us. That album was lo-fi without us even knowing what that term was. It wasn’t a fashion statement: we made the best sound we could with the limited tools we had to hand.”


Helped by a few “early adopters” (including Record Collector magazine), the initial pressing of Other Way Out sold out by word of mouth, prompting interest in live appearances. “It took us by surprise,” admits Gary. “At that point, there was no band as such. Our debut show wasn’t until July ’91 at The Borderline in London; that also took us by surprise because it sold out, too! With John Pelech on drums, we started rehearsing and developing our set to play live, but with nearly a year gone by since the Other Way Out recordings, we had developed so much in the studio with a different line-up that we only ever played two or three songs from the album.”


By this time, Russell had left The Bikinis (after an EP or two) to replace the bass player in rising indie stars Chapterhouse. “Andrew from the band went to my university and had seen The Bikinis,” explains Barrett. “He looked really cool, like a member of The Byrds from ‘65/66. I had the right haircut, leather jacket, tight jeans and pointy boots. They were a class band so I jumped at the opportunity.” Having joined RCA’s newly formed Dedicated label, Chapterhouse were briefly the darlings of the music press via a string of indie hits and a promising Top 40 debut album, Whirlpool.


For a while, they charted a conventional course adopted by indie bands – and were cited as pioneers of what became known as “shoegazing”, a term perhaps prompted by bands’ penchant for peering down at endless effects pedals. “Chapterhouse were definitely ‘shoegaze’ but started off more like Sonic Youth, My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream and Spaceman 3 (who gave us our first support tour),” adds Russ. “There was a healthy influence of The Byrds, The Fall, C86, The Smiths, garage-punk and ’60s stuff. Once The Stone Roses, Blur and Ride crossed over, that helped us. We were amazed to get into the album charts and on the front cover of NME.”


Sun Dial, by contrast, seemed to wobble through a convoluted string of sessions in the run-up to that debut show. Early in ’91, they struck a deal with indie label UFO (which had spun off another record collector’s emporium, this time Vinyl Experience). They convened to Commercial Road Studios to record their second album with noted producer Vic Keary, who’d made his name in the late ’60s and early ’70s with various acts on his Mushroom label (Second Hand, Magic Carpet) among many other projects. Unfortunately, things didn’t go according to plan. “We wanted to record the follow- up properly, but with Anthony leaving due to his university commitments and with the band’s commitments to focus on playing live, the recordings were abandoned in favour of using the studio to


rehearse a live set. So the tracks from the Overspill EP were hastily put together. We even ran out of time to mix them.”


Eventually, these sessions were salvaged for Return Journey in ’94. “Most of it is from those ’91 sessions,” adds Gary, “but the best of it has never been issued in its original state up till now. We’ve re-addressed this on the new anthology as we recently re- discovered the masters, and will do so for the 2-CD reissue of Return Journey which will re-define the album as it was meant to come out in ’91.”


At the time, Sun Dial desperately needed to build on the momentum of Other Way Out


“WE HAD AN OLD 8-TRACK WHICH WE RESCUED FROM A


SKIP. IT WORKED FOR A WHILE BEFORE BLOWING UP! WE RECORDED THE ALBUM ON THAT, USING AN OLD ’70S DESK WHICH RESEMBLED


SOMETHING OUT OF DOCTOR WHO’S TARDIS!”


with a follow-up. Reflecter was finally laid down in ’92 via sessions at Bark Studios but Gary struggled to retain Sun Dial’s original vision against pressure to attack the indie scene of the day. After all, they weren’t alone in melding the drug-influenced, guitar-heavy sounds of yesteryear with a modern rock ethic. From British “drone rock” acts like Spacemen 3 and Loop to the American wave of bands which culminated in Seattle’s grunge scene and the shoegazing bands, psychedelia was exerting a stronger influence on independent music than ever. But Ramon felt uncomfortable about compromising his desire to capture the primitive essence of recording – and this internal conflict would characterise Sun Dial’s subsequent trajectory.


“It was the first album with the short-lived twin guitar line-up with John Pelech on drums,” adds Gary. “By this point, pretty much all the songs were recorded live with a few overdubs. Unfortunately, we had several songs remixed against our better judgment, one of which ended up on the album. Already, the suits were trying to mess with our sound!” Meanwhile, Third Eye was revisited. “Lee used to make old bits of equipment come back to life,” explains Ramon, “so it seemed natural to set up a small permanent demo studio pooling equipment resources in his rented house in a derelict part of East London, which became Third Eye Studios between ’92-’94. That


same broken-down 8-track was brought back from the dead on several occasions!”


In 1993, Sun Dial signed with Beggars Banquet in the UK and Atlantic in North America, which promised to offer them a breakthrough to a much wider audience. “We wanted to reach as many people as possible with the music,” explains Gary, “which is still the case. Beggars gave us that possibility. Things got more pressured during this period. Men in suits wanted a hit. All I wanted was for Sun Dial to be recorded properly under our own terms. There was too much compromise. I’m guilty of going along with some of it.”


The result was Libertine – still a sensible entrée into Sun Dial’s music for anyone who loves indie rock from the period. But its use of modern recording techniques, with a definite tendency towards the use of loops and samples, sits awkwardly with Ramon today. “Too many people were telling us what we should and shouldn’t record and when you’re young and inexperienced, you listen to people who you think know best. Luckily, a lot of those songs were recorded at Third Eye and Libertine: Deprogrammed now exists as the album that was meant to have been released. It was a frustrating time. A lot of people loved the album, which was our biggest selling to date but for me the music was stifled by the over- production.”


The Sun Dial road show was a sight to behold – and wasn’t without incident, either. “We did tour a lot during that period but probably played less than a lot of other contemporary bands,” suggests Gary. “At the end of our first European tour in Holland, our sound engineer walked on a broken bottle. What should’ve been a celebration turned into a mad dash to the hospital to get his foot treated. Luckily, he lived to tell the tale. We’ve had several close shaves with venues’ electrics. In Italy, the PA system at a gig was live so all the mics gave us electric shocks. 700 fans waited outside the venue while our engineer re- wired their electrics.


“We had a similar problem in Prague except that couldn’t be fixed and basically meant we did the gig with little or no singing. At a gig in Germany, there was no PA as it had blown up during our sound check so we performed like bands did in the ’60s with really loud amps and the vocals put through an amp. The end of the Reflecter/Libertine era four-piece came during a tour of the Netherlands during which the bassist went berserk, jumping on cars and throwing bottles at people at the venue we were playing. He never played with the band again!”


Although parallels could be drawn between Sun Dial and other British bands of the period like, say, Swervedriver or indeed Chapterhouse, they felt a stronger affinity with American (grunge) acts like The Melvins, Smashing Pumpkins and Dinosaur Jr. In turn, this appeared to influence Sun Dial’s music on their next album Acid


41


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