The Lost Generation

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On an earlier thread somebody mentioned that the 90s could be divided in 1988-93 and 1994-98. Generally speaking, it's a pretty accurate divide and I think the likes of Seefeel, Earwig, Laika etc. sort of signalled the end of the first period, the final burst of "blissout". (BTW, it was in the final glory days of Melody Maker in 1993/early 94, that these bands got a lot of press, NME gave very scant coverage if I remember correctly). This "scene" roughly coincided with 1993's ambient Trance Europe Express/Artificial Intelligence movement and the records made a sometimes intoxicating mix of post Loveless ideas and Orb type athmospherics. Seefeel's "Quique" probabl summed up this concoction best but now seems dated compared to a still fresh sounding jungle record of the time. By 1995 there was no more press spotlight on any of these bands as the mid-late 90's zeitgeist took hold.

Have a good lot of this stuff so maybe I need to go back to them. Still think Disco Inferno's "Footprints In Snow" is their high point. Have all of the 12"s on vinyl. First Laika album is good but I can't see myself enjoying the Pram albums again like I used to. NME used to hate them. I remember one zero out of 10 review!! I also possess a Papa Sprain EP and a Butterfly Child 12". These two came together, I think they had features in the same edition of MM round about April 93. Anyway nuf said.

― David Gunnip, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If Careless Talk/Mogwai are anything to go by - and that's a BIG if - the late (lamented?) God Machine are due for rehabilitation any day.

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

pet theory: these bands were so forward thinking, so post-rock that they sowed the seeds of the genres eventual demise/transmutation. part of what made them exciting was - as i summed up moonshake somewhere else - that they were using ideas, instruments, and sounds totally alien to rock yet constructed in a way where it couldn't be anything else but. david's right that seefeel's quique represents a certain changeover; it's hard to distinguish it (from a sound/construction standpoint) from a lot of other warp style bands which were concurrent or just after. the genre divorced itself from rock so much that it just merged with the "electronic listening" schtuff. in 1992-3 wouldn't a band like lali puna or dntel have been post-rock rather than "idm"?

― jess, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Jess, post-rock & IDM music is LINKED TOGETHER in London in 2002, see @ Kosmische

― DJ Martian, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Re: God Machine are due for rehabilitation any day.

Aereogramme name checked them on Peel last night. The God Machine's two albums are amongst the finest albums of the 90s.

― DJ Martian, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

(Over here, I'm back with Nitsuh on U.S. indie -- it's not a sound but more of a concept -- and that's the problem with trying to define it. Unfortunately, it's most easily definable by that which it is not.)

This thread makes me even more keen on getting that Bows record -- and more desperate to find Hex.

― scott p., Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

For Dastoor ...This is how 3WK - Internet Alternative Radio define independent/underground/alternative music stateside in 2002.

― DJ Martian, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'm back with Nitsuh on U.S. indie -- it's not a sound but more of a concept .

I don't think this is a US/UK divide, either. You could say the same over here. Anyway, I really don't mean to bog the thread down with this so I'll shut up now.

'Footprints in the Snow' - that's the only Disco Inferno track I have. (Very) ocassional ILM poster and founder of the B&S list put in on a tape tree compilation ages ago. I like it quite a lot, but I was hoping I'd be more blown away by their other stuff, so I'm disappointed if that's their best track. Is is meant to end that abruptly?

― N., Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

bleargh - I don't know how I ended up spelling occasional like that.

― N., Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, yeah DJ Martian, that seems about right to me. I'd chuck in Starsailor, Coldplay et al. too, but yeah. So US independent/underground/alternative = UK indie. Fine. Everybody happy.

― N., Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I like Jess's "sowed the seeds of their own demise." It makes me think of the early fusion groups, the ones people who "know" pick out as the only good ones before it all went to shit. Compare also to trip-hop, another fusion music.

― Josh, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The bands that I've heard abt on this thread are as bland as the worst chart pop. Pram, seefel, Mogwai, stereolab... just incredibly irrelevant music. Add to it 99% of chicago post-rock (Tortoise, Jim O'rouke- what fucking garbage).

It's because it doesn't rock or actually doesn't any new ideas (for stereolab= Krautrock with indie guitars, Mogwai= Slint without rocking like they did and so on).

But in 10-15 years I'm sure there will be many people looking for the reissues of many of these records, and that's the saddest thing of all.

― Julio Desouza, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think what might be a bit sadder is thinking that now that you've said that we'll automatically agree with you...

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

One thing I'm sure we can all agree on is that "Boymerang" is beyond a doubt the worst stage/band name in the entire history of music.

― John Darnielle, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It seems to posit some weird Australo-Cockney accent within which the "boomerang" pun actually works.

― Nitsuh, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

But Julio, I'd say the bands I listed tend to sound very different to the second generation/US axis of post-rock - Tortoise, Cul De Sac, Trans Am, Sea & Cake, eventually leading to Mogwai, Godspeed You Black Emperor etc.

If there was a way to divide the aesthetic into halves it might be a matter of those bands taking cues from A.R. Kane's I vs those taking cues from Slint etc. (whether band has actually heard either is probably not so important).

Alternative thought: even before they started working with them, Stereolab sort of struck me as closer to Tortoise etc. than their UK peers. See Nitsuh's theory of recent inspiration vs archival inspiration - at the time Stereolab were more indebted to Neu! than anyone after that, and Tortoise's entire selling point was their resurrection of krautrock, dub etc. The other UK bands strike me as harbouring such archival influences much more organically, with them having seeped in through post-punk, drone rock, dream-pop, dance music etc. The success of the Tortoise/Stereolab aesthetic is probably dependent on/a factor in/inextricably linked to the rise of a "record collector" approach to musical experimentation in rock (no accident that their rise co- incided with britpop?) and the final stamping out of a modernist approach to the form.

― Tim, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"Re: God Machine are due for rehabilitation any day. Aereogramme name checked them on Peel last night. The God Machine's two albums are amongst the finest albums of the 90s."

I have also heard Aereogramme name check them before. Of course this has made me avoid God Machine like the proverbial plague.

― Ally C, Wednesday, 16 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Scott, cdnow has 'Hex' for like 12 bucks. Hurry up! ;-) Hmm, I've only heard the big names, but I'll throw in my two cents for Disco Inferno's 'In Debt,' more post-punk than post-rock I guess, but incredible nonetheless. Also, if you can find it, A.R.Kane's "Lolita" EP is absolutely crushing.

― Clarke B., Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Also, is Main considered part of this? If so, then search for sure... the 'Hz' comp. is good, as are Firmament I and II (all I've heard from him).

Also, is Long Fin Killie?

― Clarke B., Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, given that Bows seemed to have started the whole thread, then sure. ;-)

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Jesus Christ, I'm listening to 'Houdini' now and it seems almost absolutely perfect... I really wish more people knew about these guys. His lyrics are really fucking brilliant somehow, and his little vocal trills and stuff sound amazing, even though in the wrong hands they could be dreadful. Wow.

― Clarke B., Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Most of the above mentioned bands can really only be admired and respected rather than loved and cherished. I won't have access to any of these records until I go home again in a couple of weeks time but last night I was trying to remember a few tunes I haven't heard since the mid 90s. Except for Sterolab, one Laika track and a couple of others I didn't come up with much humming. Can't remember a thing from Quique and I used to listen to that album a lot in 1993. Same with Main, Flying Saucer Attack and a host of other EPs. At least with shoegazing the melodies stayed in the head.

― David Gunnip, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Although Flying Saucer Attack's "Still Point" from the Further LP is superb.

― David Gunnip, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

At least with shoegazing the melodies stayed in the head.

I'd have to disagree on my own experience; a fair amount of, say, Quique springs easily to mind. If you want to call what they did a certain form of pop minimalism, then that explains to me both the relative slipperiness of their melodies but also why they can linger.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Except for Sterolab, one Laika track and a couple of others I didn't come up with much humming.

but maybe that Wasnt the Point? (tm s. reynolds 1994.) (although if i remember correctly lack of choons is also why he eventually disowned the genre too.)

but why wasnt it the point jess, and if not, what was? i dont know. er, i do, i think, but no time to explicate right now.

― jess, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

my heretical viewpoint is that the bands Tim mentions here are all a bit boring. Their sonic experimentation takes them down roads of dull, pseudo-intellectual, asexual wankiness substantially less interesting than their shoegazing contemporaries. They are no fun to listen to, nor are they in any way edifying in some other way. Marxist science and exigesis of the Book of Tobit proves this.

That said, I saw Pram live recently and they were great fun. So they should be disassociated from Tim's Lost Generation of Failure.

― DV, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Oh that's real nice DV: "The Lost Generation bands that aren't boring aren't actually Lost Generation bands!"

― Clarke B., Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The best gig I ever saw was one put on by the Lizard magazine at the end of 1994. Stereolab, Moonshake, Cornershop, Pram, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Disco Inferno all in the same evening. Bloody amazing night and not at all intellectual or wanky (well Stereolab might have been but I was too drunk to really concentrate on their set).

― Tom, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Jesus Christ, Tom! You never told me *that* was the full line-up for the evening. I officially hate you now, full of jealousy as I am.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Only 3 people bothered watching Disco Inferno too, they all got busy at the bar (which was at the end of the hall so you could still hear the bands. I did the same during Cornershop's ambient sitar thing.)

― Tom, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Stereolab, Moonshake, Cornershop, Pram, Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Disco Inferno

you fucker!

― jess, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Some of those bands considered themselves a lost generation: I remember chatting to someone from Disco Inferno in a pub in about '95 or so, and God was he bitter. Possibly the bitterest person I've ever met. I recall having an argument about whether Dele Fadele was the victim of racism at the NME: he thought Dele was, whereas I reckoned that the fact that DF's writing was completely incoherent at that stage might have had something to do with his lack of work (though Steve Sutherland has often made suspect remarks when talking about black music, but that's another story...) Incidentally, I thought all your 'lost generation' bands were insipid, wibbly toss.

― Mark Morris, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Are Th' Faith Healers part of the lost generation? Is it rockist to even ask? I'll listen to Pram, Laika, or Bark Psychosis over Mogwai, Godspeed, or the rest of them, but Th' Faith Healers are the band that I keep going back to.

― dan, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It was probably Ian Crause who you met. He is extraordinarily bitter about what happened with DI if the few interviews with him I've read are anything to go by. Mind you, if I'd produced such a stunning run of records and been ignored I'd be pretty damn pissed off about it as well.

― RickyT, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

There's a recent interview at the (to my knowledge only) Disco Inferno fan site. Doesn't seem as annoyed as before.

Insipid, wibbly toss? *thinks* Oh, Aleka's Attic. Yeah, that was bad.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Aleka's Attic = Alesha's Attic?

Blimey, that DI site is a fantastic example of over-design, isn't it?

― RickyT, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

All I can say is... loved it all then, still love it all now... and goddammit you mean there's a Disco Inferno single I've not got, AND a Spoonfed Hybrid EP I've not got? Hell, I'm pissed off now. I thought I was the only person in the world who liked the Spoonfed Hybrid LP.... Cor, I love this DI site! I love you all! I love you all!

― Rob M, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

aw shucks. twern't nuthin.

― jess, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I literally cannot process the idea that Insides or Laika, to name but two, might be considered 'asexual'. The biggest problem for the bands I'm talking about is that generally they sound *nothing like* the post-rock that later rose to prominence as a cohesive genre.

― Tim, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Laika sound way more sexual to me than oft-cited fucking MBV do.

― Josh, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Laika sound way more sexual to me than oft-cited fucking MBV do.

mentalist.

theory: no music can utilize dub bass (if not dub production) and not retain some level of physicality/sexuality.

― jess, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ah, Papa Sprain - the stories I could tell. Well, actually I couldn't, but I was tremendously excited by them in 91-93 - the only letter I ever wrote to Ch4's teletext pop page was in response to their correspondent's sneering dismissal of Reynolds' heart- quickening PS big-up in MM ("vast, grey planet of a bass riff" or something). They released two EPs on H.Ark! - Flying To Vegas and May, an utterly shapeless Rough Trade Singles Club 7" and then promptly vanished. Rumours abounded of Gary McKendry abandoning all efforts at melody and texture and delivering [whoever his record label was by '93] 40 minutes of MMM-style feedback as an LP; told to go away and 're-work it', he came back with the same material plus some tape hiss a few weeks later. I saw him/them support The Boo Radleys and Pale Saints at the Krazy House in Liverpool in March '92 - a single twenty-minute glowering noise-piece. It were luvvly.

Laika, of course, are/were completely fantastic - especially live. I never don't dance at Laika gigs, which is odd, because I never don't not dance these days.

I'm beginning to suspect these putdowns of Stereolab ("Krautrock with indie guitars") are based on some magical seam of Krautrock I've never heard, or a couple of records the 'lab put out six or seven years ago. Whatever.

― Michael Jones, Thursday, 17 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I saw Disco Inferno around early 95 at some venue on the South Bank. Strange gig. I remember they had a few computers hooked up on stage. Enjoyed it though. Also saw Bark Psychosis supported by Papa Sprain (or was it Butterfly Child!) in the ICA on the Mall during sumer 94. I thought at the time it was crock of shit because I hadn't heard anything by them at that point. They had some good visuals on thew video scren behind them but the music was hard going.

― David Gunnip, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i dunno. this board supposed to be i love music but all it is is i love saddo bands no one else's ever heard of 'cos they're crap but ive heard of them and you aint so im better than u. is that what this board is really about? i love my big dick?

― XStatic Peace, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What about the New Fast Automatic Daffodils? I only have Body Exit Mind on tape somewhere but it is definitely a keeper. Great rather unacknowledged band from Manchester influenced by Joy Division, Fall, Wedding Present (the singer sounds a little bit like Mr Gedge) and the like. Dark, snotty and angry. I met them at a My Bloody Valentine concert in Brussels years ago. Quite nice guys actually.

― alex in mainhattan, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

thing is, at the time newfads were pretty much thought of as a baggy band, i think they fit there pretty well (not a dis btw)

― gareth, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

by the way, I reserve the right to dig out my copy of "DI Go Pop" and play it on my new vinylator and discover that it is in fact the best album of the '90s.

― DV, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

What is so bloody special about Disco Inferno which are venerated here like the holy grail? I listened a couple of times to the two mp3s I found on the web named "Freethought" and "Emigre". The first one sounds slightly Joy Divisionish but is such a repetitive bore. The second starts promisingly but then the same hook line is repeated about a trillion times. Can someone please tell me if DI are always like on these two tracks? If yes they definitely deserve to stay forgotten.

― alex in mainhattan, Saturday, 19 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Emigre and Freethought are from their pre-sampler period, where they were a nice enough JD + massive delay pedal style band but nothing spectacular. The main reason most people rave about them is the stuff they did later with samplers, which is very different.

― RickyT, Saturday, 19 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I haven't really heard most of the bands being talked about, but Seefeel is great, especially the Succour album and the second half of Polyfusia (aka the Pure/Impure EP). Interesting to learn, by the way, that the album I thought was their final release, CH-VOX, was actually recorded before Succour; that makes a lot of sense, and probably puts them into the "perfectly-timed breakup" category.

― Phil, Saturday, 19 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Skipping 25 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

it was a really nice, generous article! coming from a US-indie context the glossing over the Britpop context (+ not repeating the whole Laughing Stock as equiv. to Spiderland, sort've) (+ the way various impulses ended up . . . Radiohead, Mogwai?) was pretty inevitable.

I've been wondering what'll happen to DI's standing, since the reissue of DI Go Pop seemed ultra low-key.

(I wonder if any NZ stuff counts as lost generation - I've always found it weird that NOBODY from the US/UK, despite all the either Flying Nun/Xpressway/Corpus Hermeticum &c&c&c, has evah listened to Skeptics - Amalgam seems sort've relevant)

(sorry for incoherence, sick as a dog @ work)

― etc, Thursday, 14 July 2005 22:53 (twenty years ago)

The Skeptics had been doing their thing for years before Amalgam. That was 1990, wasn't it?

― Sasha (sgh), Friday, 15 July 2005 01:36 (twenty years ago)

Yeah. It's sort've a departure, tho (I mean, have you heard early Skeptics?). But yeah, they're probably more grouped in w/the Young Gods, A.R. Kane generation-wise. but Amalgam sounded v.out-of-time.)

― etc, Friday, 15 July 2005 02:11 (twenty years ago)

I have. Amalgam is the only one I've listened to lately (I think it may be the only one I own). IIRC they were around in the late 70's? However Amalgam to me sounds pretty much like their 80's stuff, just better produced. I wouldn't compare anything of it to Disco Inferno ferinstance.

― Sasha (sgh), Friday, 15 July 2005 02:44 (twenty years ago)

I thought the article was great in that it was a nice counterpoint to the main story about '90s British music that gets circulated, where it is all about the Oasis Blur stuff. It prompted me to pick up the DI GOES POP reissue which I hadn't heard. I liked it a great deal especially "Footprints in snow" and "IN sharky water." I would love to hear the EPs that came out before and after this release. Does anyone know if there are plans to reissue them on CD?

― ken urban (mainloop), Sunday, 17 July 2005 01:12 (twenty years ago)

the britpop movement which I always thought was the reason they were finally "lost" in their native land, in the crazy rush to crown Suede, Blur et al The post acid house comedown mainstream Brit indie searching for a voice (Kingmaker, Radiohead?) avant / indie periphies fertile then stomped by corporatisation of "indie media"

That's accurate with my memories of how it all unfolded back then. The UK press totally missed the boat re: Radiohead at first though, which I still find pretty amusing.

― fandango (fandango), Sunday, 17 July 2005 19:07 (twenty years ago)

one year passes...

http://www.dissensus.com/showthread.php?t=4632

― repetitive roger (repetitive roger), Thursday, 28 September 2006 17:09 (nineteen years ago)

The Lost Generation would make a very good name for a band.

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Thursday, 28 September 2006 22:44 (nineteen years ago)

I really want to hear that mix, but I don't want to have to register! Drat!

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Thursday, 28 September 2006 22:48 (nineteen years ago)

Dag, I thought this was a thread about the dudes that did "The Sly, The Slick and The Wicked."

― mucho (mucho), Thursday, 28 September 2006 22:55 (nineteen years ago)

three years pass...

Some interesting stuff about Papa Sprain that I never knew right here.

― Gunther von Hagen Daas (NickB), Tuesday, 6 October 2009 23:30 (sixteen years ago)

Bumping this up for the daytime folks.

― Obscured by clowns (NickB), Friday, 9 October 2009 15:28 (sixteen years ago)

(check the comments and subsequent blog posts)

― Obscured by clowns (NickB), Friday, 9 October 2009 15:29 (sixteen years ago)

Heheh nice.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 9 October 2009 15:35 (sixteen years ago)

seven years pass...

We have Papa Sprain update, of sorts

http://www.waywordsandmeansigns.com/artists/papa-sprain/

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 29 March 2017 13:23 (nine years ago)

three years pass...

Even more Papa Sprain updates - he's been posting albums worth of extremely abstract music on the Internet Archive at a staggering rate lately: https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3A%22papa+sprain%22&sort=-addeddate

And has a new album out this year with Butterfly Child's Joe Cassidy: https://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/my-bus-our-life-in-the-desert-lp/HUM.030LP.html

― EvanP, Tuesday, 20 October 2020 19:30 (five years ago)

Great lost board descriptions:

― Dan Worsley, Tuesday, 20 October 2020 19:40 (five years ago)

Great lost board descriptions:

― Dan Worsley, Tuesday, 20 October 2020 19:40 (five years ago)

Damn x2

― Dan Worsley, Tuesday, 20 October 2020 19:41 (five years ago)

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