Slowdive

Slowdive(stylized inlowercase) are anEnglishrock band that formed inReading, Berkshire, in 1989. The band consists ofRachel Goswell(vocals, guitars, keyboards),Neil Halstead(vocals, guitars),Christian Savill(guitars), Nick Chaplin (bass), andSimon Scott(drums, guitars, electronics), all of whom played on the band's early records. Halstead is the band's primary songwriter.
After releasing several EPs, the band released debut albumJust for a Day(1991) and follow upSouvlaki(1993), making the band one of the leading figures of the UKshoegazescene of the early 1990s. The group broke up soon after the release of their third studio album,Pygmalion, in 1995, having seen Scott, Savill and Chaplin depart the band prior. The remaining members continued under a morefolkandcountry-influenced direction asMojave 3.
Slowdive reunited in 2014 to play thePrimavera Soundfestival and released aself-titled studio albumin 2017, their first in 22 years. The band's fifth studio album,Everything Is Alive, was released in 2023 and became Slowdive's first top ten album in any country, doing so in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Slowdive were formed inReading, England, byNeil HalsteadandRachel Goswellin October 1989. The two sang and played guitar, and had been friends since they were 6 years old. At a Sunday youth group, they began making music in anindie popband called the Pumpkin Fairies, with bassist Mike Cottle and drummer Adrian Sell. When the Pumpkin Fairies disbanded, Slowdive formed, also including drummer Adrian Sell and Sell's friend, bassist Nick Chaplin. A third guitarist named Christian Savill, previously of the band Eternal, joined when he became the only person to answer an advert from the band. The ad called for a female guitarist, but Savill wanted to join so badly he offered to wear a dress. He was subsequently recruited.The name "Slowdive" was inspired by a dream Chaplin experienced,and a conversation he had with Goswell, who mentioned "Slowdive", the name of a single by one of her favourite bands,Siouxsie and the Banshees.Goswell later said that she was outvoted for the choice of the name in the end.
The band quickly recorded ademoand several months later played a show with the bandFive Thirty. Steve Walters, head ofA&RatEMI, attended the show. Afterward, he approached Savill and requested one of their demos. Slowdive signed arecording contractwithCreation Recordsshortly after. The average age of the band was 19 at the time.Sell felt things were progressing too fast and left for university after being in the band for about six months.
Aself-titled EPwas released in November 1990 and received praise from music critics.Slowdivewas actually their original demo; the band had preferred the older recordings after feeling disillusioned with their studio craft.In a glowing recommendation,NMEstaff member Simon Williams wrote "Slowdive have banished the barrier restricting creativity... When they really relax, Slowdive can makeCocteau Twinssound likeMudhoney".Melody Makerawarded the EP its "Single of the Week" award, an accolade the band's next two EPs received.
Drummer Neil Carter joined from fellow Reading band the Colour Mary in time to play on theMorningriseEP,but left prior to its release in February 1991.Simon Scott took over on drums after his previous group, an alternative rock band calledthe Charlottes, broke up.TheHolding Our BreathEP followed in June 1991,reaching No. 52 in theUK Albums Chart,while the single "Catch the Breeze" topped theUK Indie Chart.
By mid-1991, Slowdive had been tagged a "shoegazing" band and part of "the scene that celebrates itself" by the British media.The term shoegazer was applied to bands that followedMy Bloody Valentine'sexample of abrasive guitars and ethereal vocals,while "the scene" represented these like-minded groups and their social behaviour; shoegazers typically mingled at each other's gigs.Slowdive toured with other shoegazing bands through summer 1991. The British music press became increasingly derisive of shoegazing as theBritpopandgrungemovements came underway.
Production on Slowdive's debut commenced shortly after Halstead convincedAlan McGee, head of Creation Records, that the band had enough songs written for a full-length album, which was not actually true. The group hurriedly wrote songs in the studio. Experimentation with sounds andcannabisoccurred during the process. Halstead drew lyrical inspiration from the abstract nature of the music. He recounted, "[We] went into a studio for six weeks and had no songs at the start and at the end we had an album".
Their debut,Just for a Day, was released in September 1991 and placed in the top 10 on the UK Indie Chart.NMEgave the record a positive review,but most of the press generally disliked the album as a backlash against shoegazing began.As writer Peter Buckley put it, the album was "dismissed as dreary and lacking in ideas".Melody Makerwriter Paul Lester railed against the debut, calling it a "major fucking letdown".This backlash worsened when critics reevaluated shoegazing after the release of My Bloody Valentine'sLovelessin November 1991.
A tour of the United Kingdom followed in autumn 1991. Afterward, the group made their first visit to the United States and toured withalternative rockbandBlur. A tour of Europe followed in February 1992.Slowdive's US labelSBK Recordsplanned to releaseJust for a Dayat the beginning of the year, but not before initiating aviral marketingcampaign. The band's name was stenciled outsideMTVand radio stations inNew York. Fans stencilled their heads when Slowdive played inManhattan. The campaign caused some controversy when a statue celebrating the end of slavery was unveiled and had the word "Slowdive" stencilled on it. SBK eventually pushed the release date back three months, which hurt the viral campaign.
While they toured in early 1992 to supportBlue Day,a re-release of their early EP material, the band began writing songs for a follow-up album, but the negative coverage Slowdive received in the press affected their songwriting. "[It] did affect us as we were all teenagers at the time", said Scott in a 2009 interview, "[We] couldn't understand why people were so outraged by our sound that they had to tell theNMEor whoever that they wanted us dead!"Approximately 40 songs were recorded and rerecorded as the group became very self-conscious of their writing and how it might be received. When McGee listened to the new material, he subsequently dismissed it, stating, "They're all shit". The band discarded all the music and started over.In a 2009 interview, Halstead vividly recalled the incident: "I remember going to start the record in a studio inBath.Spiritualizedhad just been there and left a hugeScalextricin the live room. I remember thinking this was the height of indulgence! Ironically we scrapped everything we recorded...we had to start the record again back inOxfordshire. We should have just played with the Scalextric for a month".
When the band returned to the UK, they wrote a letter toambientvisionaryBrian Enoand requested he produce their second studio album. Eno responded and told them he liked their music, but wanted to collaborate, not produce.Halstead later called the recording session "one of the most surreal stoned experiences of [his] life"."The first thing he did when he walked into the studio was to rip the clock off the wall and put it by themixing desk", Halstead remembered. "He then said 'Okay, you're going to play the guitar and I'm going to record it. I don't care what you are going to play, just play something.'" Two songs from the collaboration appeared on the ensuing album: "Sing", which was co-written with Eno, and "Here She Comes", where Eno played keyboards.
Creation Records wanted Slowdive to produce a commercial-sounding album.Halstead agreed: "We wanted to make a 'pop' record but it took a while to record".At one point, Halstead suddenly left in summer 1992, seeking seclusion in a Welsh cottage. Savill, Chaplin and Scott were left in a recording studio inWeston-super-Mare, and while waiting for Halstead's return, recorded some "joke songs". To their misfortune, McGee acquired them and became despondent, by which time Halstead had arrived with new music, including "Dagger" and "40 Days".The band named their second studio albumSouvlakiafter a skit performed bythe Jerky Boys, an American comedy duo that recordedprank phone calls.
Souvlakiwas released in May 1993 alongside the EPOutside Your Room,a few months afterSuedereleased theirpopular debutand the Britpop movement began.Critical reaction, as with their previous album, was generally negative.NMEwriter John Mulvey gave an ambivalent review. Despite noting their dated and "unfulfilling" sound, he did call it an "exemplary product". Dave Simpson, writing forMelody Maker, declared, "[This] record is a soulless void [...] I would rather drown choking in a bath full of porridge than ever listen to it again".To make matters worse, Slowdive booked a tour with fellow shoegazersCatherine Wheelfor a tour of the United States, only to find SBK had pushed the album's US release date back eight months. The band recorded an EP, titled5 EP, and started a modest tour through Europe with dream pop bandCranes. Scott was unhappy with the gap between releases and quit the band in 1994.
A marketing campaign was started in early 1994 to promoteSouvlakiin the United States, whichAllMusicwriter Andy Kellman said would "undoubtedly go down in industry history as one of the laziest ever"; SBK sent fans a release flyer and were told that if they copied and posted 50 flyers around town, they would receive a free copy ofSouvlaki. Fans who participated had to document their progress with photographs to prove they performed the activity.Halfway through theSouvlakiUS tour, SBK pulled their funding and left Slowdive to pay the rest themselves. In 1994, the band funded two small tours of the United States using money raised through the sale of a live tape and a tour programme that mocked the record label.
Scott was replaced on drums by Ian McCutcheon. By the recording of their third and then-final studio album,Pygmalion, Halstead had moved Slowdive away from the dreamy guitar sound and warm yet solemn tone of earlier releases to a newer, more minimalist extreme, similar to heavily ambient bands such asSeefeel,A.R. KaneandLabradford.
Slowdive were dropped by Creation a week after the release ofPygmalion(as wereSwervedrivernot long after).
Shortly after being dropped by Creation, Halstead, Goswell and McCutcheon recorded an album of country-influenced songs, and were signed to label4AD, changing the band name toMojave 3to reflect the new musical direction. This group is currently on hiatus.
Drummer Scott went on to form Televise, taking the ambient shoegazing sound and pushing it into electronic fields similar toFennesz. He joinedLowgoldin 1999. Scott later went on to release solo records on the12k, Miasmah, Sonic Pieces andKompaktlabels, and co-write and perform withGhostly International-signed Seattle bandthe Sight Below.
Savill went on to formMonster Movie, a dream pop group that maintained much of the older Slowdive style. They have released four studio albums and an EP to date. Pre-Slowdive, Savill was in a band called Eternal, which also included Monster Movie member Sean Hewson.
Halstead and Goswell have both released solo studio albums on 4AD, and Halstead formed the side project Black Hearted Brother in 2013.Goswell joined the supergroupMinor Victoriesin 2015.
Halstead also recorded with a side project called Zurich with members ofSeefeeland Knives ov Resistance; the trio's sole studio album was released in 2009.
After a SlowdiveTwitteraccount and website were launched in January 2014,it was announced that Slowdive had re-formed to play the 2014Primavera Soundfestival inBarcelonaandPorto.A 20-date summer world tour was announced, including performances at theElectric Picnicfestival inStradbally,County Laois; theFYF Festin Los Angeles; the Fortress Festival inFort Worth, Texas; theWave-Gotik-Treffenfestival inLeipzig; theRoskilde Festivalin Denmark;the Radar Festival inItalyand theOff FestivalinKatowice, Poland. A North American tour, also 20 dates, was announced for October and November 2014.Former drummer Simon Scott returned to the band for the reunion. Ian McCutcheon, the band’s final drummer prior to their break-up, who had later joined Halstead and Goswell in Mojave 3, did not return.
In January 2017, Slowdive released "Star Roving", their first single in 22 years, onDead Oceans.Their self-titled fourth studio album,Slowdive, was released in May 2017, preceded by another single, "Sugar for the Pill".
In September 2020, Slowdive announced they had begun work on their fifth studio album.In April 2023, the band confirmed on a podcast that they had finished their new album.The lead single, "Kisses", was released on 20 June 2023, and later that month the band played theGlastonbury Festivalfor the first time.The album's second single, "Skin in the Game", was released on 18 July 2023, followed by "The Slab" and "Alife" in August, and the albumEverything Is Alivewas released on 1 September 2023. It became the band's first top ten album in any country, doing so in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
Music journalistSimon Reynoldswrote that "Halstead was more influenced byPink Floydthan by theSex Pistols. Slowdive's formative pop experiences involve post-punk groups likethe CureandSiouxsie and the Banshees, whose artsy approach was closer to '70s progressive groups than punk's angry minimalism".Halstead stated that Slowdive wanted "to create something big and beautiful and sort of timeless".Other names he and Goswell mentioned wereDavid Bowie,the Byrds,the Rolling Stones,Cocteau Twins,My Bloody Valentineandthe Jesus and Mary Chain's debut studio album,Psychocandy(1985).Bassist Nick Chaplin's favorite band is the Cure, which also manifested in Slowdive's music.
Their sound has been described asshoegaze,dream pop,andambient.
Slowdive were initially dismissed by the British independent music press. While reviews of the band's early extended plays were favorable,Slowdive's reputation took a downturn with the release of their debut album,Just for a Day, which received middling reviews from publications such asMelody MakerandSelect.In 1991,Richey Edwards, guitarist and lyricist ofManic Street Preachers, proclaimed: "We will always hate Slowdive more thanHitler."Upon its release,Souvlakiwas received similarly negatively;Melody Maker's Dave Simpson infamously wrote, "I would rather drown choking in a bath full of porridge than ever listen to it again", three years after the publication praised the band's EPs for being "impossible, immaculate and serene".The band theorised that they came across as too soft and feminine, and were overshadowed by the emergence ofBritpopat the same time. Said Goswell of Britpop: "It was veryladdy."About the band's initial poor reviews, Goswell said: "Within about a year of being in the industry, I became very disenchanted, because of the treatment that we got from this small amount of UK journalists. Obviously, they held a lot of power in this country at that point."In 2004,The Independentreferred to Slowdive as a "long-forgotten indie band".
The band's reputation was mended by critics throughout the 2010s, who acclaimed Slowdive as one of the best shoegaze bands.Upon Slowdive's re-formation in 2014, the band began playing to larger crowds than they did during their initial run, and members realized that they were more famous and recognisable than ever before.Music writers noted Slowdive's modern popularity as part of shoegaze's revival in popularity with youngerMillennialsandGeneration Z.
Members
Former members
Touring members
Studio albums