Sub Sub

Sub Sub seems destined to be remembered chiefly as the group that preceded Doves. During the early 1990s, however, the trio ranked among the most promising acts to emerge from Manchester, England’s chemically charged rave scene. The lineup—twins Jez Williams and Andy Williams together with their former classmate Jimi Goodwin—channeled an acid-house aesthetic that captured the hallucinatory atmosphere of Britain’s subterranean clubs. Their 1993 single “Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use)” climbed to number three on the British singles chart, and the band also worked with Tricky as well as New Order’s Bernard Sumner. The album Full Fathom Five appeared in 1995, yet that same year an electrical fire destroyed the Williams brothers’ studio on their birthday, wiping out every tape and piece of gear. Although Sub Sub had already begun moving away from pure techno, the group formally abandoned those rhythms in 1998 and re-formed as Doves. Trading turntables and sequencers for guitars and drums, the newly named band issued its first long-player, Lost Souls, in 2000. Where the earlier hit had locked Sub Sub into a dance-music identity, Doves gave the members room to pursue their longstanding interest in the Velvet Underground and the Smiths.