Name: Palindrome Hunches - 10th Anniversary
Brand: Neil Halstead

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

SCR055LPX

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Colour

Brown

Colour details

Ochre

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Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Special 10th Anniversary Edition In Brown Card Artboard Sleeve with Additional Lyric Print Insert

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2022-11-11

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Cargo

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

5060853702150

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Total Cap

1 / Extended format: No / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No / brown

Artist

Neil Halstead

Genre GB

Indie Pop / Shoegaze

Label GB

Sonic Cathedral

Neil Halstead is an English musician born in Reading, Berkshire on 7 October 1970. He is best known as the singer/guitarist and primary songwriter for the shoegaze band Slowdive. In addition to his work with Slowdive, Neil has been involved with various other musical projects including Mojave 3, Black Hearted Brother, and his own solo work.

Sonic Cathedral Recordings is a UK-based label that was established in 2006 as an extension of the renowned club night Sonic Cathedral. With a focus on shoegaze and its influences, the label celebrates and promotes this genre through their diverse roster of artists.

Founded and managed by [a2148662], Sonic Cathedral Recordings has become a prominent force in the music industry. Their dedication to showcasing talented musicians within the shoegaze scene has earned them a reputation for releasing high-quality music that resonates with fans worldwide.

Located at Office 44, 78 Golders Green Road, London NW11 8LN, UK, Sonic Cathedral Recordings continues to curate an impressive catalog of albums and singles that capture the essence of shoegaze. Explore their website to discover captivating sounds from both established acts and emerging talents.

Check out our latest restocks of vinyl records, CDs, books and merchandise at Rough Trade. Dive into rare finds, classic albums and add something special to your collection.

Back In Stock

Slowdive singer and songwriter’s third solo album, which was originally released in November 2012. It is a stunning record and one which, upon its release, underlined the claims that Neil was one of the finest and most underrated British songwriters of recent times. It’s also a very special release in the Sonic Cathedral catalogue; the shoegaze label licensed the record from Jack Johnson’s Brushfire imprint for the UK and Europe and it was the start of a relationship that also gave us the Black Hearted Brother album in 2013 and, ultimately, brought about the reformation of Slowdive in 2014. But Palindrome Hunches is a very different beast. Both stately and understated, this moody and mesmerising collection of peculiarly British folk songs was made with the Band of Hope, a Wallingford, Oxfordshire based collective consisting of Ben Smith (violin), Drew Milloy (double bass), Paul Whitty (piano) and Tom Crook (guitar). Together with producer Nick Holton, banjo player Kevin Wells and backing singer Aimee Craddock, they recorded the album to tape over a few weekends in the music room of their local junior school. “At first we were going to record in a studio, but everything seemed too clean,” said Neil at the time. “We just went through the songs and recorded them live without very much rehearsal. We wanted to be spontaneous and simple and to keep the little mistakes that sneaked in.” This goes a long way to explaining the album’s humanity and intimacy, and also why it has had a quiet life of its own over the past decade, gradually growing in stature alongside Neil’s more high-profile activities with Slowdive; copies of the 2012 original and even the 2017 repress currently fetch up to triple figures on Discogs. The stunning opener ‘Digging Shelters’ was used to devastating effect in the posthumously released James Gandolfini movie Enough Said – a fitting home for a song that rubs shoulders here with ruminations about love and loss such as ‘Tied To You’ and ‘Spin The Bottle’ and, on ‘Wittgenstein’s Arm’, an Austrian pianist who had his right arm amputated in World War I and lost three of his brothers to suicide. The wordplay of the title track is almost light-hearted in comparison; “I wanted to write a song that was the same forwards and backwards, but it didn’t quite work out,” explained Neil, adding that he also chose ‘Palindrome Hunches’ for the album’s title because “I like the idea of things being reversible”. A couple years later, by reforming his old band, he proved that. And now, ten years on, it’s the perfect time to rewind to this understated, underrated classic. Praise for Palindrome Hunches on its original release:

Palindrome Hunches - 10th Anniversary

Music GB