For me, Souvlaki by Slowdive is one of the saddest albums of all time. Most likely it's a combination of the music itself as well as the events surrounding the period of my life during which I fell in love with Slowdive and this album. Either way, the first notes of "Alison" still make me feel this unexpected chilly loneliness of summer days spent in emotional collapse, convinced everything had fallen apart. I remember being drunk in the dark, alone, and listening to "Dagger," writing forlorn emails and pointed declarations about my misery and why nothing would ever be the same. Pretty intense shit that I wouldn't want to relive, but for a long time, this album felt like all I could bear to listen to most days. The shimmering, hazy textures of Souvlaki unveil pop songs buried beneath layers of ambience, and it makes sense that Brian Eno co-wrote/produced two of the tracks on the album.
In the reissue's liner notes, the band talks about how some of the album centered around the breakup of singer/guitar player Neil Halstead and guitarist/singer Rachel Goswell. Apparently, Neil took refuge in a Welsh cottage during the summer of 1992, holing up to write various songs (such as "Dagger") that would later appear on the album. Rachel also notes that much of the album's sound emerged from the band overdubbing and experimenting with different sounds while hanging out in the studio and getting stoned, some songs even ending up with 20 some tracks of guitar. Sounds like our recording process, not that we've come up with anything as great as Souvlaki, no matter how stoned.
I remember one late night of particular emotional vulnerability, drunk and stoned, having to DJ my show on the radio station at 4 AM and throwing on "Souvlaki Space Station" and letting it play into "When the Sun Hits." To me, these songs are the perfect centerpiece, the former being completely hazy, fucked up, lonely wandering through the town on some drunken night, visiting the usual haunts, visibly cracking as everything passes before one's self as a dark blur. The latter is waking up the next morning alone to find a new day has come, vaguely trying to recollect the previous night's embarrassments, leaving one thinking, "It matters where you are..."
From Slowdive's last show in Toronto, 1994:
Souvlaki Space Station
When the Sun Hits
Tonight I'm going to go see another one of my favorite bands play, The Armory.
3 comments:
yes to slowdive. yes.
thanks for sharing that barrett.
I met Neil once, or rather twice. He is kinda quiet and smokes Winston's. He was drinking, I believe, stella.
I didn't know that he was in slowdive when I met him because I only knew of his name connected to Mojave 3.
I failed to complement him on any of his music projects when we were together. I dunno, whenever I say "great music" to someone it seems to back fire so I just avoid saying stuff like that know.
Anyway, we talked about Calvin Johnson's solo music and listened to country records. He liked Holy Shit, so we got along. It wasn't until much later that I truly realized who he was. . . which was a good thing.
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