Mojave 3

During the interval separating the taping and issuance of Slowdive’s atmospheric Pygmalion, Neil Halstead began composing more traditionally structured songs to fill idle stretches. Not long after Creation let the group go, Halstead joined Rachel Goswell and Ian McCutcheon to cut six demos in three days, mostly live and without overdubs. Their manager took the results to Ivo Watts-Russell at 4AD, who promptly supplied funds for additional recording. Sensing that the new material had drifted too far for the Slowdive name to fit, the trio chose Mojave and later appended the numeral 3 for legal reasons. Once signed to 4AD, the original six tracks plus three further songs became the 1996 album Ask Me Tomorrow. Its understated, economical, and downcast tone prompted comparisons to Mazzy Star and Cowboy Junkies and occasional, contested nods toward country. Rather than genuine country, the sound resembled an acoustic Slowdive edged with a faint twang. The band toured steadily for several months, including a 4AD package outing across the United States with Scheer and Lush billed as the “Shaving the Pavement Tour.”

The break from Slowdive’s earlier identity was sealed by 1998’s Out of Tune. Brighter in mood and more elaborate in arrangement, the record formally welcomed former Chapterhouse guitarist Simon Rowe and keyboardist Alan Forrester, whose presence helped enrich the ensemble texture. Around this time Mojave 3, and Halstead’s classicist songwriting in particular, began attracting favorable parallels to Bob Dylan, Nick Drake, and Neil Young. Two years later Excuses for Travellers arrived, essentially a hybrid of the band’s first two albums. Three years passed—interrupted by a Halstead solo project—before Spoon and Rafter appeared, an album assembled over the course of a year at the group’s Cornwall studio. Goswell was next to step out alone; her 2004 release Waves Are Universal met with both critical and commercial indifference. Perhaps sensing a similar apathy, the band discarded its established approach on 2006’s Puzzles Like You, successfully recasting itself as an upbeat pop outfit occasionally tempered by country-tinged ballads.