MOJAVE 3 (1995-2006) Vinyl Boxset /1500 Clear Vinyl 5 LP

The boxset is limited to 1,500 numbered copies and contains all five 4AD titles pressed onto crystal clear vinyl and includes an 8x10 inch press photo.

Mojave 3’s founding members are vocalist/guitarist Neil Halstead, bassist/vocalist Rachel Goswell, and drummer Ian McCutcheon. The band broke cover in 1995, when a six-track demo impressed 4AD sufficiently to offer them a deal, despite a then prevailing musical climate of bumptious Britpop that seemed totally at odds with what Mojave 3 were doing. Their incongruence was hardly surprising given that Halstead, Goswell and McCutcheon had formed as members of definitive shoegazers Slowdive.

Mojave 3’s debut, Ask Me Tomorrow, was a refreshingly stripped down collection that changed little from the original demos. Halstead’s melodic, folk-and country-tinged songs drew favourable (if lazy) comparisons to Nick Drake, Cowboy Junkies and Bob Dylan. Three years later, Out Of Tune continued where the first album left off and showed a group that had grown in both confidence and cohesiveness. Third album Excuses For Travellers contained some of the most ambitious Halstead compositions yet. Spoon and Rafter followed three years later marking another shift for the band. While still containing echoes of singer-songwriters and alt-country, the record represents a technicolor expansion of their palette that utilizes electronics, glockenspiels, melodica, and Beatlesque production. Their final album, 2006’s Puzzles Like You is a positively bright and fun record that feels right at home next to indie rock contemporaries like The Shins and Band of Horses, while sounding nearly unrecognizable next to the band they were on Ask Me Tomorrow.

Long out of print, these reissues have been remastered at Abbey Road and are the first 4AD pressings since original release.