The Aliens

The retro-futurist collective the Aliens first assembled in 2005, although its three principals had already performed together in the cult-favorite Scottish group the Beta Band. Steve Mason and Gordon Anderson, both singers and guitarists, launched that earlier project in Edinburgh during 1996. Initially called the Pigeons, the pair recruited bassist Steve Duffield, drummer Robin Jones, and DJ/keyboardist John Maclean while finishing work on the landmark EP Champion Versions. Once those sessions concluded, Anderson withdrew because of illness and began issuing self-released albums as Lone Pigeon, among them 28 Secret Tracks, Moses, and Auckley Craw. Meanwhile the Beta Band attracted widespread attention from the global music press, highlighted by the 1998 appearance of the classic compilation The Three E.P.'s.

Subsequent Beta Band albums, 2001’s Hot Shots II and 2004’s Heroes to Zeros, drew further praise and placed consistently high on the British pop charts, yet the band repeatedly voiced dissatisfaction with its own recordings and closed its career with a farewell concert in Edinburgh on December 5, 2004. Not long afterward, Maclean and Jones rejoined Anderson to form the Aliens, whose first studio outing arrived in mid-2006 as the EP Alienoid Starmonica. Trading the Beta Band’s dub and trip-hop textures for psychedelia and glam, the release received favorable notices and paved the way for the full-length Astronomy for Dogs, which followed a year later.

Health difficulties forced Anderson to withdraw from activity for much of early 2008, leading the Aliens to cancel several dates and postpone work on a second album. After his return, the trio appeared at European festivals and completed the recording of Luna, issued in the U.K. before the end of that year and in the United States in 2009.