Senior Project Article #7: Chapterhouse

Hailing from Redding, England, Chapterhouse made a large impact on the underground with minimal output.  Much like The Stone Roses, Chapterhouse's output only consisted of two albums and a few singles.  The influence they would have on their peers and followers, however, was much more prominent. 

            

Formed in 1989, Chapterhouse consisted of Andrew Sherriff and Stephen Patman, who shared vocal and guitar duties, Simon Rowe on guitar, Jon Curtis on bass, and Ashley Bates on drums.  The band would release a pair of e.p.'s in late 1990 that blended the chaotic feedback blast of My Bloody Valentine and The Jesus & Mary Chain, with the dance rhythms of Happy Mondays and The Stone Roses.

            

Whirlpool, the band's debut album, was released on April 29, 1991 and quickly became one of the cornerstones of the shoegaze genre.  "Breather," the album's opener, starts with that feeling you have when you're falling in your sleep and you wake up just before you hit the ground.  From there there's a kaleidoscopic swirl of light and shimmering colors -  "On my own / tears and sorrow set me right / Taught me how to dream tonight," Sherriff and Patman harmonize gently over the quick, chaotic rush of the music. 

The album's second track, "Pearl" reached number 67 on the U.K. singles charts.  "Pearl," which features backing vocals from Rachel Goswell of fellow Redding shoegazers Slowdive, is early evidence of the electronic textures Chapterhouse would explore following their debut.  When the song breaks leaving only a backwards-looped drumbeat, the guitar cords that follow hit the listener like fresh ocean waves on a summer's day, as the band bursts into the songs final chorus, elevated by Goswell's gentle falsetto. 

            

The album switches modes from quiet and drifting, to loud, crashing and chaotic, all while mixing house-influenced dance grooves with thick, glistening guitar haze.  "Falling Down," which led off the band's debut e.p., features a swirl of dance grooves and wah-wah guitar funk drawn straight from the then-burgeoning Madchester acid-house scene, with Patman and Sherriff's breathy vocals buried deep in the mix.  "If You Want Me," the albums penultimate song, gently captures the yearning of the heart, before exploding in a climatic rush that is as exhilarating as the feelings its lyrics are drawn from, and all in under three minutes.  "Something More," the lead track from the band's second e.p., is a scintillating drifter that morphs from gentle drift to raging swells as the album closes.

            

The band followed Whirlpool with Mesmerise, a four-track e.p. which saw the band delve more into their electronic influences.  The title track, a gentle pop groove over a piano loop, would fit nicely alongside the work of electronic-rock pioneers New Order, while "Then We'll Rise" sways in its 3/4 waltz.  The single would be an indication of the musical styles the band would explore two years later on their anticipated follow-up album.

            

Chapterhouse would return in October 1993 with Blood Music, a dense array of electronic synthesizers, ringing guitars and drum loops, influenced by the electronic music of New Order and Kraftwerk, with the ecstasy-fuelled rave music of The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays.  Much of the album flows seamlessly from one song to the next, one dance beat giving way to the next; the stretches of chaos and noise are nearly non-existent, the band opting more for groove and gentle melody - think Dark Side of the Moon goes clubbing.  “We Are the Beautiful” and “She’s a Vision” the album's singles, mix driving guitar with club beats and soul-influenced backing vocals, while “Summer’s Gone” ripples like cool water touched by a summer’s breeze.

            

“Everytime” continues the indie-guitar riff over house music drum-and-bass groove aesthetic of the album, its pulsing synth-bass continuing into “Deli,” six-plus minutes of instrumental trance-groove shuffle, which then flows seamlessly into “On the Way to Fly,” an abstract meditation on mortality.  “You find it out / When you lose your life / You see the truth / When the world lets you down / I want peace / I want life / Pleasure / Never / Time sleeps / On the way to fly,” they sing softly, the vocal style being one of the few holdovers from the band’s debut album. 

            

In the album's final third, “She’s a Vision” gives way to the driving guitars on the quick-tempo “Greater Power,” which is the closest the band gets stylistically to the songs on Whirlpool.  This flows into the loping bass of “Confusion Trip,” which leads into the gentle groove and infectious chorus of the album's optimistic closer, “Love Forever,” the gentle vocals drifting away as the ringing guitars fade out.

            

Unfortunately, Blood Music, was not particularly well-received by the British music press, who by 1993 were turning on the genre they acclaimed two years earlier, and many fans initially weren’t on board with the Chapterhouse’s change in direction.  With time though, many of the band's fans came to appreciate the album as a groundbreaking effort that would have likely found favor with the music press had it come out in the latter ‘90’s, when acts ranging from David Bowie and David Byrne, to U2 and Smashing Pumpkins were experimenting with electronic textures and club-influenced dance rhythms.  If the listener can step away from listening for the album that he or she wants the band to make following Whirlpool; and listen for the album that the band wanted to make, the beauty of Blood Music reveals itself.

            

Following a US tour supporting The Wonder Stuff, Chapterhouse did a brief UK tour before calling it a day, claiming they had done what they wanted to do musically.  Fourteen years later, Patman and Sherriff joined German DJ Ulrich Strauss on stage at the Truck Festival in Oxfordshire, England, in July 2008, for a rendition of “Love Forever.”  This would result in the band reforming for a pair of UK shows that November.  In 2009, the band embarked on a brief string of shows in Japan and North America; popping up to say hello to their fans before calling it quits.  Despite their meager output, Chapterhouse left a large influence on the world of ethereal rock music, and their influence can be heard in the works of Ulrich Strauss and Sigur Ros.

Senior Project Article #6: Slowdive

Cool and tranquil, flowing with the speed of a glacial ice drift; Slowdive is the band that the British music press based their description of shoegazers on.  Their music is all about big, slow, lush, dreamlike walls of sound, vocals half-whispered, but guitars deafeningly loud.  Their music is meditative, and gentle, but has grandness in the spirit of Pink Floyd; Slowdive’s is music meant more for private moments alone than epic rock spectacle.  They lack the faster, more chaotic aspects of their contemporaries, like My Bloody Valentine, Chapterhouse, and Catherine Wheel. And, unlike Ride, their major style-shift wasn’t from experimental to more commercial, it was from experimental to quieter, sparser, and even less commercial.

Formed in Reading, England in 1989, Slowdive was fronted by singer/guitarist Neil Halstead, and singer/guitarist Rachel Goswell.  Christian Savill joined on guitar, along with Nick Chaplain on bass; Simon Scott eventually settled the lineup as they signed to Creation Records in 1990.  They released their self-titled debut e.p., featuring the songs “Slowdive,” “Avalyn I,” and the eight-minute instrumental “Avalyn II.”  The following year they released the Morningrise e.p., and the Holding Our Breath e.p., before releasing their debut album, Just for a Day, in September 1991. 

            

Full and lush, Just for a Day relies on heavier synthesizer usage than their early e.p.’s; it is an album meant to be experienced as a whole, and had little chance for any commercial breakthrough.  The British music press, who had been lauding accolades on the band’s first e.p.’s turned on Slowdive as the shoegazer backlash began in the press.  The arrival of American grunge bands began to have an erosive effect on the press’s short-lived love affair with the shoegazer genre, and though they had yet to turn completely on bands with faster, slightly more accessible songs, Slowdive’s dirges were quickly panned.  With gentle, hushed vocals from Halstead and Goswell, and crashing waves of guitar drone, “Spanish Air” opens the album; it's methodical rhythms and ambient keyboards sounding reminiscent of The Cure’s Faith album.  The album is full of echoes and rings, drifts and flows, never rushing anything for even a second, while emitting great sonic power; Just for a Day is pure headphone music, meant for eyes-closed meditation.  By the time “Primal,” the album’s closing number, reaches its soaring, epic climax, the listener has the feeling of having been lifted through the air, only to quickly be dropped when the guitars cut out, bringing the album to its close.

            

The band also faced difficulty with their U.S. record label, SBK Records, which set up a viral marketing campaign to make American audiences aware of the album's impending U.S. release, then pushing the release date back four months.  Following a U.S. tour in 1992 supporting Ride, Slowdive returned to the studio to begin working on their follow up, the negative press had begun taking it's toll, making Halstead feel insecure in his songwriting during the albums labored recording.  Plans to have legendary producer / musician Brian Eno produce the second album fell through, resulting in only a couple of session, but it sparked Halstead to compose the strongest material of the band’s catalog.

 

            

Souvlaki, is a grand epic, soaring and building through nearly every song; the album has slightly quicker tempos, meaning they get up the slower end of the mid-tempo range, but the guitar atmospherics raise the listener to new heights.  The band put together a collection that even contains multiple songs that could conceivably be put into some kind of radio rotation; maybe not on a major alternative station, like Los Angeles’ KROQ, but perhaps late at night on NPR or college radio (though the band did get heavy support from KROQ’s legendary D.J., Rodney Bingenheimer’s Rodney on the ROQ show).  The album, released in the UK in June 1993, bursts open with “Alison,” which had been released on the In Your Room e.p. in May.  The song builds and swirls, with rising guitar over Halstead and Goswell’s gentle harmonies.  The guitar sounds captured on Souvlaki aim for the heavens; sonic explorations of space and emotion, and are prevalent throughout the album.  “Sing,” from the sessions with Eno, the Velvet Undergroud-esque “Here She Comes,” and “Altogether” provide the quieter moments on the album, while “Souvlaki Space Station” and “When The Sun Hits” mark the strongest one-two punch on any Slowdive release - taking the listener through the stratosphere, with soaring ethereal guitars. "Souvlaki Space Station" opens with delayed guitars ringing, before taking off with more drive than anything in the band’s catalog.  Goswells floating voice is unintelligible, but this is really lyric based music; this is music to float along with and be carried away by.  "When The Sun Hits" begins light and unassuming, "Sweet thing, I watch you / Burn so fast it scares me / My game, please don't leave me / Come so far, don't lose me...," Halstead gently intones in the first verse, the band gently drifting behind his voice; then as he sings the first verse's final line, "...It matters where you are," the heavens open in a burst of sound that feels like sunlight breaking through the clouds.  The guitars ascend like jet engines and the song propels itself forward into a defining moment for the band; it is the creative peak for a young band whose sole intention was sonic exploration.

            

The band's difficulties with the American arm of their label continued, however, and following a brief U.S. tour supporting Catherine Wheel in 1993, the band was forced to pay for the subsequent North American tour themselves, through sales of a self-recorded and produced live cassette, after SBK pulled funding for the tour.  As the band entered the studio in 1994 to begin work on their third album, Halstead had a new experimental direction in mind, causing drummer Simon Scott to depart the group due to musical differences.  Ian McCutcheon replaced Scott as the band set off in a new musical direction.

            

The resulting album, Pygmalion was a drastic departure from the distortion-filled walls of sound the band had made their name with.  Heavily influenced by the experimental latter albums Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock by Talk Talk, Pygmalion is sparse, leaving room for the listener's imagination to fill in the blanks.  The album is as adventurous as anything Slowdive had done, and stands as a direct challenge to listeners looking for the band who thought the band only had one sound in their repertoire; however, by 1995 the press had fully embraced the Britpop movement and Creation Records decided they would rather reap the benefits of the chart-topping Britpop group Oasis, rather than promote intentionally un-commercial groups, like Slowdive, who were dropped by the label following the release of Pygmalion.  Savil and Chaplain then departed the group, leaving Halstead, Goswell, and McCutcheon to form the group Mojave 3, who moved in a more acoustic direction. 

            

Despite their lack of commercial success, Slowdive has proven to be a highly influential group, helping to inform the sound of Secret Machines, Iceland's Sugur Ros, and Canada's God Speed You! Black Emporor.  With their thick, glacial sound, Slowdive embodied the sound and style of the shoegazer genre more than any other band of their time.