LP Cream White vinyl, Reissue
Megaphone Music (2025) UK
The 1998 debut record from Michael Head & The Strands was six years in the making. Having taken up refuge in a Liverpool recording studio in 1992, Head had set his Pale Fountains and Shack days aside, and was now dead-set on a new project, The Strands. Iain Templeton, Michelle Brown and Les Roberts joined in, resulting in a two-year set of recording sessions in which Head would be offered a new major label deal, muddying the proceedings at the midpoint. The record therefore only made it to the mixing studio in 1995, but perhaps the long break was needed, as the result is redolent: its pearly guitar arpeggiations and patchwork verse make for a glistening listen, one that all too readily translates to this reissue via Megaphone.