Our working-from-home album this week features what is usually an absolute no-no when it comes to office-friendly tunes: words. But for an album this great, we can make an exception.
Mojave 3 was the band formerly known as Slowdive, a seminal shoegaze outfit whose 1993 album Souvlaki is a shining classic of the genre. After Slowdive were dropped by their label Creation Records in 1995, three of the group’s members — Neil Halstead, Rachel Goswell and Ian McCutcheon — rebranded as Mojave 3 and, in the process, somehow managed to make their sound even dreamier.
Their debut album Ask Me Tomorrow is a beautiful collection of low-tempo waltzes, taking aspects of shoegaze and imbuing them with a more acoustically led, country music colour. Goswell’s vocals are ethereal, softly sung as they gently melt into the music around them. Halstead’s voice is similarly unobtrusive, delivered at a stroll, which means there’s nothing too much here to distract you from your work.
The album barely raises a sweat — the only song to show any great animation is the brooding Mercy — and is a calming presence for your home office, especially the serene opener Love Songs on the Radio.
