Slowdive

Slowdive formed in Reading in 1989, Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell at the centre of a group that would spend the next six years making some of the most beautiful and misunderstood music of the era. They signed to Creation Records in 1990 and released their debut EP to immediate critical enthusiasm.

'Just for a Day' (1991) established the template: guitars processed into shimmering walls of sound, Halstead and Goswell's voices intertwined in the mix, rhythms that felt more like weather than percussion. The music press loved it briefly, then turned. Shoegaze was declared dead, and Slowdive were among its most prominent casualties.

'Souvlaki' (1993) is now widely considered one of the greatest albums of the 1990s. At the time, it was largely ignored. Brian Eno contributed to two tracks, lending the record an even more expansive, ambient quality. The NME gave it a lukewarm review. History has been considerably kinder.

'Pygmalion' (1995) was their most experimental record — almost entirely ambient, barely any conventional song structures. Creation dropped them shortly after its release. The band dissolved, but Halstead, Goswell, and drummer Ian McCutcheon regrouped as Mojave 3, moving in a quieter, country-influenced folk direction. It seemed like the end of Slowdive — and for nearly two decades, it was.

The reunion in 2014 was greeted with a fervour that would have been unimaginable during their original run. Their self-titled comeback album (2017) was one of the most acclaimed records of the year — not a nostalgia exercise but a genuine creative leap forward. 'Everything Is Alive' (2023) went further still, stripping the sound back to pure electronics and voice. It was their most radical record and, arguably, their best.