Young Marble Giants: Colossal Youth [DOMINO]

Why you'll love it

This Domino pressing is on 180g vinyl with a 12-inch insert of liner notes and lyrics. Kurt Cobain named it one of the ten most influential records he had ever heard.

This edition

• 180g vinyl
• Insert with liner notes and lyrics

About the album

Some bands need a wall of amplifiers. Young Marble Giants needed a bass, a guitar, Alison Statton's voice and a cassette of drum beats. Brothers Stuart and Philip Moxham formed the band with Statton in Cardiff in 1979, and Rough Trade signed them after hearing just two songs on a local compilation, Is the War Over?

They made the album in five days at Foel Studios near Welshpool, with the studio's owner, former Amon Düül II and Hawkwind man Dave Anderson, engineering. With no studio experience, they kept it simple: many first takes, drums played straight off a cassette machine, and just a slide guitar on "Include Me Out" and treated vocals on "Eating Noddemix" added afterwards. Statton's cool, unhurried singing floats over Stuart Moxham's songs on "Searching For Mr Right," "The Taxi" and "N.I.T.A." Critic Richie Unterberger called it one of the most highly regarded indie cult post-punk records, with a unique hushed, minimal atmosphere.

Hole covered "Credit In The Straight World" on Live Through This, and Stephin Merritt credited it as the main spark for the Magnetic Fields. Each track was mixed in about 20 minutes, which is less time than it takes us to decide where to file it.

Also at Kops: more Young Marble Giants on vinyl · browse Alternative

Tracklist

Listen

On Domino (cat# REWIGLP 32), a reissue of the 1980 album.