Released: 1993
Contextualising things is important. The Boo Radleys were signed to the anarchic Creation label in 1991 following their debut Ichabod and I, after which came the shoegaze inspired Everything’s Alright Forever. At no stage up to that point had they looked like creating a masterpiece and whilst Alan McGee was Creation’s very public face, in the background they were championed by his partner Dick Green, the band admitting to Spin recently that “Dick Green understood what we were trying to do and was always very supportive. He understood what we were. Alan didn’t.”
Green ensured there was a chance their next album Giant Steps existed in what was a confusing period for a British music scene upended by grunge. It was masterminded by song writer Martin Carr, who instead of cribbing from the Pixies et al drew inspiration from The Beach Boys, dub, folk and sixties psychedelia. What ensued was a record that was constantly shifting tone, Carr’s magpie approach symbolised by the opener I Hang Suspended, which started with sixty seconds of fuzzy ambience before morphing into shit-kicking rock.
Amongst the experimentation there was still a sweetly harmonious streak to the likes of Barney (And me) and Wishing I Was Skinny, whilst Rodney King was a contemporary exploration of post-Loveless noise. The overall effect however was that of going through a stylistic maze and taking a different route every time.
This 30th Anniversary Edition comes with some peripheral extras, but serves best as a reminder that for the much narrower musical palettes of the early nineties Giant Steps was both a gateway to new avenues like Nick Drake, Pet Sounds and King Tubby as much as a dynamic, wildly ambitious project that only fully revealed itself to it’s makers after being finished. Alan McGee never got it. But sometimes that’s a very good thing.
You can read a full review here.
The Voice Of Unreason 