Pygmalion

Pygmalion is the third studio album by English rock band Slowdive, released on 6 February 1995 by Creation Records. It was the group's final album before their reformation in 2014, and their only album with Ian McCutcheon, who had replaced Simon Scott on drums. Composition A departure from Slowdive's previous two studio albums Just for a Day (1991) and Souvlaki (1993), Pygmalion features a more experimental sound tilted towards ambient electronic music, with sparse, atmospheric arrangements. Pitchforks Nitsuh Abebe described the album's songs as "ambient pop dreams" that are stylistically closer to post-rock than the band's trademark shoegaze style. BBC Music writer Wyndham Wallace viewed Pygmalion as a shoegaze album, albeit not in the traditional sense, noting that at points the record forgoes percussion "entirely". With the exception of the lyrics for the songs "Miranda" and "Visions of LA", which were written by Rachel Goswell, Pygmalion was composed by Neil Halstead. The music on the album reflected Halstead's experimentation with digital technology and techniques such as looping, which was born out of his increased fascination with dance music. Release Pygmalion was released on 6 February 1995 by Creation Records. The cover illustration for the album, designed by Steven Woodhouse, features imagery from Rainer Wehinger's graphic notation for György Ligeti's 1958 work Artikulation. Though Slowdive had begun preparing for an expected tour of the United Kingdom in support of Pygmalion, a week after the album's release Creation dropped Slowdive from its roster, and by the end of the year the band had split.