acts borrowing directly from a track on their Garlands album. The Cocteau Twins' style would turn out to be highly influential on a number of bands that were either part of the shoegazing set (Lush, Pale Saints, Moose) or influenced it themselves (My Bloody Valentine). Formed in Grangemouth, Scotland in 1979 and named after a song by Simple Minds (at that point not yet the stadium rock band they were to become), Robin Guthrie pursued a contract with Ivo Watts- Russell's London-based 4AD purely on the strength of it being the label the Birthday Party was signed to. Ostensibly a duo as the name would suggest, bass duties were initially taken on by Will Heggie, only for him to leave the group before 1983's Head Over Heels. Simon Raymonde completed the line-up in time for Treasure (1984).

My Bloody Valentine, on the other hand, arguably kickstarted the shoegazing movement in a more visible and direct form. However, the trajectory towards shoegazing did stutter somewhat in the early days. Again, the Birthday Party provided a primary influence, although in the case of MBV it was omnipresent on 1985's This Is Your Bloody Valentine, which was released to general indifference - whereas with the Cocteaus the influence was stated but never overt in any way in terms of musical output. Taking their name from a so-called 'video nasty' flick the band formed in Dublin, Ireland but subsequently relocated to Berlin, West Germany (as then was). The nucleus of the band was American-born Kevin Shields and Colm O'Ciosoig and following line-up changes, they relocated again to London and recruited Debbie Googe. Subsequent recordings were made in the Jesus and Mary Chain mould and the addition of vocalist Bilinda Butcher provided the group with the personnel that would see it through two landmark albums and into an infamous hiatus.

Consolidation - 1987-1991
"Show me all your favourite things/Show you all mine too"
- 'Blown A Wish', My Bloody Valentine (Loveless, 1991)

The Thames Valley area of Southeastern England is as unremarkable as any anodyne provincial hinterland. The cities of Reading and Oxford in the counties of Oxfordshire and Berkshire nestle as urban centres in otherwise sleepy English countryside. However, many of the key protagonists in the shoegazing movement found this as their base when starting out in the music industry, The Face even talked of a 'Thames Valley scene'. Chapterhouse formed in Reading in 1987 and became early leading lights of the scene after support slots with Spacemen 3, after which the group signed to Dedicated, with their early 'Free Fall' and 'Sunburst' EP's being well received by the press and public alike. Also that year, The Pale Saints and The Telescopes formed, albeit outside of the Thames Valley. The Pale Saints were formed in Leeds, Yorkshire in 1987 and again attracted critical acclaim for their Barging Into the Presence of God EP. The Telescopes on the other hand hailed from Burton-upon-Trent in the Midlands and quickly put out a track on a shared flexidisc with Loop (who also shared some influences with the scene but were never really part of the milieu). With Stephen Lawrie and Joanne Doran forming the core of the operation (although others would come and go), the band adopted the styles of the Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine for their first album, Taste which was released in 1989.

1988 might now rank in history as the year of Acid House but it also saw the formation of Thames Valley stalwarts Ride and Thousand Yard Stare, as well as Lush and the Boo Radleys in London and Liverpool respectively. The release of My Bloody Valentine's Isn't Anything LP heralded the arrival of the shoegazing style that year also, proving there was more to life than the D Mob and 'We Call It Acieeed'! A landmark album in its own right, tracks such as 'Feed Me With Your Kiss' showed the rest of the world how lush yet tightly formed textural soundscapes could be crafted. Hailing from the cathedral city of Oxford, Ride consisted of Mark Gardener, Andy Bell, Loz Colbert and Steve Queralt, a photogenic quartet of well-scrubbed middle class art students (which could go some way towards explaining the subsequent backlash against the scene). Taking their cue from the wall of sound provided by My Bloody Valentine, Ride were (to quote self-styled indie 'guru' Steve Lamacq) like "the House of Love with chainsaws", hinting at their use of heavy feedback guitar. A series of promising EP's (later released as Smile) caught the attention of the press and created a fanbase quite rapidly. The Nowhere LP, released in 1990 at the height of 'Madchester', represented a commercial success peaking at 14 in the UK charts and scoring Alan McGee's Creation label with a second shoegazer hit. According to an interview in the sorely missed Deadline Magazine, Ride were, along with My Bloody Valentine, the "parents" of the shoegazing scene. The third band referenced in this triumvirate was London's Lush (only just Southeast) formed around the nucleus of the songwriting partnership of fanzine editor Miki Berenyi and DHSS clerical assistant Emma Anderson, the singers' good looks often providing a distraction from the music in the press. The band brought an ethereal quality to the shoegazing milieu, evidenced on their early recordings following support slots with the likes of Loop and their signing to 4AD (alongside the Pale Saints, who by now had former Lush member Meriel Barham on the payroll) on the recommendation of Cocteau Twin Robin Guthrie. Bassist Steve Rippon left during the recording of their debut album Spooky, to be replaced by Phil King, formerly of Felt and Alan McGee's own shortlived band Biff Bang Pow (named after a song by the actual band The Creation).

Ipswich quartet Bleach formed in 1989 and became the latest addition to the shoegazing set, albeit to a consistently minor extent. Another Thames Valley shoegazer act, Slowdive also formed that same year in Chapterhouse's Reading, gravitating around the axis of Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell. The band signed to Creation Records and began to generate favourable press as part of what was now recognised as the shoegazer movement. The band were quintessential Thames Valley shoegazers but remained outside the triumvirate of My Bloody Valentine, Ride and Lush, these bands enjoying critical acclaim whatever the mood of the media. Quite possibly, Slowdive were the first to experience the anti-shoegazer backlash, although this did come later than during this period. However, their cover of Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra's 'Some Velvet Morning' topples Creation labelmates Primal Scream's recent version.

Swervedriver, formed in 1990, were actually based in London but hailed from Oxford originally so their Thames Valley status is questionable. However, given that it was Ride who brought the band to the attention of Alan McGee they probably had every reason to be thankful. Their tunes had a discernable rockier edge to them than any of their more ethereal or feedback-drenched contemporaries. London's Revolver however, employed a more melodic sound, although their inclusion in the shoegazing set was definitely suspect and questionable (by that token, Blur were shoegazers!) and the band had wider pretentions of being taken seriously as artists in their own right. The strength of the singer Matt Flint's songwriting on their Hut (a division of Virgin) records was weak and they should be regarded as a lightweight indie pop trio in the same vein as much of the other dross that hung around the indie charts during that era. Labelmates and fellow Londoners Moose made shoegazing a virtue and themselves media targets as a result, abandoning the style for jangle-pop shortly after. Catherine Wheel formed in the staunchly un-shoegazer Great Yarmouth the same year and quickly revealed themselves as bandwagon-jumpers latching on to whatever scene would get them a record deal. Fronted by Iron Maiden lead singer Bruce Dickinson's cousin Rob, the band actually triggered a record label feeding frenzy following an inclusion on indie guru and veteran DJ John Peel's show, but although the likes of Brian Eno's Opal and Alan McGee's Creation were clamouring for their signatures, the band elected to join the recently resuscitated major Fontana. On the strength of their songs during that era (mainly 'indie lite' material), it is hard to see why this could be the case.

In 1991, Loveless by My Bloody Valentine became the industry standard for shoegazers and provided its zenith in terms of artistic credibility. Beset by problems emanating from periods of lethargy and perfectionism in the studio, the album attracted publicity merely on the strength of the delay of its release, although a decade on the wait appears to have been worth it as it is frequently voted as a 'classic album'. Adorable were formed in the Midlands city of Coventry that year, when shoegazing had become an indie institution in the likes of the NME and Melody Maker. Fronted by an outspoken singer, they became another Creation shoegazer act in 1992. Curve's frontwoman Toni Halliday had originally been discovered by Eurythmic Dave Stewart but she turned her post (brief) solo career towards the duo she formed with Dean Garcia in London in 1991. Halliday's vocal style and NME pin-up status ensured that in addition to a strong songwriting partnership, the group became firm shoegazer favourites.

The Golden Age - 1992-1993

"We've got so far to go/Until we get there/Just let it flow"
- Ride, 'Leave Them All Behind' (Going Blank Again, 1992)

The period 1992-1993 can be seen as something of a golden age of shoegazing as the bulk of bands' key offerings were released in this period (many in March 1992 for some reason). The backlash was confined to the music press and sales continued as long as the bands managed to keep their fans (a later lesson for the likes of Ride). Spooky by Lush had the distinction of being produced by Cocteau Twin Robin Guthrie, an early champion of the band who had cemented their deal with the 4AD label. As a debut (their previous offering Scar was actually a mini-LP), the record showed strong promise, vacillating between ethereal melodies and feedback-underwritten tunes, all raised higher by Guthrie's sonic overview. Thousand Yard Stare's Hands On was the Stephen Street (famous for his work with The Smiths) produced effort which demonstrated good intention but suffered immeasurably from idiosyncrasy and inconsistency - some tracks being more irritating jangle-pop whereas others such as the overtly cod-shoegazer 'Comeuppance' suggested the band couldn't be bothered. Nice guys possibly but they just didn't cut it. The Boo Radleys were sometimes referred to as shoegazers by the music press but in most instances the tag was misapplied - save for 'Lazy Day' and 'Does This Hurt' from their Everything's Alright Forever album of that year. Ride's Going Blank Again added even more fans to their already considerable fanbase, representing a more honed approach to songwriting and a more melodic direction than their earlier feedback-fests, with a discernable 1960s guitar pop influence (few pictures of Mark Gardener showed him without a Rickenbacker!). The Telescopes eponymous album was standard shoegazer fare, making the transition from Mary Chain/MBV noise-merchants to a more archetypical Creation band. Other notable or 'significant' (for whatever reason) albums of that year were In Ribbons by the Pale Saints, the excellent Doppelganger by Curve, Bleach's Killing Time, the atrocious Ferment from Catherine Wheel and Baby's Angry by Revolver, and Moose's only album to receive any discernable level of coverage XYZ. Madchester band The Charlatans followed up their 1990 baggy debut Some Friendly with a downbeat offering, the distinctly shoegazer-flavoured 'difficult second album' Between 10th and 11th, on Beggar's Banquet offshoot Situation Two.

The first chinks in the armour were revealed when Revolver, Bleach, Chapterhouse and Thousand Yard Stare split due to the poor reception of their work by a now hostile media, with American labels such as SubPop being flavour of the month in sixth form common rooms and university student unions the land over. That year saw latecomers Adorable release their debut Against Perfection, but the band were by now trying to pass themselves off as a Creation act rather than as shoegazers. Lush's Split album, the follow up to the year before's Spooky, was released to a mixed reception, causing Miki Berenyi to contemplate a new direction for the band. Slowdive's Souvlaki bore some shoegazer traits but again the emphasis was upon passing themselves off as a serious English indie band, embarking upon a disastrous US tour - the shoegazer project laying in ruins…

Postscript - Life after Shoegazing
By mid 1993 the shoegazer backlash had manifested itself in a more terminal form, at best sheer insouciance or at worst outright hostility, to the bands by both the music press and music buyers themselves. The bargain bins in record shops, full of Moose and Pale Saints albums, were testimony to this, as Yankophilia took hold. This troubled few people, although this section preserves for history the much-neglected tale what happened next…

Adorable
After the aptly-titled Creation album Against Perfection in 1993, Adorable released one more album, Fake, in 1994 before calling it quits. Eccentric frontman Piotr Fijalkowski then tried his hand at being part of a synth pop duo before enlisting brother Kryz and returning to indie-pop under the moniker Polak.

Bleach
Always in the second division of shoegazer bands, Bleach attempted to remain a band following 1992's Killing Time with the release of the mini-album Hard and the long-player Fast, both in 1993. Bleach failed to even see the year out as the US invasion of Seattle bands sought firmly to ensure that the wheels had well and truly fallen off the shoegazing bandwagon.

Boo Radleys
1993 album Giant Steps released to major critical acclaim, dropping the Dinosaur Jr-style feeback for a more accomplished songwriting style and jangly sound. They became the shoegazer success story in the mid-1990s by riding on the coat-tails of Britpop with the Wake Up! album, which featured among the most commercially successful Britpop albums of 1995. Subsequent albums C'mon Kids and Kingsize saw the band shed the new fans (and record company loyalties) overnight, before splitting up in early 1999, ending a decade together. Martin Carr now records as Brave Captain on Creation Records' Dick Green's Wichita label.

Catherine Wheel
Having seen plenty of similar bands eventually fall by the wayside, Catherine Wheel soldier on to this day. 1992's Ferment (featuring the creepy-sounding 'I Want to Touch You') was followed-up with the albums Chrome (1993), Happy Days (1995), the 'rarities' album Like Cats and Dogs (1996), Adam and Eve (1997) and Wishville (2000). Despite a 1997 duet with ex-Throwing Muse/Belly frontwoman Tanya Donnelly, the band's trajectory followed a more metal-sounding path, playing solely to US college audiences and, like Bush, remaining virtually unheard of in their own country.

Chapterhouse
Blood Music, the 1993 follow-up to their debut Whirlpool, saw the shoegazing backlash in full flow and the end of the band as a result following its poor reception. Drummer Ashley Bates later formed 4AD act Cuba, whereas bassist Russell Barrett joined Inner Sleeve, with guitarist Simon Rowe joining post-Slowdive act Mojave 3 in 1998.

Curve
One of rock's greatest survivors, Curve initially called it quits in 1994, following the previous year's well-received Cuckoo. Vocalist Toni Halliday, an erstwhile pin-up for NME indie-boys, subsequently contributed to Leftfield's Leftism album. With the likes of Garbage taking the band's blueprint to new commercial heights, the band (ostensibly a duo now) reformed in 1996 and released three more albums (Come Clean in 1998, the web-only Open Day at the Hate Fest in 2001 and Gift the same year), although not to the same level of commercial appreciation as in their early 90s incarnation.

Lush
One of the more pre-eminent but reluctant members of the shoegazing movement, Lush's follow-up to 1992's excellent Robin Guthrie-produced Spooky, Split (1993) saw the band go from strength to strength musically, although the band struggled to get noticed in an increasingly Yankophile environment. Ethereal harmonies abandoned, 1996's Lovelife saw the band at the top of their commercial peak, with spiky riffs borrowed from Elastica and a duet with Pulp's Jarvis Cocker in the form of the single "Ciao!". However, success turned to tragedy in a more direct form than the demise of other shoegazer bands when drummer Chris Acland committed suicide. Emma Anderson went on to form Sing Sing with ex-members of Moose and Mojave 3, releasing The Joy of Sing Sing on Alan McGee's Poptones label in 2001.

Moose
In spite of some critical acclaim with 1992's XYZ (which featured Cranberries vocalist Delores O'Riordan), Moose quickly acquired the status of indie's also-rans. However, probably unbeknown to most reading this, they are still together and releasing records. 1993's Honey Bee predictably failed to make any impact but subsequent records Live a Little, Love a Lot (1996) and High Ball Me! (2000) were purely labours of love, the latter featuring the vocal talents of ex-Lush songstress Miki Berenyi and spending several years on the shelf unreleased before the tiny Nickel and Dimes label put it out.

My Bloody Valentine
Progenitors of the shoegazing scene, after the seminal and genius-like Isn't Anything (1988) and Loveless (1991), My Bloody Valentine entered a well-documented and much-mourned period of silence, only emerging briefly in 1996 to contribute a track to a Wire tribute album. Kevin Shields lent his considerable talents to ex-Spacemen 3 frontman Sonic Boom's Experimental Audio Research side project and J.Mascis' post-Dinosaur Jr solo album More Light (2000), as well as taking on production duties on Primal Scream's Xtmntr (2000) and Evil Heat (2002) albums. Debbie Googe, after a year of being a London cabbie, formed Snowpony with Katharine Gifford (ex-Stereolab), who released The Slow Motion Adventures of Snowpony in 1998 and Sea Shanties for Spaceships in 2001. Colm O'Ciosoig is now a member of the Warm Inventions with Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval.

Pale Saints
Troubled by an uneasy relationship with the music press and certainly not among the 'big five' driving the shoegazing scene (Ride, Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Lush and to a lesser extent Moose), The band struggled on after the departure of mainstay Ian Masters, with former early Lush member Meriel Barham (who guested on the Boo Radleys' Giant Steps) taking over on vocal duties. 1994's 4AD release Slow Buildings left no mark on the world and the band merely dissipated not long after.

Revolver
Like Catherine Wheel, Revolver were always coincidentally members of the shoegazing set, although the band had more worldlier aspirations. Their second album, 1993's Cold Water Flat (named after the minor US band of the same name, fronted by the brother of Buffalo Tom's Bill Janowitz) attracted favourable reviews. The band did not survive much further past that point however, as vocalist Matt Flint joined with ex-Drop Nineteen Paula Kelley and future Jack Drag frontman John Dragonetti to form Hot Rod, who released the Speed Danger Death album on Caroline that year. Flint later took up bass duties with electronica duo Death in Vegas.

Ride
The history of Ride could merit a separate book in itself. Always the standard bearers and most successful band in the shoegazing scene (they never bore the brunt of the backlash in the way more minor bands did - in fact they made a virtue out of shoegazing), Ride rode out the grunge fascination of the press and fans' attention spans by waiting until the nascent Britpop scene emerged in 1994, releasing Carnival of Light to great expectation. The record failed to excite the reviewers, who by now had discarded Nirvana and Mudhoney for Oasis and a revived Blur, whereas the fans of Nowhere (1990) and Going Blank Again (1992) era Ride did not appreciate the bands new-found Mod-leanings (found on the cover of The Creation's "How Does it Feel to Feel?"). Tarantula, released posthumously in 1995 astonished those who were still listening by moving in an altogether unpredictable rockier direction, with the tensions between the band's two main songwriters Andy Bell and Mark Gardener clearly evident for all to see. Mark Gardener released a solo CD single, "Magdelen Sky" on Oxford's Shifty Disco label, before forming the more Britpop-orientated Animalhouse with ex-Ride drummer Laurence Colbert, albeit to limited success, with their Ready to Receive album being released in 2000 after several years as a touring band. Andy Bell formed the more 'Noelrock' Hurricane #1, who released their self-titled album on Creation in 1997, before (ironically) joining Oasis as a replacement bassist.

Slowdive
Cynically referred to by critics as "the My Bloody Valentine that Creation could afford", Slowdive returned in 1993 with Souvlaki, a long-awaited follow-up to their 1991 longplayer Just for a Day. Simon Scott left shortly after, later hooking up with Chapterhouse's Russell Bates in Inner Sleeve. However, sales of Souvlaki were disappointing, although 1995's more ambient-orientated Pygmalion is now regarded as their most well-developed offering. Creation boss Alan McGee hated it however and dropped the band for their trouble. A stripped-down Slowdive reassembled as the alt-country-leaning Mojave 3 and signed to 4AD, releasing 1995's Ask Me Tomorrow, 1998's Out of Tune and 2000's Excuses for Travellers. Neil Halstead subsequently issued a solo album.

Swervedriver
If anyone ever referred to Swervedriver as shoegazers, it certainly wasn't with their permission (they probably owed more to Husker Du than the Cocteaus). However, the tag stuck (probably because of their Thames Valley/Oxford origins) despite their more rockier leanings, which manifested themselves clearly on 1993's Mezcal Head. The band found themselves dropped in 1995 by a Creation Records wanting move on to the newfound pastures conveniently discovered by Oasis and the bands they brought in their wake, although the label was kind enough to release their Ejector Seat Reservation album shortly before doing so. 1998 saw the band take on a more melodic pop route with 99th Dream. Former rhythm section Adi Vines and Graham Bonner now exist as Skyscraper, Bonner having been in experimentalists ImaJinery Friends who put out a split EP with Sonic Boom's (ex-Spacemen 3) Spectrum incarnation.

The Telescopes
The most under-rated members of the scene (unjustly so), The Telescopes went into a decade long hiatus, surfacing in 2002 with the Third Wave album released on the US Double Agent label. However, frontman Stephen Lawrie formed his side project Unisex in 1996.

Thousand Yard Stare
Possibly the most under-rated (arguably justifiably so) of the members of the shoegazing scene, Thames Valley stalwarts Thousand Yard Stare represented the quirkier element of that scene (they released all their records on their own 'Stifled Aardvark' label). Mappamundi was released in 1993 to universal indifference and the band wisely elected to disband shortly after.

Verve
Somewhat inappropriately labelled as shoegazers as a result of support slots with Ride, and the band's early singles and first album displaying very ethereal tendencies, Verve were (along with the Boo Radleys) the only Northern element of a Southeast-dominated music scene (if either band was at all, a debatable point). Forced to change their name to 'The Verve' as a result of legal action by the US jazz imprint of the same name, the band's subsequent change of direction (displayed on 1995's A Northern Soul album), their hiatus between 1995 and late 1997 (having effectively split up) and jubilant return with 1997's Urban Hymns is very well-documented. Singer Richard Ashcroft married former Spiritualized keyboardist Kate Radley and enjoyed some solo success, whereas bassist Simon Jones and latecomer guitarist Simon Tong later formed The Shining. All a far cry from the sonic soundscapes of "Gravity Grave" and "She's A Superstar" though.

Further reading
There are no books that specifically deal with shoegazing in its own right. US rock critic and Lester Bangs acolyte Jim De Rogatis' Kaleidoscope Eyes (Fourth Estate, 1996) is now out of print and long overdue for a reprint, but this deals with shoegazing in one chapter of a wider study of the history and legacy of the psychedelic era. British music journo David Cavanagh (of the Q and Select stable) published The Creation Records Story in 2000 (Virgin Books). Although highly recommended for its encyclopaedic coverage of not only the shoegazing bands but (as you would expect) other bands from the Creation stable, Alan McGee dismissed it as "the accountant's tale" on his Poptones website. Quite harsh, possibly as McGee himself penned the introduction to the highly Oasis-centric Alan McGee and the Story of Creation Records by Paolo Hewitt (Mainstream, 2000), which deals with the label in a 1994 as year zero approach (the year Oasis were discovered), with minimal coverage of any of the shoegazing bands (apart from those with tenuous connections to Oasis). With two books devoted to Alan McGee and Creation Records alone, the deficit of any such books on labels such as 4AD or Warp and the immeasurable influence of the bands on their rosters are glaringly apparent. Alternatively, readers could peruse the All Music Guide to Rock for hours, containing as it does, dozens of entries synopsising most albums released by shoegazer bands, their forefathers and their heir apparents. As does Martin Strong's excellent and fully comprehensive The Great Indie Discography (Canongate).

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Andrew Stevens lives in London and periodically attends Goldsmiths College. He works in urban renewal and city planning, fascinated as he is with architecture and cityscapes. His loves include techno music, disused underground stations and nuclear shelters, satire, brunettes and trashy fiction, in no particular order. His hates are too numerous to list or dwell on longer than five seconds.

Ride

2006-06-06T20:01:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ride was a 1980s and 90s British shoegazing band. The band formed in 1988 in Oxford, England, and officially broke up in 1996. During that time they received much critical acclaim, and though this never translated into the chart and financial success that they aimed for, for a short while it seemed that the band could prove themselves as defying the fate that befell lesser shoegazer bands. Since then, the band members have gone on to other projects, most notably Andy Bell who became the bass player for Oasis. Since 2001 the band has been semi-active and has released a number of compilation and live recordings, as well as a limited pressing EP with new material.

1988-1989 Starting out
Gardener and Bell had been to Cheney School in Oxford appearing in the school's musical theatre productions and in October 1988 moved to Banbury to do Foundation Studies in Art and Design. There they met Colbert. Queralt was recruited from a local record shop. After considering the name 'Donkey' the band called itself 'Ride' after a piece of graphic design Gardener produced for a typography workshop. The first gig as Ride was for the College's Christmas Party in 1988. While still at Banbury the band produced a tape demo including the tracks 'Chelsea Girl' and 'Drive Blind'. In February 1989 'Ride' was asked to stand in for a cancelled slot at a student union gig at Oxford Poly that brought them to the attention of Alan McGee. After supporting The Soup Dragons in 1989, McGee from Creation Records signed a record deal with them.

1989-1993 Early Creation years
Ride released three EPs between January and September 1990, entitled Ride, Play and Fall, each with distinctive blurred artwork on the covers. From these EPs, the songs "Chelsea Girl", "Like a Daydream" and "Dreams Burn Down" became favourites. While each EP was not a chart success, enough critical praise was received to make Ride the "darlings" of music journalists. The first two EPs were eventually released together as Smile years later in 1992, while the Fall EP was incorporated into their first LP, Nowhere, released in October 1990.

Nowhere was hailed as a critical success and the media dubbed Ride "The brightest hope" for 1991. Many fans regard this as their favourite album, with songs like "Vapour Trail", and "Dreams Burn Down" becoming classics in shoegaze. It was from this period that the band usually closed their live set with "Seagull", a mass of feedback and rhythm guitar that remains one of the band's classic pieces.

Demand for new material was high, and the band recorded another EP, Today Forever in March 1991. The EP showed that the band was maturing quickly and producing material that was more subtle and complex than their releases barely 12 months previously. "Sennen", the second track from this EP, became a crowd favourite. Ride made their first international tour to Japan, Australia and France later on that year.

March 1992 saw the band release another fan favourite, the album Going Blank Again. Opening with the anthemic 8 minute 17 second single "Leave Them All Behind", the album showcased the band's creative work and skill in working with the Wall of Sound style that typifies shoegazing bands. To some extent, the album represented the apogee of shoegazing proper, as opposed to the oft-cited Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, a landmark record from outside the milieu. The twin rhythm guitars of Bell and Gardener, both distorted, both using Wah-wah pedals and both feeding back on each other was the highlight of the album's critical and chart success. Other tracks on the album showcased the band's innovative blend of melody and discord, not to mention one or two borrowed riffs (and a sample from Withnail and I). It needs to be pointed out, also, that the band had listened to and had been influenced by the album Nevermind by Nirvana as they recorded their second LP. This link, between Shoegazing and Grunge, has never been fully explored. Ride's early influences include Sonic Youth and My Bloody Valentine, both of which influenced the style of Ride's music and the songs found on Going Blank Again.

1994-96 Change in musical direction
Ride were able to see out 1993 riding on the success (critically, if not commercially) of Going Blank Again and a third LP was keenly anticipated, demonstrated by regular music press features which provided some allusion to influences like Neil Young. However, despite having a solid fanbase and some mainstream success, the lack of a breakthrough contributed to inter-band tension, especially between Gardener and Bell. Their third LP, Carnival of Light, was released in 1994 (1994 in music), after shoegazing had given way to Britpop among mainstream listeners. Carnival of Light was oriented towards this new sound to some extent, but sales were sluggish and the shift in musical tastes devastated much of their original audience. Opening with the riff-heavy "Moonlight Medicine", notable tracks include "From Time to Time", "Birdman" and a cover of The Creation's "How Does It Feel to Feel". Despite having what many consider to be a patchy array of tracks, Carnival of Light remains a favourite for many fans.

1996 The break up
1995 saw the dissolution of the band while recording Tarantula.
It appears that the band split due to creative and personal tensions between Gardener and Bell. Both had led the band away from their Shoegazing roots to become more contemporary, hoping to change their style with the times. It has been remarked by Queralt that the band had two future directions open to them, and they chose the wrong option. The track listing of Carnival of Light gives an indication of the tension that was mounting between the two guitarists, with the first half of the album being songs written by Mark Gardener and the last half of the album being songs written by Andy Bell - one or both had refused to let their songs be interspersed with pieces written by the other. Other musical changes, such as the use of a Cathedral boy's choir for one song and Hammond organs for a number of others, were not as innovative or creative as had been hoped.

By the time Tarantula appeared, the band was beginning to self destruct. Bell penned most of the songs while Gardener provided only one - the tension within the band leading to an inability to write meaningful musical pieces. Castle on the Hill, written by Bell, was a lament for the band's situation and contains references to Gardener's self imposed exile from the group. Against all common sense from the record company, the album was released and remained on sale for one week before being withdrawn. Critics and fans alike had panned the album, and it was no surprise that the band had split before the record had even been released.

Since the break-up, both Bell and Gardener have been more reflective about the group's disintegration, with Bell especially admitting his own part in the process. It appears that they were too young and too stubborn and had no real idea of where the band was heading when they changed their style.

1997-2001 Post break-up years
After the split, Andy Bell formed a new band called "Hurricane #1" but this project was permanently dissolved when he was asked to play bass for Oasis after having turned down the opportunity to join Gay Dad. Mark Gardener and Laurence Colbert formed the short-lived The Animalhouse. Gardener has also toured as a solo artist, while Colbert has also been playing for a Bob Dylan tribute band called The Zimmermen. Queralt appears to have retired from professional music and was last seen working in retail management for Habitat in Cumnor in Oxford.

2001+ Channel Four and beyond
On 16 October 2001, all four members of Ride agreed to be filmed by Channel 4. The footage was used for a documentary on Sonic Youth, and featured both Bell's and Gardener's unique use of feedback and distortion during a thirty minute jam. The recording of this song, plus two short sound checks, were released in 2002 as Coming up for Air. The interest this limited release CD caused the band to consider future releases. In late 2002, Ride released a 3CD box set which is made up of OX_4 The Best of Ride, Firing Blanks (Unreleased tracks) and Live_Reading Festival 1992. In 2003 they released Waves, a series of recordings the band made for the BBC. A DVD is being worked out, and the band's manager Dave Newton has discussed the idea of future releases of live shows, possibly as internet-releases.

Mark Gardener is also now pursuing a solo career. From 2003 to 2005, Mark toured extensively, sometimes with the help of Oxford friends Goldrush, in order to personally fund a full length studio album. During the tour, a three-track EP with Goldrush (Falling Out Into the Night) and a live album (the acoustic solo Live @ the Knitting Factory, New York City) were released. He also spent part of 2005 working with the French duo rinôçérôse. In late 2005, Mark's album These Beautiful Ghosts was released in North America on United For Opportunity. Release of the album in other regions is expected in early 2006.

The fact that the band appears to be releasing new material and even being interviewed together suggested that the tension between Gardener and Bell, which was one of the main causes of the band's demise, has been mended.

Any thoughts of permanently re-forming the band, however, have been explicitly denied by Bell, with the reasoning that it would not live up to expectations. However, the members, Bell included, have stated that they would not mind working with each other again. Since, Bell and Colbert made an appearance at one of Gardener's early shows; Bell later shared two nights of acoustic sets with Gardener in November 2003 when Gardener made a tour stop in Bell's current home of Stockholm.

Loz Colbert has also started playing in a band again - not as drummer, but as guitarist and vocalist. In 2005, Gardener was stuck in France and unable to play the Truck Festival; Colbert's band filled the gap in the bill.

Discography
Albums
Nowhere (1990, UK Chart #11)
Going Blank Again (1992, UK Chart #5)
Carnival of Light (1994, UK Chart #5)
Tarantula (1996, UK Chart #21)

Singles/EPs
Ride EP (1990, UK Chart #71)
Play EP (1990, UK Chart #32)
Fall EP (1990), UK Chart #34)
Today Forever EP (1991, UK Chart #14)
Leave them all Behind (1992, UK Chart #9)
Twisterella (1992, UK Chart #36)
Birdman (1994, UK Chart #38)
How does it feel to feel? (1994, UK Chart #58)
I don't know where it comes from (1994, UK Chart #46)
Black Nite Crash (1996, UK Chart #67)
Coming up For Air EP (2002)

Compilations
Smile (1992)
OX_4 The Best of Ride (2001)
Firing Blanks_Unreleased Ride Recordings 1988-95 (2001)
Live_Reading Festival 1992 (2001)
Waves (BBC Radio One sessions) (2003)

Ride Like A Daydream (From Creation Records Compilation VHS)

Ride Today

Ride Taste (includes interview with Andy & Loz)

Ride Vapour Trail (includes interview with Andy & Loz)

Ride Chelsea Girl (includes interview with Andy & Loz)

Ride Leave Them All Behind (includes interview with Alan McGee, Andy & Loz)

Ride Twsiterella

Ride From Time To Time (Live)

Mark Gardener & Andy Bell Seagull (Live)

Ride Unfamiliar

Ride Sennen

Ride Beneath

Curve

2006-06-06T19:42:00.000-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Curve is a British music group formed in 1991 chiefly around the collaboration of singer Toni Halliday and guitarist Dean Garcia. The two were introduced to each other by fellow musician Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, briefly forming a group named State of Play in the late 1980s before parting ways and then reuniting for their more long-term partnership in Curve. Their music being typified by heavy beats and Garcia's densely-layered guitar tracks set against Halliday's airy vocalization of lyrics that frequently explore such topics as alienation, addiction and love on the wane.

After nearly a decade-and-a-half of partnership backed by an ever-changing line-up, during which time the band broke up at least once in the mid-1990s, Halliday announced on their official web site in early 2005 that the group had finally run its course and was no more. Whether this is their final curtain call or just their most recent hiatus remains to be seen.

Antonia "Toni" Halliday is the lead vocalist/lyricist and sometimes bass player of the British band Curve, as well as the wife of producer Alan Moulder. She was born on 25th January 1965. She left the band on 1/31/05 after serving as the band's lead singer starting in 1989. She worked with Dean Garcia (bass) and the two made several singles and full-length albums. Full-length albums include the following: Doppelganger (1992), Cuckoo (1993), Come Clean (1998), Open Day at the Hate Fest (2001), Gift (2001), New Adventures of Curve (2002), and The Way of The Curve: 1990-2004 (2004). Her style of singing - influenced at the same time by the deep warm tone of Chrissie Hynde and the more exotic neo-Goth warble of the Cocteau Twins' Liz Fraser - was to influence Shirley Manson, vocalist of American post-grunge pop-rockers Garbage, who appropriated from Curve's template and turned it into what was ultimately mainstream fodder with the trappings of 'edge'. Curve and Halliday unfortunately were never to find the same degree of fame, perhaps understandably in view of their unwillingness to dilute their sound. Toni Halliday's current music activities are unknown. Dean Garcia continues work with his daughter on the project Dog Lab.

Discography
EPs
Blindfold 1992
Frozen 1992
Cherry 1992
Fait Accompli 1992
Horror Head 1992
Blackerthreetracker 1993
Blackerthreetracker 2 1993
Superblaster 1993
Pink Girl With The Blues 1996
Chinese burn 1997
Coming up Roses 1997
Coming up Roses 2 1998

Albums
Doppelgänger 1992 (UK #11)
Cuckoo 1993 (UK #29)
Come Clean 1998
Open Day At The Hate Fest 2000 (internet-only release)
Gift 2001
The New Adventures Of Curve 2002 (internet-only release)

Collections
Pubic Fruit, 1993 (first 3 EPs and Faît Accompli single)
The Way Of Curve 2004

Curve : Clipped

Curve : Fait Accompli