Life Without Buildings

The moniker Life Without Buildings derived from a Japan B-side, yet the Glasgow quartet drew greater inspiration from multiple post-punk acts, among them Talking Heads, whose style the name itself evoked. During the summer of 1999 the four members—Will Bradley on drums, Chris Evans on bass, Robert Johnston on guitar, and Sue Tompkins on vocals—came together at the Glasgow School of Art and merged their skills through a shared enthusiasm for proto- and post-punk groups such as Television, ESG, and early PiL. Listeners frequently linked their sound to the late-’70s Rough Trade aesthetic, whose roster was distinguished by jerky and martial rhythms, minimal instrumentation, and vocals that alternated between singing and speaking. That affinity prompted the Rough Trade-affiliated Tugboat label to commission a single after the band’s debut London performance. Issued in March 2000, the resulting release paired “The Leanover” with “New Town” and earned them a recording contract. A series of radio sessions followed, one of which was recorded for Steve Lamacq’s Evening Sessions on the BBC. A second single appeared in June, succeeded soon afterward by a third. Their first album, Any Other City, reached U.K. stores in late February 2001; DC/Baltimore 2012 brought the record to American audiences several months later. Although favorable comparisons proliferated to the point of becoming burdensome, Life Without Buildings remained a thoroughly contemporary pop outfit rather than a nostalgic garage-rock revival. Distinct from contemporaneous Scottish bands such as Travis and Arab Strap—only Johnston, after all, was Scottish—the group supplied an element that early-2000s music otherwise lacked. The quartet disbanded in 2002.