Well it’s here—”Star Roving,” the first taste of a new Slowdive album for Dead Oceans.
The group began to hint at a reunion record—their long overdue follow-up to 1995’s Pygmalion LP—in several 2014 interviews, with Rachel Goswell telling Under the Radar “I’d love to do another record! I think it would be great fun. We’ve had a little bit of jamming time in rehearsals. Not enough yet, but I think that will come as we go on, really.”
Meanwhile, Neil Halstead claimed to be surprised at the positive reception to Slowdive’s reunion tour, saying, “We’ve all been sort of shocked… I don’t think any of us really expected people to be as interested as they are or have been. There’s a point where I suppose it puts us under a bit more pressure to record a record, where initially it was just like ‘Oh, let’s maybe do a record.’”
In a press release shared this morning, he elaborated on their current plans: “When the band decided to get back together in 2014, we really wanted to make new music. It’s taken us a whole load of shows and a few false starts to get to that point, but it’s with pride and a certain trepidation we unleash ‘Star Roving.’ It’s part of a bunch of new tracks we’ve been working on and it feels as fun, and as relevant playing together now as it did when we first started. We hope folks enjoy it.”
“We are elated to work with Slowdive on their new album,” added Dead Oceans president Phil Walforf. “I saw Slowdive for the first time, as a teenager, in 1991 at the 9:30 Club in Washington DC. I remember it being a revelation—the way the band used texture and tone was something I’d never heard before, and it stuck with me for a long time. It was one of those gigs that was a gateway drug of sorts—not only was it amazing to see Slowdive, but it was the first taste of a whole sound that made me go exploring into all kinds of music. More than two decades later, their music sounds just as relevant and vital, and we cannot wait for old fans and new listeners to hear the band’s new recordings.”
