Despite any outward appearance of rigidity or cohesiveness, bands are pretty nebulous things. Some really are dependent on the sum of their parts (re: R.E.M., The Beatles) while others, like The Cure or The Fall, really only revolve around one person's creative vision. Somewhere in the middle are those bands that are held together more by a concept or sound than any particular collection of people. When the concept changes, the band ceases to be. Such is the case with Slowdive, an embattled group from the most poorly-timed musical movement in recent memory. At the center of Slowdive was Neil Halstead and Rachel Goswell, the only consistent members of the band. After a pretty brutal run of the music business in the early 90's, the two of them sallied forth with one of the several drummers they'd picked up over the years to form Mojave 3, an alt-country act on that bastion of all things weird, 4AD Records. The concept changed, even if the people really didn't.

• Celia's Dream

• Catch The Breeze
• Waves
• Brighter
• The Sadman
• Primal

Slowdive's first studio album was 1991's Just For A Day. Its story is pretty much the story of the entire Shoegaze movement. In the late 1980's a bunch of bands decided to take the sound pioneered by the Scottish alternative stalwarts in The Cocteau Twins and turn it into the new rock. Shoegaze relied on a departure from the posturing and simplicity of traditional rock, preferring a forward-thinking concept of musical surrealism. Too bad both sides of the Atlantic had other plans. Simultaneously, Grunge and Brit Pop hit the scene and thoroughly dominated. Shoegaze became a whipping boy, effectively killing the genre even though some really excellent albums emerged at the time. Along with My Bloody Valentine's Loveless and Lush's Spooky, Just For A Day is part of the sound that never became as big as it wanted to be.

• Alison
• Machine Gun
• 40 Days
• Souvlaki Space Station
• When The Sun Hits
• Altogether
• Good Day Sunshine

Though it got knocked around by Creation Records and even more by Slowdive's American distributor SBK, Souvlaki is now considered one of the most definitive Shoegaze records of all time. Like a lot of impressive albums, it was touched by ambient pioneer Brian Eno. In this case, he acted as a collaborator rather than a producer. Souvlaki is Slowdive's most energetic album. It's full of stunning tech tricks and some of Neil Halstead's best lyrics. There are also occasional hints of the more organic sound Halstead, Goswell and drummer Ian McCutcheon would pursue as Mojave 3.

• Rutti
• Crazy For You
• Blue Skied 'n Clear

Even if you don't know the internal struggle that happened with Slowdive in 1994, it's not hard to hear the end of the band in their last album, Pygmalion. They all but abandoned pop concepts, opting for long, thoroughly radio-unfriendly tracks and often avant garde excursions. For anyone interested in Slowdive and especially in Shoegaze, it's the absolute worst place to start. Pygmalion does, however, serve as a missing link between Shoegaze and Post Rock. It was misguided at best to think that Shoegaze was ever going to replace snotty power-chord rock. It was always at the more experimental end of pop. It's a lot easier to hear the likes of Mogwai in Pygmalion than anything that would grace the Top 40.

Halstead and Goswell carved out an effectively permanent place for themselves on 4AD following the end of Slowdive. Mojave 3 arrived early at the alt-country buffet that would have a brief but memorable surge in the early 00's. Later this week we'll be going over some of their best.