at a glance...

Hometown: Bristol, England
Year Formed: 1993

Members:
Dave Pearce -voice, guitars, other sounds
Rocker -computer

Related bands:
Movietone, Third Eye Foundation, Light, Telefunken

Notes:
Flying Saucer Attack began almost accidentally when Dave Pearce, a record store clerk, and his girlfriend Rachel Brook, recorded a couple songs on her brother's new four track tape machine. He played them around the store and got so many requests that he pressed the songs onto a single. Brook has since left to play in Movietone, and Pearce has made seven albums and played a few concerts, most notably at the Terrastock psychedelic festival.

Flying Saucer Attack's early records combined Popul Vuh's shimmering, open-ended soundtracks, the early Jesus And Mary Chain's wedding of melody and noise, and the downbeat, recorded-in-a-shed aesthetic of New Zealand's Xpressway collective to hand craft compelling psychedelic music that evoked rural English landscapes as much as those behind the eyelids.

Mirror, the first FSA album in three years, elaborates on that early sound while forging into new territory. Dave Pearce opens the record with a brief blast of withering feedback, paints a late night and starry skies ambience on "Dark Wind," and mines English folk music to extract melodic beauty on "Islands" and acoustic melancholy on "Tides."

But Pearce hasn't kept his head buried throughout the '90s - half of the record is propelled by jungle beats and churning tape loops. The wedding of big beats, restrained singing, and ear-singing distortion works best on "Winter Song" and "Rise," which conjure images of UFO's barnstorming over the moors and through the fields. Where do you think crop circles come from anyway?

If you like Flying Saucer Attack, check out:
My Bloody Valentine Loveless
The Jesus and Mary Chain Psychocandy
Shirley Collins and Davy Graham Folk Roots/New Routes
Pan Sonic A

-- Bill Meyer

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