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Dream Pop

Manchester, Factory Records, 1978

The Durutti Column

The Durutti Column took its name from the Durruti Column, an anarchist unit in the Spanish Civil War, by way of a 1966 Situationist comic strip. From 1978 it was the vehicle for Manchester guitarist Vini Reilly, one of the first acts Tony Wilson signed to Factory Records. Reilly's classically trained, echoing guitar shaped The Return of the Durutti Column in 1980: nine instrumentals, produced by Martin Hannett, in a sleeve made of sandpaper. Percussionist Bruce Mitchell joined in 1981 and became a regular collaborator. In 1987 The Guitar and Other Machines was the first UK album released on Digital Audio Tape. A stroke in 2011 left Reilly unable to play the guitar the way he once had.

Hampshire schoolfriends, London band

The Clientele

The Clientele started with Alasdair MacLean and James Hornsey, schoolfriends in Hampshire who hit it off when MacLean noticed the name Felt on Hornsey's pencil case. The band, first called The Butterfly Collectors, dates itself to 1991 and moved to London after re-forming in 1997. The compilation Suburban Light came out in 2000, then The Violet Hour in 2003, Strange Geometry in 2005, God Save The Clientele in 2007 and Bonfires on the Heath in 2009, with lyrics that lean heavily on early twentieth-century surrealism. They announced an indefinite hiatus in 2011, which ended with a Brooklyn show in 2014. Since then they have released Music for the Age of Miracles in 2017 and I Am Not There Anymore in 2023.

Mitcham, Sarah Records

The Field Mice

The Field Mice started in Mitcham, south London, in 1987 as a duo of Bobby Wratten and Michael Hiscock, and became one of the defining bands on Bristol's Sarah Records. The early records were spare and fragile. Soon they brought in drum machines and synths, and the songs got longer and dreamier. Harvey Williams joined on guitar in 1989, and Annemari Davies and Mark Dobson in 1990, while they put out a string of singles and mini-albums and, in 1991, their only full album. The band ended that year after a hard tour, with Wratten announcing he was leaving at King Tut's in Glasgow. He went on to Northern Picture Library and Trembling Blue Stars. LTM reissued the catalogue in 2005.

After Slowdive, 4AD, 1995

Mojave 3

Mojave 3 formed in 1995, when Creation dropped Slowdive and three of its members, Neil Halstead, Rachel Goswell and Ian McCutcheon, started over on 4AD. They added the number because another band was already called Mojave. Slowdive had built walls of guitar. Mojave 3 slowed right down into country and folk, with pedal steel, piano and quiet harmonies, and were later joined by Alan Forrester on keyboards and Simon Rowe, formerly of Chapterhouse, on guitar. They made five albums between 1995 and 2006, then went quiet apart from a few shows in 2011. Halstead and Goswell reformed Slowdive in 2014, and that band has put out two albums since, the latest Everything Is Alive in 2023.

The Collection