Props are due to Swiss Adam over at Bagging Area for a little while ago posted some stuff from David Holmes latest project, Blind on a Galloping Horse and all of the oh-so-many remixes which have been released in conjunction.
I have a couple of Holmes’ early albums logged away on the CD racks, and Adam’s posts inspired me to a) revisit the ones I already owned – what a treat!, and b) shell out for the new stuff – what a treat!
This, then, is from Blind On a Galloping Horse Remixes, Vol.1; bleepy, squelchy, spacey and dubby, it’s just perfect for this series:
I was never all that enamoured with the whole “shoegaze” movement from the turn of the ’90s; bar Ride and Lush, I never heard anything by Slowdive, Chapterhouse, Revolver and the rest of the scene that floated my boat.
But having heard Slowdive’s comeback single, “Star Roving”,their first release in, I think, 22 years, I’m wondering if I rather missed out.
As you will know, I have a policy of not posting links to mp3s of new or current songs, so instead here’s the video for “Star Roving”
If the rest of their new stuff is as great as that, I hope there’s not another 22 year gap between releases.
It’s been bugging me for a while just what that reminds me of, and then it came to me earlier today. This, by David Holmes, which I first heard when it was used in the opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics:
I think it’s the vocal that leads me from one to the other; I’m assuming that the vocal on the Slowdive track is Neil Halstead, and wondered if perhaps he had loaned his dulcet tones to the David Holmes track, but other than my slightly wonky hearing, I can’t find any evidence to support this. It seems it’s Holmes himself warbling on “I See Wonders”.
Both vocals, it seems, owe quite a lot to this lot, and specifically to William Reid, who sings lead on this one, as opposed to the more-recognised (because he sang all of the singles…because he’s the lead singer….) sibling, Jim Reid:
A History of Dubious Taste 