Slowdive ended and Mojave 3 began in Neil Halstead’s flat in Acton. In 1994 he crafted most of the former band’s Pygmalion in his room, working around the schedules of his housemates to create sample-based soundscapes that alienated their label. Creation Records promptly dropped the band around the time the album was released, although half the group had already split. By then, the remaining players – Halstead, Rachel Goswell and Ian McCutcheon – were holed up at Halstead’s to record demos that were very different from anything they’d ever done. Atmosphere and mood were still important, but the music was more direct, more elemental, more rooted in songcraft. They polished up those homemade recordings at EMI’s demo studio in London, but it wasn’t until they had finally mastered their debut that they realised this was a clean break from the past. They called themselves Mojave, then added the 3 when a German band with the same name protested.
British music was undergoing a similarly dramatic transformation in the mid-1990s. Shoegaze and its dreamy practitioners were quickly displaced by a new generation of bands bringing big, Beatlesque melodies and a brasher sound to the mainstream. In 1995, while Halstead, Goswell and McCutcheon were making their first recordings, Blur released The Great Escape, Oasis unleashed (What’s The Story) Morning Glory?, and The Verve gave us A Northern Soul. Slowdive had been synonymous with a very particular subgenre, but Mojave 3 defied every current trend and explored chiefly American influences: cosmic country music, West Coast folk-rock, Laurel Canyon singer-songwriters. “I don’t wanna be the big star, baby/Is that okay?” Halstead sings on “Big Star Baby”, off 2006’s Puzzles Like You. Coming at the tail end of this retrospective boxset – which collects their five LPs but sadly no demos, B-sides or rarities (the LPs are also available separately) – Halstead’s shoutout to the Memphis Anglophiles has the force of a wholly unnecessary apology: 20 years after their final record, Mojave 3 sound more exciting for going so resolutely against the grain.
This new trio cannot escape the context of Slowdive, whose dissolution created Mojave 3 and whose reunion in the early 2010s appears to have ended it. But these five albums are more than footnotes, and this boxset traces a winding trajectory as the band morph constantly. It’s fitting, in retrospect, that they kick things off with “Love Songs On The Radio”, their first single and the leadoff track on their debut album. With deep reverb adding a Lynchian twang to Goswell’s vocals and with Halstead’s guitar sounding like sparks off a campfire, it’s a love song about the talismanic appeal of love songs: how they set a mood, prompt a sad memory or offer promises that neither lover can keep. It’s almost telling new fans how to listen to these songs, as the trio foreground lyrics and vocals while emphasising the empty space around the instruments. In fact, “Where Is The Love” recalls the slow crawl of early Low, while the guitars on “You’re Beautiful” have the slow-motion shimmer of their new labelmates Red House Painters.
The trio expanded into a quintet with the addition of Alan Forrester on keys and Chapterhouse’s Simon Rowe on guitar. Most of the group relocated to Cornwall, near the coastal town of Fowey, where Halstead converted an old barn into a rehearsal space. Between trips to the nearby pub, they jammed at length and worked out most of Mojave 3’s second album, which unsurprisingly sounds like a full band effort. They trekked up to Glasgow to record with producer Tony Doogan (Belle & Sebastian, Mogwai), but their hearts lay far to the west: if Ask Me Tomorrow flirted with Patsy Cline and Lee Hazlewood, Out Of Tune unabashedly embraces a host of American influences – and not just because the surfer cover looks like a Beach Boys bootleg. There’s a subtle twang in the guitars, a lot of pedal steel (courtesy of BJ Cole) and a distinctly West Coast poignancy to Halstead’s vocals; he sounds like a lone Byrd most of the time. Mojave 3 don’t always integrate these influences very deeply, but the enthusiasm of their playing raises “Who Do You Love” and “Keep It All Hid” above Big Sur pastiche.
Released in 2000, Excuses For Travellers is arguably their best and most consistent effort because it puts a more idiosyncratic spin on those American sounds. With help from producer and longtime collaborator Mark Van Hoen (Locust, Seefeel), Mojave 3 put flesh onto bone, filling in the negative space with banjo and pedal steel. It’s an atmospheric record, but modestly so: less a cathedral of sound than a thatched-roof cottage. Halstead was developing as a songwriter, too, displaying a graceful concision and an empathy for the people he meets on the road. “My Life In Art” is a delicate and generous character study about a woman escaping an abusive relationship and trying to find herself in music. “Tell me about the boulevards,” this presumed American asks him, “’cause Europe always seemed so far.” There’s a whole life in the song, which sprawls to more than seven minutes, as though Halstead can’t bear to part ways with her.
By contrast, Mojave 3’s fourth album, 2003’s Spoon And Rafter, sounds quietly and gently experimental, as they stretch these songs into odd shapes and introduce new sounds and instruments. “Battle Of The Broken Hearts” rides in on a weird reggae beat, which morphs into a strutting pop rhythm before fading into theremin and bells. It sounds like The Beach Boys performing in that Berkshire field where Heron recorded. And the nine-minute opener “Bluebird Of Happiness” splits its hymn to home into three parts: the song begins and ends with a dreamy chorale (“Gotta find a road that brings me back slow”), interrupted only by a majestic folk-pop song sprouting in the middle. Spoon And Rafter is an album that never stops springing surprises on the listener.
Perhaps the biggest is that Mojave 3 pared back on 2006’s Puzzles Like You, which is to date their swan song. From the sharp guitar jangle that opens the upbeat “Truck Driving Man” to the chorus of “Big Star Baby”, the album is laser-focused, with not a single song even threatening the five-minute mark. It can’t be coincidence that it’s also their most pop-oriented, full of ebullient hooks and played with a sense of abandon rarely glimpsed on their previous albums. Perhaps they never intended for McCutcheon’s “The Mutineer” to be their signoff, but it works as the final words of a band that “could change this room with these chords”, as the bassist sings. “This tune in my mouth could form a smile.”
Mojave 3 went on hiatus in 2008, but reunited in 2011 to tour briefly with Band Of Horses. There was talk of new music, but nothing came of it. Instead, Halstead and Goswell reunited with Slowdive to play Primavera in 2014 and have since released two excellent new albums. Even with new generations rediscovering Slowdive, Mojave 3 could easily remain overlooked. But this boxset shows how they kept moving and mutating. Remarkably, every album has its own palette and personality, its own set of values and concerns, yet they all fit together to form a story of friends following their obsessions as far as they could.