Finally, an act that isn't Scottish: today's band is Airiel, an American shoe-gazing tribute act from the late-90s who released 'Shirley Temple Tidal Wave' on Roisín Recordings back in 1999. (Shoegaze because they were all so non-pop that they played and/or danced staring at their shoes rather than make eye contact).
I was a bit late to music so missed the first wave of shoegazers (Ride, Curve, Swervedriver, Slowdive and all the others) but I ransacked the vaults as soon as I heard Slowdive's Souvlaki LP in about 1994. The genre was wiped off the map by the crude Britpop bandwagon, but seems to have inspired a second generation of anglophiliacs over in the US: Trespassers William's cover of Ride's 'Vapour Trail' is one of my most treasured songs, and is easily as good as the original.
As for Airiel: I suppose they're endearing also-rans. 'Shirley Temple Tidal Wave' sounds utterly lovely to me, but it could have been recorded by any British shoegaze band between 1988-1992, rather than in Indiana in 1999.
As a bonus, here's the aforementioned Trespassers William cover.
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