morning after girls - "slowdown" (from the prelude : ep's 1 & 2 lp, available for purchase here.)

in brief : aussie band is the missing link between slowdive and mojave 3.

you know, neil halstead could have given us some warning. in retrospect, though, i suppose the major difference between slowdive and mojave 3 at first was, for the most part, an absence of tunes. the morning after girls happily cleave closer to slowdive in that respect, and also in the way they treat a guitar, while observing the folksiness and down-home manner of mojave 3. in other words, this is music that's just as fine for crossing midwestern plains as for navigating the contours of one's navel. along with the engineers' debut, the morning after girls' collected ep's--featuring mark gardiner of ride on one track!--place them at the forefront of what one hopes is a budding nu-gaze movement.