Young Marble Giants
Post-Punk / Alternative
Stuart Moxham wrote the majority of the band's songs, and his writing was often deceptively simple-seeming, giving the YMG's classic work a uniquely fragile yet powerful quality. Centered around a weird mix of Philip's steel-hawser bass, Stuart's haunting, rhythmic Galanti electric organ lines and punchy rhythm guitar (played on a rare John Lennon style blonde Rickenbacker), with Statton's vocals tentatively hanging in the space above, the sound was unlike anything anyone had heard before. Stuart Moxham's then girlfriend Wendy Smith had lent Stuart the money to buy the Rickenbacker. Smith, who was an art student in Cardiff and later Nottingham around the time the YMGs were forming, was to provide artwork for several of the singles that were later made by Weekend and the Gist, Stuart Moxham's later project. She also accompanied the band on their tour of the US, and was to shoot a set of seminal photographs of the band.
Very early in their existence, there was a fourth member of the YMGs: Peter Joyce, Phil and Stuart Moxham's cousin. Joyce was an electronics whizz, who had made his own synthesiser from a kit. This was a small touch-sensitive keyboard with an attache case-like box of circuitry, with several knobs and dials. It made sounds similar to Eno's synths in the early Roxy Music and Kraftwerk, who employed similar 'low-tech/high-tech' electronics. The YMGs used tape recordings of Peter's home-made drum machine (Roland didn't release the Boss DR-55, the first fully programmable drum machine, until 1979), since they had no desire to have a drummer. They were also interested in (by today's standards primitive) state of the art effects devices such as ring modulators and reverb units, with the emphasis always on simplicity.
Their first vinyl release was on the compilation LP Is The War Over? on Cardiff DIY label, Z Block Records, in October 1979. While signed to UK independent record label, Rough Trade Records the YMGs released two EPs, Final Day and Testcard, and one acclaimed and very influential album, Colossal Youth (a reference to the Early Greek 'Kouroi' marble statues, from which the YMGs took the inspiration for their name.)
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