Slowdive — “Visions Of La” — Pygmalion
That Slowdive—or, really, an increasingly troubled Neil Halstead—managed an experimental masterstroke and commercial suicide in one fell swoop is about as rock’n’roll as you can get. Pygmalion, though, flaming fuck-you to the EMI label that it may be, is the mellow rebellion you never imagined, a post-folk system of sterile empty hospital rooms and gently billowing white sails. “Visions Of La” is straight up medieval, offering washed-out acoustic guitar and phased, elegiac lyrics sung at maximum wintriness. Halstead came back to the planet for Mojave 3, an act that fills in some of the ambient gaps that songs like “Rutti” and “Blue Skied An’ Clear” skirt around to dreamlike effect, but none of his later works compare to what opioid relief and muted destruction he found here, in the crucible of irreconcilable pressures.
