The early 90s shoegaze/ ambient techno crossover seems obvious in retrospect, three decades later the commonalities and sympathetic sounds and approaches should have led to a multitude of collaborations and remixes (in both directions). As it is the scene, such as it was, peaked in 1993 with Reload's stunning remix of Slowdive, a ten minute space odyssey where the Berkshire five piece band (Rachel Gosling, Neil Halstead, Christian Savill, Nick Chaplin and Simon Scott, all fringes, love beads, leather jackets and brown suede) were sent into slow motion orbit by Somerset's Reload (Mark Pritchard and Tom Middleton who turned up making similar sounds as Global Communication). If this were doubled or tripled in length it could still be too short.
In Mind (Reload Remix- The 147 Take)
Slowdive's 1993 album Souvlaki was panned by the music press on release, the shoegaze backlash in such a feeding frenzy that Melody Maker's Dave Simpson said he'd rather 'drown choking in a bath full of porridge than ever listen to it again'. Nicky Wire compared them to Hitler. The music press and opinions could be quite toxic back then couldn't they? They were screwed over by their US label too, who pulled funding on a tour while it was only halfway through leaving the group to pay for the rest of it themselves. Today Souvlaki sounds like an early 90s lost gem, full of shimmering waves of FX pedals, warm baths of guitars and hazy vocals. This is the longest song on the album, a six minute marriage of late 60s psychedelia and 90s noise that sounds as good as anything anyone else in that field created, including music press darlings My Bloody Valentine.
4 comments:
Personally I love it.
Think it was Richey Edwards who said he preferred Hitler to Slowdive. But either way great post and the Manics were wrong.
Swc.
It's fair to say that because of the press's attitude to the shoegazing genre generally and Slowdive in particular, I spent a good part of my 20s and 30s almost feeling embarrassed to have been such a big fan of them. Time moved on and they gradually became okay to like again and (shock horror!) influential. Eventually they reformed and (shock horror!) the press fawned all over them.
Such is the way of the world. But I was so happy for them to have come back in the way that they did. New album fairly soon I think....?
As I recall, though why I remember is beyond me, the shoegaze scene was derided for its wimpy middle-classness.
Yes, that rings a bell Lizardo- would be interesting to know how many of the journalists who derided it as such were the authentic voice of the working class Britain.
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