Alison Statton & Spike

Alison Statton is best known for her work with Young Marble Giants. She was the post-punk minimalists' vocalist, the defining element of their one and only LP, Colossal Youth.

She remained active after that outfit split, however, cultivating a rather spectacular body of work that retains that characteristic austerity, though a delicate, sophisticated touch takes the place of the more quietly brusque one she possessed before.

First, there was Weekend, a band she formed with a few other folks, most notable Alun Mark Williams, a.k.a. Spike, not to be confused with the other Spike, the one got the reissue treatment a handful of years ago through my friend Phil South's Golf Channel imprint. In a strange coincidence, the timbre of their music is remarkably alike, tender and wobbly bedroom indie-pop, but Statton and Williams seemed to have more of an affection for Latin sounds and Congolese soukous. They were more seaside feel-good than introspective meditation.

 

After the Weekend, the two continued to record together, Alison under her birth name, Williams under his assumed, taking on a sound somewhere between the proto-electro of Suicide and the baroque pop of the Magnetic Fields.