REWIND: Spearmint - 'A Trip Into Space'

I heard this one night back in the late 90s on The Evening Session, the legendary Radio 1 show that was always first for the best new music. Shame their station has completely gone to shit now, as they do nothing but playlist already-known artists, acting as a follower rather than a leader. Good job we still have 6Music, eh? The London-based indie popsters Spearmint were formed in 1995 by Shirley Lee (lead vocals, guitar), Simon Calnan (vocals, keyboards), Martin Talbot (bass), and Ronan Larvor (drums). Talbot left shortly afterwards, and Andy Lewis joined. Lewis is also known for playing with Paul Weller's backing band. The band have always released their own music via their Hitback Records label. 'A Trip Into Space' is the joyous sound of the British summer encapsulated in a bright, uptempo groove that samples heavily from Rare Pleasure's 1976 single 'Let Me Down Easy'. The song had originally been demoed by Simon and Shirley when they were a duo named Laverne And Shirley in 1991. Soon afterwards, the same sample was used in the club hit 'Needing U' by David Morales, leading many to believe that the Spearmint single was the inspiration. The NME described the single as "frantically paced, with huge dollops of northern soul, and so infectious it makes you want to don ridiculously large trousers and dance like a gibbon. And in a climate of angst-ridden emotional debris, that's top quality entertainment."

Spearmint have recently released their sixth (or is it 7th) studio album, 'News From Nowhere'. A review of that can be found HERE.

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http://spearmint.net/