The Pastels

Virtually unknown outside indie rock circles, the Pastels spent their early years driving a movement toward wistful musical primitivism and willful naivety, a style filed at the time as shambling or anorak pop. Their influence helped turn international attention on a resurgent Scottish scene, in no small part because frontman Stephen Pastel ran the 53rd and 3rd label, which launched the Jesus and Mary Chain, Shop Assistants, BMX Bandits, the Vaselines and the Soup Dragons. The band formed in Glasgow in 1981 around Pastel, born McRobbie, on vocals and guitar, guitarist Brian Superstar, born Brian Taylor, and drummer Chris Gordon. They debuted that autumn on the Whaam label with the single "Songs for Children," and Gordon left soon after, the first of many lineup shuffles. Ambition was never their strong suit and luck rarely broke their way: with bassist Martin Hayward and drummer Bernice Simpson now aboard, the members put their studies first, and new music surfaced only occasionally and to little notice, scattered across a seemingly random run of labels. "I Wonder Why" came out on Rough Trade in 1983, after which a move to Creation brought the 1984 drone-pop singles "Something's Going On" and "A Million Tears." One more single, 1985's "I'm Alright with You," and they left Creation for the tiny Glass label. In 1986 their track "Breaking Lines" turned up on the C-86 collection assembled by the New Music Express, which made the anorak movement an overnight media sensation and brought a fierce critical backlash with it. The Pastels carried on regardless. One-time Shop Assistants keyboardist Aggi Wright joined for the 1986 single "Truck Train Tractor," followed by Crawl Babies and Comin' Through, and in 1987 the group finally found time to assemble an LP, Up for a Bit with the Pastels. Suck on the Pastels, a collection of unreleased Creation-era material, followed in 1988. Former Vaselines frontman Eugene Kelly and ex-Shop Assistant David Keegan came aboard for 1989's Sittin' Pretty, the last album to feature Superstar, Hayward and Simpson. Pastel and Wright continued as a duo, adding Katrina Mitchell for the 1991 collaboration Jad Fair and the Pastels and the 1994 EP Olympic World of Pastelism. Their third album, Mobile Safari, arrived in 1995 on Domino in the U.K., the start of a long alliance, and on Up Records in the U.S., with longtime associates Norman Blake and Gerald Love of Teenage Fanclub and ex-Shop Assistant guitarist David Keegan in the lineup and Luna's Dean Wareham guesting. Illumination came in 1997 from the same pair of labels with much the same cast plus guitarist Jonathan Kilgour, and guest turns from Belle and Sebastian's Isobel Campbell and pianist Bill Wells. The 1998 remix album Illuminati handed the songs to Kevin Shields, Stereolab, Cornelius and other A-list indie rockers. That run of recognition and activity stopped when Wright left in 1998, throwing Mitchell and Pastel into a spin. Rather than start another record straight away, the band went on hiatus while they worked out what came next. In 2000 the duo founded Geographic Records as an offshoot of Domino and began putting out records by friends such as Future Pilot AKA and International Airport alongside obscure acts like Nagisa Ni Te and Maher Shalal Hash Baz. The Pastels themselves reappeared in 2003 with the mostly instrumental soundtrack to the film The Last Great Wilderness, produced by the Sea and Cake's John McEntire and featuring International Airport's Tom Crossley along with a vocal turn from Jarvis Cocker. A friendship with the Japanese band Tenniscoats led to Two Sunsets, a 2009 collaboration for which the core group expanded to take in Crossley and Mitchell's sister Alison, with Love still there too. As the label eased back to one album a year, the band turned to a record of their own: Slow Summits, their fifth, arrived in 2013 with McEntire producing again and guitarist John Hogarty in the ranks, plus guests Stefan Schneider and Robert Lippok of To Rococo Rot, Norman Blake once more, and original member Annabel Wright.