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Mojave 3 are Neil Halstead, Rachel Goswell, Ian McCutcheon,
Alan Forrester & Simon Rowe. They are regularly joined
by Melvin Duffy.
In 2002, Neil Halstead released his first solo album: Sleeping
On Roads. Crictics and fans alike lavished praise on it, and
Neil toured around the world for a year after it was released,
visiting Europe and Australia, and taking in America no fewer
than three times.
Every Mojave 3 album has sold more than its predecessor,
and Sleeping On Roads continued the upward curve; no doubt,
fans will be equally enthusiatic to learn that Rachel Goswell
has taken up the solo baton. She spent much of the first half
of 2003 recording her own solo record, which was released
in 2004.
But this burst of solo ambitions being realised doesn't mean
that the partnership between Neil and Rachel - which takes
in three albums with Slowdive and three more with Mojave 3
- is at an end. Proof positive comes in the form of Spoon
And Rafter, Mojave's fourth long-player, which was released
in September 2003. It wasn't a straightforward record to make
- solo commitments, busy schedules and the need for various
members of the band to shuttle between London and the band's
recently-completed recording studio in Cornwall meant that
work happened in fits and starts, as and when people were
available. Songs were recorded, left, revisited, reworked
- often dramatically - and, in some cases, discarded altogether.
But although it took over a year to finish, it also opened
up a new, more reflective way for the band to work - small
wonder, then, that Spoon And Rafter is the most complex and
musically ambitious record of Mojave 3's career. "It's
was certainly more fun than going into a studio in London
every day for two weeks," says Neil, "and what's
weird is that, as soon as we started to compile the record,
we noticed that it stilll had a cohesive feel to it. And almost
every song - completely unintentionally - says something about
broken hearts".
Indeed - and one of the great things about Mojave 3 has always
been their ability to make heartbreaking, bittersweet music.
They're a band of paradoxes - their joyous moments come with
an undertow of sadness, they rock just when you're expecting
introspection, they combine total simplicity with sonic ambition
- and yet Spoon And Rafter manages to bring these differing
elements together in wonderful, widescreen harmony.
The opening, epic Bluebird Of Happiness weighs in at nine and
a half minutes, but although it sprawls, it's never cloying,
even after a hundred listens. It's followed by the uptempo and
almost uplifting Starlite #1 and Billoddity, which confirm the
complexity of the arrangements on the new record : acoustic
guitars, analog synths and pedal steel arrive in warm affirmative
layers. Other highlights include the multifaceted Battle Of
The Broken Hearts, the wistfully jaunty Tinker's Blues and the
aching, fragile She's All Up Above. By the time the mournful
country-tinged closer Between The Bars has faded to silence,
two things are clear. First, Spoon And Rafter is the best record
Mojave 3 have made. And second, it's time to hit "play"
and start again.
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