Graeme Elston's triumphant return! Before his 6-year absence from the pop world, Graeme was the mastermind of Eva Luna, Pure & the Love Parade, producing wonderful heartfelt guitar-pop songs in the late 80s and early 90s. His new project, Slipslide, follows this grand tradition pretty well. This single is four songs of nice acoustic-based jangly pop songs in the vein of Another Sunny Day, the Lightning Seeds, and Aztec Camera. MTQ=4/4   --IndiePages

 

Their name makes them sound like a frat-bar funk band, but Slipside is actually a London-based pop trio. Their debut EP is jangly, upbeat pop of the non-ironic variety - earnest vocals that are occasionally swamped by cheerful, summery guitar melodies (do I hear a twelve-string in there?), bolstered by keyboard and organ. While electric guitars give the music a very mild edge, it seems like the group would rather head in a mellower direction; "The Airport Song" in particular borders on folk, though it's more C86 than Belle and Sebastian. There's an obvious comparison that keeps eluding me, but until I remember it I'll describe them as a more masculine version of the Housemartins. Really, though, "friendly, chiming English pop" is all you need to know. Throughout the EP, vocalist Graeme Elston comes off as the quintessential nice guy -- sincere and well spoken, but almost entirely devoid of sarcasm. For some listeners, that will be enough; "good-natured", after all, is a step above twee on most evolutionary ladders. Others will wait in vain for the self-important sneer that never comes.   --Splendid

 

This is the debut release of this London three piece featuring Graeme Elston on vocals. The opening track "Fireflies" has a kind of 70's sort of pop feel to it which is done well enough to be OK. I especially like the next track "Unlucky Charm" however, as it has a kind of poignant sadness and a lot of atmosphere to it for being a fairly simple song. "The Airport Song" features a more acoustic line and I suppose it does actually remind me of "High Land, Hard Rain" period Aztec Camera, it really does. This offering ends with "Waiting For the Call" which again is a sensuous kind of pop outing, sort of reminding me of the best of the Hit Parade, and it's quite a great little song. This stuff isn't gate crashing, but it will slowly eat away at you until your gates come down, that's for certain. And sometimes, isn't that the best way to yield ourselves? I have no idea if an LP is ever coming, but this is certainly worth getting in any event.   --Indie Spinzone

 

Somewhat straddling the two Matinée goals of unearthing the new and rediscovering the old are Slipside, who release the four track 'Four Day Weekend' EP on the label. Slipside is the new band of Graeme Elston, who once fronted the Love Parade, whose first two singles surfaced on the A Turntable Friend label in the early '90s. The Slipside single is a fine example of what I guess some would call still call indiepop, and each of the four songs are lovely slices of Pop that recall early Beloved (circa 'A Hundred Words'), Johnny Dangerously and, oh, any one of a hundred unheard of singers and bands. Fine stuff.   --Tangents

 

A name long-term indiepop fans should be familiar with is Graeme Elston. He was in The Love Parade, then Pure, then Eva Luna. These days he's in Astronaut, who have several releases out on Fierce Panda... Slipslide is Graeme's current solo project, which has two singles out on Matinée. Four Day Weekend has four tracks, three of which are non-twee old-style indiepop with a dash of the more commercial 90s indie music. The other song is The Airport Song - Eva Luna previously did a version of this which appeared on the Bliss tape Burnt Umber. This is probably my favourite track here; an acoustic-based song in which indiepop meets folk.   --Aquamarine

 

With “Four Day Weekend”, Slipslide’s debut EP from 2001, Graeme Elston made his return to the world of pop after six years of silence. Slipslide is the logical follow-up to Elston’s previous releases with The Love Parade, Eva Luna and Pure. Beautiful pop songs with jangly 12-string guitars that will appeal to fans of his earlier works as well as fans of The Go-Betweens and Aztec Camera.   --Fraction Discs

 

Take a little Bunnymen, Smiths, Hefner, Cinerama, and any other British jangle-pop outfit and you have Slipslide, a project led by Astronaut bassist Graeme Elston. Although the four songs here don't do too much to separate this band from the seemingly hundreds out there, the melodies, which are what's most important, are fantastic. It's as saccharine as one might expect from the above namechecks but with enough of an edge of melancholy to lend it some credibility. Could become a favorite of yours very quickly.   --Shredding Paper

 

Graeme Elston é o nome por trás do Slipslide. Breve história: ele começou a tocar no início de 1990, inspirado pela C86, New Order e Orange Juice. Formou o Love Parade com alguns amigos, lançou dois singles e depois, com nova formação, mudou o nome para Pure, que também lançou dois singles, para também mudar de formação e nome, dessa vez para Eva Luna, que por sua vez lançou 4 singles, sendo que o último saiu em 1995. Ufa! Rápido e rasteiro. Em todas as bandas é o próprio Graeme quem compõe e faz os vocais, o que torna o som do Love Parade/Pure/Eva Luna bem parecido, algo como o encontro de Byrds com Go-Betweens e uma pitada de guitarras barulhentas no caso do Eva Luna. No final da década de 90 Graeme dedica-se a tocar baixo no combo pós-britpop Astronaut, que tem seus discos lançados pela Fierce Panda (que lançou os primeiros singles do Coldplay, Placebo e outros grandes nomes do rock inglês). Em 2001 Graeme volta a compor faixas próprias. Chama os amigos do Astronaut para ajudá-lo e pronto, temos mais uma banda, dessa vez chamada de Slipslide. O primeiro single do Slipslide se chama "Four Day Weekend" e conta com 4 faixas que vão de "The Airport Song", menos de dois minutos, com um violão que parece ser de 12 cordas e pandeiro fazendo o ritmo. A voz cheia de personalidade de Graeme faz a diferença e dá o tom a mais numa faixa que poderia ser uma balada qualquer, mas é muito mais que isso. As outras são levemente mais upbeat e trazem aquele climinha melancólico de inverno, que surge quando temos que andar sozinhos por ruas vazias, com o vento gelado esfriando a ponta do nariz e a sensação de que uma leve garoa pode cair a qualquer momento. O single foi lançado pela Matinée em 2001, mas cairia como uma luva no catálogo da Sarah Records dez anos antes. O segundo single, lançado somente em vinil, se chama "Sleeptalk" e conta com 2 faixas. A canção-título tem guitarras levemente distorcidas, dedilhados e teclado, além de belíssima melodia e ritmo upbeat. Dá até pra dançar. Lembrou-me Delta, Simpático, Shack... já o lado B é mais lento, talvez pela ausência de batidas, mas igualmente empolgante, talvez por nos fazer lembrar os melhores momentos do Brighter.   --Esquizofrenia