Navigator - Flame Is Slow (Singles 1996-1997) LP
"Flame is Slow" collects together three acclaimed seven-inch EPs (originally released on the Noisebox label in 1996 and 1997) by the mysterious, mercurial Navigator.
The post-"Loveless" UK underground of the early 1990s was a vibrant place, despite what music biographies may tell you. What might now be lumped together as “post-rock” was in fact a varied and forward-thinking group of artists creating inquisitive music in the wake of the grunge goldrush. Contemporaries such as Hood, Flying Saucer Attack, Movietone and – of course – Mogwai and Arab Strap are rightfully seen as timeless nearly thirty years on but they’re really just the tip of the iceberg. Navigator might get mentioned less but their story is every bit as intriguing as any of their peers.
Navigator formed in Norwich in 1994. Their music was consistently introspective and melancholic, but their brief existence of five years saw them move rapidly from traditional song structures towards noise, found sound, free improvisation, electronics, primitive instrument building and – ultimately - silence. They were an enigma back then and they remain so now.
They released four seven inches before a solitary album "Nostalgie" (1997, Swarf Finger Records). Each release felt different to the last but always intimate and peculiar. Their use of sound and space is nothing short of magical. Rough and unsettling textures rub against each other, selected and mixed instinctively. Another band’s discarded mistake becomes a key element in their hands.
The band received much acclaim and some genuine commercial success when single "When the Wires Fall" ended up in the indie charts. They shared stages with Low, David Thomas, Aerial M, Stars Of The Lid and Labradford and toured with Mogwai and Arab Strap culminating in the now-notorious, equipment-levelling performance at The Garage in London.
The original version of the group played live for the last time in 1999 before quietly disappearing. It was perhaps inevitable that a band so committed to exploring and refining their sound should end by removing themselves from it entirely.
Aside from a brief (and excellent) reformation in 2006 and a CDR compilation of those early seven inches, Navigator have been quiet for over 20 years until now.
"Flame is Slow" assembles the blue, red and green Noisebox EPs into one cohesive album-length collection, remastered with care and reassembled by the band. It rightfully places Navigator where they belong – as one of the most curious, adventurous, and beautiful groups this island has ever produced.
“Whenever I think of bands that more people should’ve heard than did, I always think about Navigator. It’s great that the music they made is going to be available again as it is truly special and deserves to be heard by more people” – Stuart Braithwaite (Mogwai, Silver Moth, Rock Action Records)
“From puzzling over the squalling feedback on their first seven inch, found in the 50p box and bought on the strength of the sleeve, to finally coming to terms with what they had done to themselves by the time of their first and only LP, took me a lot longer than the brief, indelible arc Navigator described in the vacuum of the late nineties.
It was only last week my neighbour, listening for the first time, drew my attention to the tapped chromatic bass playing on A Little Astronomy. I'm still baffled” - Thomas House (Sweet Williams, Charlottefield)
“I grew up in East Anglia and the music Navigator made feels like it belongs in that place so perfectly, as though the weirdness of the landscape was part of the band. They were always slightly terrifying to me back then. You’d hear stories about them that made them seem like some sort of cult. These crazy people banging bits of metal out there in the flatlands. But so much of the musical vocabulary that seems normal to me now, decades on, comes directly from them” – Chris Summerlin (Hey Colossus, Haress, Wrong Speed Records).
Wrong Speed Records