SLOWDIVE: Lost Classics & Curios

Slowdive - Hide Yer Eyes [1993]

These first three tunes are absolute Slowdive bangers from the Souvlaki sessions that ridiculously never got released. I mean it's unbelievable that after being cut from Souvlaki these songs didn't end up on an EP or a single in their own right or at as least b-sides to other singles, mental.

Guitarist Christian Saville wanted Hide Yer Eyes on Souvlaki and the fact that one of these bootleg versions was mixed by Ed Buller means it was in contention for inclusion. Neil Halstead ixnayed the track though on the grounds of it being too poppy and the quota of poppy pop tunes for the album had already been filled...

This stands alongside Alison and Machine Gun as one of their best pop moments. 

Slowdive - I Saw The Sun [1993]

Another Ed Buller mix which means this was almost included on the final track-listing of Souvlaki but the band pulled it on the basis of it being to much like The Cocteau Twins which is funny because... well have you heard the records they made before Souvlaki? Anyway this is pure Slowdive to me. The group at their best.

Beautiful pastoral psychedelia that floats off in a hazy breeze. 

Dreamy.

Slowdive - Silver Screen [1992]

We live in a crazy world where one of the greatest songs of the 90s never saw the light of day, only getting leaked onto the internet in the 00s. Fucking absurd. 

Starts out with buoyant fluctuating guitars that morph into fantastic eternally swirling waves of elation combined with irresistible nostalgic vocals hooks. Pure bliss.

Slowdive - Joy [1992]

Ok these next three are definitely oddities probably only of interest for diehard fans. They are interesting though and display what music Slowdive were big fans of. 

  

Joy is post-punk with a drum machine somewhere between Chameleons and New Order. I mean its called Joy for fuck's sake. This is pretty surprising if you've never heard it before. After brutal press coverage and ruthless record company rejections Slowdive lost their nerve and went back to their roots and musical influences looking for a an inspirational way out of the crisis they perceived they were in.

Slowdive - Stars That Shine [1992?]

I always thought Mercury Rev's psychedelic space rock freak-outs were influenced by Slowdive's more overwhelming blissed guitar journeys but here you've gotta think Neil had probably given Yerself Is Steam a bit of a listen and liked what he heard. I probably would have ixnayed this one for being too much of a homage as consummate as it may be.

Slowdive - Bleed [1991?]

They never hid the fact that they loved The Cure and this one is an incredible tribute to their musical heroes. Still it's unmistakably Slowdive but that bass line might have perhaps attracted some attention from litigation lawyers for being a bit too close to The Cure's Fascination Street. While it may have been too derivative to put on any type of official record it's a whole lotta fun.

Slowdive

[2014]

How is it that when Slowdive reformed back in 2014 they were better than ever? I was gonna go through all my old Slowdive favourites, doing some posts on the early studio recordings of the first three EPs and debut album but these live videos are hard to go past. 

[2014]

The Coda Slowdive add on to their cover of Syd's Golden Hair became epic and was the highlight of their set. The waves and waves of swirling guitars gets to unbearably ecstatic levels then there's a lull and little ebb and flow then it builds up to bursting euphoria all over again.

[2017]

This 2017 gig is the best I've found so far. The 2014 to 2017 shows seem to be the best perhaps peaking on the 2017 tour. Whoever is doing the sound on this is a genius. Many have stated that this show should be the basis for a live album... I guess it could be a double live LP really. 

Slowdive will capture and envelop you with their all encompassing vaguely orchestral cinematic sound. They are on fire during this set and it's all highlights. Here's some highlights of the highlights: Catch The Breeze has never sounded better here. God I even like the Pygmalion tracks. This version of She Calls is astounding sky-scraping dark psychedelia. The searing melancholia of Golden Hair is even more epic than the above two versions if that's possible. The magnificent new and improved rendition of Slowdive will surprise you... I mean all songs are like 25 to 50 percent better. It's unfathomable.

Eternal - Sleep

Eternal - Sleep [1990]

Eternal did just the one single, the Breathe EP released by Sarah Records. On one side was the above tune and on the other side was Breathe and another less significant tune Take Me Down. 

Slowdive would take the Sleep blueprint and run with it. The singer and guitarist here is none other than future Slowdive member Christian Savill. For historic interest the Sarah seven inch was released six months before Slowdive's self-titled debut EP. 

Slowdive - Sleep [1992?]

For some reason Rachel wrote some new lyrics for Sleep during the demo sessions for Souvlaki so they had a crack at a remake. Despite Creation's rejection this is an incredibly successful new and improved version. Starts out in a low key fog but wait for the second half when it becomes epic with a soaring avalanche of bliss.

Careless Hands - Looking For A Secret

[1982]

Dreamy drumless Durutti damaged psych pop with a secluded windswept feel.

A fascinating one and done single that pre-empts a lot of what was to to come in British music like things on the fringes of dream pop/shoegaze, lost generation UK post-rock, hauntology etc. Looking For A Secret puts me in mind of Vini Reilly, Papa Sprain and maybe even Postion Normal. 

A pretty cool lost classic with a hint of the old Syd Barrett, John Martyn etc. and the ramshackle freedom of The Homosexuals.  

Here's a quote from Careless Hands' Brian Keaney taken from bandcamp:

What we were really interested in was musical exploration. Jim built a studio in his back garden, bought some multi-track recording equipment, and began experimenting. We wanted to produce something that was just for ourselves. We were undoubtedly very naïve but naivety and innocence were hallmarks of that time.

In my childhood, I'd been fascinated with the story of Aladdin. Now that fascination began to be reflected in the music we were making. Here was a story about a boy who transforms his world and enters the magical realm. That seemed to be exactly what was happening to me. For all sorts of reasons, I hadn't particularly enjoyed my childhood but now I had managed to step out of the everyday reality, to find a place where I belonged and where I had a kind of power.

The name we used for the band came from a song recorded in 1949 by a singer called Mel Torme. There's a line in that song that goes, "Careless Hands don't care when dreams slip through." That seemed appropriate since dreams were part of the territory we were exploring.

I had got married immediately after leaving college and by now I had a daughter who was afraid to go to sleep at night. She wanted me to be present in her dreams with her. That became the inspiration for a period during which Jim and I tried to recreate the shifting landscape of the night-time imagination.

Time Thief · Pale Saints

Time Thief - Pale Saints [1990]

The first Pale Saints song I heard. I managed to tape the video off Rage in 1990. I liked that they were peculiar compared to the other upstart shoegazers Ride and Lush. The impeccable arrangement of Time Thief  had alluring hints of menace deployed amongst the exhilarating tension and release dynamics and then those choirboy vocals added more spice to the unnerving vibe. 

 

Time Thief - Pale Saints [1990]

This was the video that interspersed clips from the creepy 1961 psychological horror film The Innocents with live footage of the band... er, the sound's a bit dodgy but well worth a look though, as it's an extravaganza of sound and vision synchronicity.

One of the best things about The Pale Saints debut LP was the finale one two punch of Sight Of You and Time Thief. The two songs run into each other and need to be heard together as the drama builds at the end of Sight Of You leading up to the exciting Time Thief intro. In the great tradition of other tunes that are connected with no gap and run into each other (which I wrote about here) like I'm Your Boogie Man/Keep It Comin' Love from KC & The Sunshine Band, Donna Summer's I Need You/Working The Midnight Shift, INXS' Face The Change/Burn For You and Palace Of Brine/Letter From Memphis by The Pixies. I'm sure there's many more examples...  Anyway I can't find a clip of Sight Of You and Time Thief together so...

Sight Of You - Pale Saints [1990]

Dreamy pop noise goes ecstatic! Anthem for the teenage shoegazers I was.

Sight Of You - Ride [1990]

Speaking of Ride they did a cover of Sight Of You for a John Peel session. It's passable but I kinda wish they didn't do the fade out because that racket they were whipping up at the end was the most interesting bit...

The Charlottes

The Charlottes - Beautify [1991]

This frantic pop tune smothered in squalling psychedelic noise is quite the exhilarating racket. A slice of prime shoegazery.

Classic noise pop/shoegaze that you might not know because they weren't on Creation or 4AD and didn't have s high profile publicity machine at their disposal. The Charlottes were top tier though, perhaps not as beloved these days because they had a towering dense heavy sound and weren't as ethereal as the other groups. Their second LP Things Come Apart released in early 1991 is a minor masterpiece as the five tunes on this post attest.  

The Charlottes - Prayer Song [1991]

They get into a classic kaleidoscopic pummelling groove here. Loud layers of ceaselessly swirling fuzzed out guitar bliss. Pretty awesome.

The Charlottes - Love In The Emptiness [1990] 

Ferocious and dense shoegaze that heads towards the gloomy but the band's bracing energy doesn't let that get you down. Pouting in the face of the abyss on this tranced-out mantra-rock classic. 

The insane and great drumming on all these tunes is provided by Simon Scott who would go on to shoegaze fame and fortune as the man behind the kit for Slowdive.

The Charlottes - Liar [1990]

The sensational clamorous pop thrills of Liar was like The Hummingbirds covering Dreams Burn Down. This was their glorious pop moment and chance at shoegaze stardom, that was not to be, a few months later they had broken up and become a footnote in shoegaze history.

The Charlottes - See Me Feel [1990]

They get into a frenzy on this frenetic fuzz and wah-wah monster. A barnstorming noise-pop triumph.

The Nightblooms - Crystal Eyes

[1990]

This is still pretty fuckin' cool.

Before they started calling it shoegaze it was just indie pop that was a bit noisy sometimes known as noise-pop. Here we have a fine example from Holland. Crystal Eyes is in an aesthetic sweet spot somewhere between the You Made Me Realise EP and You're Living All Over Me. A blistering lil tune that leaves you in a whirl and wanting more. 

Silver (Fairy Threaded) · lovesliescrushing

Silver (Fairy Threaded)  [1996]

There's a ghost of a song hidden within the pure dream-gaze of Silver - Fairy Threaded's psychedelic ambient haze.

Loveliescrushing's 1996 cd Xuvityn sounds like if you took the music of Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine, Seefeel etc. then stripped out the melodic song elements and entire rhythm section just leaving shoegaze's sonic detritus: the ethereal ambience, dreamy atmosphere and static textures of the blown out guitar amps.  

Blooded And Blossom-Blown [1996]

Hard not to be enraptured by these impeccable waves of ambience and atmosphere. The pure empyreal tones of ascending to heaven.   

Apart from Melissa Arpin's vaporous vocals this holy symphony of sound is all exclusively created by Scott Cortez and his guitar.

A tribute to the world's greatest dog Cooper James (2013-2025). RIP.

Alan Hawkshaw - Underworld

[1984]

Future music for today from yesterday. Outer-space music for the deep sea disco fish who hang out in the darkest depths of the oceans.