In the year between the recording and release of Slowdive’s 1995 album Pygmalion, the Reading five-piece had unraveled. With their longtime drummer having already quit, both their guitarist and bassist were also throwing in the towel, leaving only songwriter and defacto leader Neil Halstead, founding vocalist-guitarist Rachel Goswell, and newly acquired drummer Ian McCutcheon.  But even before that album was released by Creation Records, who then officially dropped the band a week later, the loose strands of Slowdive were already in the middle of a rebirth. While simultaneously finishing Pygmalion and recording an instrumental soundtrack for the film, I'm the Elephant, U Are the Mouse, Neil found himself being pulled in a new musical direction, one inspired by the great singer-songwriters and country/folk-rock of the Sixties and Seventies.