The Judge
RAVES!
Date: 26/01/11
Catherine Wheel - "Shallow" (1992)
I've come to the end of going through the vinyl LPs in my collection (I'll start looking at the singles next to see what further delights I can bring you), and this track comes from the most recent one I have, from 1992.
Catherine Wheel were a four-piece outfit from Lowestoft in Suffolk, who first gained exposure via Norwich's Wilde Club venue, which brought them to the attention of John Peel.
Lazy music paper journos (of which there were - and are - far too many) lumped them in with the 'shoegazing' tag, which they also applied to a range of bands from the dense, off-centre soundscapes of My Bloody Valentine via Slowdive to Ride. There was more to Catherine Wheel than that, however.
This track is taken from their 1992 album for Fontana, Ferment, and whilst many will vouch for Black Metallic as being the standout piece from it, this is my own favourite.
One peculiarity about the vinyl edition of the LP - or at least about my copy of it - is the way that it was mastered or cut. The grooves are so compressed that the whole of the bottom end is missing, and when converting the tracks to digital files I had to do some really severe re-equalising on them. There was no need for them to have done this, because the 'land' or run-off groove is almost half the width of the whole playing area. Perhaps it was some sneaky method of making people buy it on CD.
