Where You Are Tee

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Taking its name from a word in a dream of bass player Nick Chaplin, and not from a Siouxsie and the Banshees single (as many have assumed), Slowdive immediately fit in with the British “shoegazing” scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s. This movement, also referred to as “dreampop” by music journalists, surfaced in the United Kingdom with the waning of New Wave and post-punk and just prior to the rise of American grunge and Britpop. Ethereal and otherworldly, the music these bands produced was typified by waves of distortion, swirling keyboards and percussion, and ethereal voices. The press called these musicians “shoegazers” for their tendency to look downward, instead of at the audience, while onstage. Musically, their style contained a broad range of rock/ pop influences, from 1980s phenomenon like the Cure, the Cocteau Twins, and the Jesus and Mary Chain to classic inspirations such as the Velvet Underground and the Stooges.

Souvlaki was made by awkward fringe teenagers, the same kind of eccentric, music-obsessed kids in your hometown. Born in Fareham and later moved to Reading, Rachel Goswell and Neil Halsted met each other when they were six years old. They went to the same schools, knew the same kids, and learned to play guitar from the same teachers. Still, their friendship didn’t bloom until their adolescent days spent at the local youth center, where Neil was charged with setting up musical equipment. Goswell and her friend, Alison, wanted to start a group, so they would show up to play the instruments. An ostensibly scattered personality, Alison soon lost interest and abandoned the rock band pursuit, leaving Goswell to play with Halstead. However, her pursuit of making music was unwavering, and he was around, having passed her by many times between classical guitar lessons.

Slowdive hung out within the narrow Reading rock scene, attending shows at After Dark Club, where they saw the bands that influenced their sound and formation, including, Spacemen 3 (referred to as godfathers of shoegaze) and My Bloody Valentine (who became their peers/contemporaries). Savill particularly glommed onto the odd guitar tunings and immense sounds created by My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields and proto-shoegazers Kitchens of Distinction. It wasn’t until Savill joined the band that they began cranking up the reverb, experimenting with flanger and delay pedals, recording their first songs, and transforming into the Slowdive that we know, a group with their own idiosyncrasies that wasn’t just trying to play into the shoegaze genre or whatever was popular in contemporary rock. 

The long-standing respect given to Souvlaki shows that it isn’t bogged down by a fleeting trend. Yes, it is pinned to a particular style, but it transcends the movement, standing on its own singular merit. The opener and sole single, “Alison” – about two co-dependent, drug-addled youths trying to communicate through their highs – exemplifies the entire album with total effort. The song roves on steady rhythms from sure-handed guitars, drums, and lead vocals from Halstead, complimented by Goswell’s harmonies in the chorus.

Many songs are lyrically enigmatic, yet obvious in the context of heartbreak, as Halstead dives deep into sinking imagery (“Machine Gun”), shadows that look like his soul (“Here She Comes”), and dancing and sleeping figures (most songs), possibly alluding to an emotional distance between the two, such as in “Altogether” when Halstead sings “Sleepyhead, where did you go / I saw you turning, but I couldn’t catch your eye” between classic Beatles-esque pop harmonizations of “yeah, yeah, yeah”. A sense comes across of a relationship heavy with infatuation on one side and casually light on the other. His romance ended as a painful dream, with both of their feelings poorly communicated. Souvlaki’s lasting glory shows that shoegazing is not just a novelty trend that dissolved shortly after solidifying, which is more than can be said about many musical trends that seem to lose life shortly after birth.