you know i am your dagger

Between their first and second LPs, Slowdive was fashioned into a Marketable Product and given treatment akin to a major label band (because they were). But between those two and all throughout the years consecutive, Slowdive wrote and recorded a load of tracks, only the selected 11 we now know making it onto Slouvaki. And thus we have this wonderful little bootleg, I Saw the Sun, first bootlegged on CD in 96 and now repackaged as a vinyl with only about 3/4 of the tracks and a different title (For Yer Eyes). What is here is both wonderful and heartbreaking, a collection of tracks similar in sound to those on Just For A Day while (unfortunately) being demo quality. But sound quality is the only minus because these are -mostly- fully formed songs, a few of which rank among Slowdive's best recorded work. "Silver Screen" is criminally overlooked. "Sleep" is the definitive version of Eternal's song of same name. The demo of "Dagger" is actually better in lo-fi form and also stands out as being better than the one that made it onto Slouvaki. Actaully, quite a few of these 21 songs sound good in lo-fi form, helping the listener imagine their hazy soundscapes as A.M.bient washes of pink noise with pop song structures over them. The heartbreak comes from knowing these will probably never get mixed properly and even with the band touring (and talks of a new album in the rumor mills) and continuing--- these tracks will probably be relegated to the past, themselves a time capsule of a band at their highest peak both commercially and sonically. One of the great lost recordings of the 90s.

watching the silver screen...