Biography
A rock outfit resistant to the prevailing trends of the early 1990s, Th' Faith Healers also stood apart from the prevailing U.K. indie climate of the period, their Krautrock leanings only later acquiring the cool cachet they lacked at the time; as a result their catalog has aged more gracefully than that of most peers. The quartet, rooted in Hampstead, England, comprised vocalist Roxanne Stephen, guitarist and backing singer Tom Cullinan, bassist Ben Hopkin, and drummer Joe Dilworth, and the musicians performed frequently at the local Sausage Machine venue. Proprietors Paul Cox and Richard Roberts subsequently launched the Too Pure imprint, making the band—whose terminal “e” had been dropped as a stylistic flourish, an omission the members attributed in jest to Thee Hypnotics—their inaugural act. Too Pure’s debut compilation, Now That’s Digusting Music, issued in May 1990, opened with the group’s “Jesus Freak,” while their own first single, “Pop Song,” followed that summer.
Two EPs arrived in 1991: Picture of Health in February, which spotlighted the standout track “Gorgeous Blue Flower in My Garden,” and In Love in October. The full-length debut, Lido, surfaced the following spring; its eight extended pieces unfolded as dense, trance-like grooves that proved louder than the texture-obsessed My Bloody Valentine and more propulsive than the contemporaneous work of labelmates Stereolab, who had borrowed Dilworth for their initial three singles and Peng! before settling on Andy Ramsay. No other act of the moment replicated the quartet’s sound. A frenetic reading of Can’s “Mother Sky,” pushed to the brink of overload, foregrounded the group’s Krautrock affinities.
An extended interval preceded the next release, prompting Too Pure to issue the stopgap compilation L, which collected prior single and EP material. The second album, Imaginary Friend, finally emerged in November 1993; it adopted a murkier, less frenetic tone than Lido, its hypnotic pulses reaching an extreme in the twenty-minute dirge “Everything, All at Once, Forever.” Following an extensive American tour alongside the Breeders at the height of the latter’s brief commercial moment, Th' Faith Healers dissolved in spring 1994. Cullinan launched Quickspace, Stephen resumed art studies, Dilworth established a photography studio, and Hopkin trained as a tree surgeon.
Two EPs arrived in 1991: Picture of Health in February, which spotlighted the standout track “Gorgeous Blue Flower in My Garden,” and In Love in October. The full-length debut, Lido, surfaced the following spring; its eight extended pieces unfolded as dense, trance-like grooves that proved louder than the texture-obsessed My Bloody Valentine and more propulsive than the contemporaneous work of labelmates Stereolab, who had borrowed Dilworth for their initial three singles and Peng! before settling on Andy Ramsay. No other act of the moment replicated the quartet’s sound. A frenetic reading of Can’s “Mother Sky,” pushed to the brink of overload, foregrounded the group’s Krautrock affinities.
An extended interval preceded the next release, prompting Too Pure to issue the stopgap compilation L, which collected prior single and EP material. The second album, Imaginary Friend, finally emerged in November 1993; it adopted a murkier, less frenetic tone than Lido, its hypnotic pulses reaching an extreme in the twenty-minute dirge “Everything, All at Once, Forever.” Following an extensive American tour alongside the Breeders at the height of the latter’s brief commercial moment, Th' Faith Healers dissolved in spring 1994. Cullinan launched Quickspace, Stephen resumed art studies, Dilworth established a photography studio, and Hopkin trained as a tree surgeon.
Albums
