Forty Minutes Of Slowdive

For a band who took a lot of music press flak back in the 90s Slowdive and their music have proved remarkably resilient. They are also a re- union that has been about more than just playing heritage gigs with a very good album in 2017, twenty two years after they split and another one out this September. A new song, Skin In The Game, came out recently, woozy melancholia through the familiar Slowdive shoegaze FX. 

A Slowdive Sunday mix seemed in order. Their music is suited to the long form, it has an endless, repetitive quality, acres of drift and motion, with blissed out guitars, hazy FX and walls of ambient noise. 

Forty Minutes of Slowdive

• Star Roving
• Catch The Breeze
• Souvlaki Space Station
• Avalyn II
• Morningrise
• When The Sun Hits
• Slowdive
• Sugar For The Pill

Star Roving and Sugar For The Pill are both from 2017's self titled re- union album, swathes of guitar based atmospherics but with songs too and Rachel Goswell's voice floating on top. In some ways, this is their best album. 

Catch The Breeze was the lead song on the Holding Our Breath EP, out on Creation in 1991 and then part of the debut album, Just For A Day, also 1991. 

Souvlaki Space Station was on 1993's Souvlaki album, an album recorded after Rachel Goswell and guitarist/ songwriter Neil Halstead had split up. Halstead was in a bad way and getting heavily into ambient- techno, Aphex Twin and dub. Souvlaki got a bad press, undeservedly so- today, thirty years later, it sounds like a lost gem. In 1993 Britpop was about to erupt and the music press was fickle, the shoegaze bands suffering in comparison to the bright colours and instant hit of Oasis et al. When The Sun Hits is from Souvlaki too. 

Avalyn II was on Slowdive's debut record, the self titled 12" Creation released in 1990- soundscapes, mood, texture all to the fore. The song Slowdive is from the same record. 

Morningrise was a single from early 1991. 

A month ago this song, Kisses, came out ahead of this autumn's album, Everything Is Alive. The band's music sounds just at home in 2023 as it ever did, more so possibly.