Young Marble Giants

Young Marble Giants were a Cardiff post-punk musical trio formed in 1978. Their style featured minimal instrumentation provided by brothers Philip and Stuart Moxham, which supported the coolly plaintive vocals of singer Alison Statton. Very early in their existence, a fourth member was the cousin of Phil and Stuart, Peter Joyce, an electronics whizz, who had made his own synthesiser. This was an impressive touch-sensitive keyboard with a sort of attache-case like box of circuitry. It made sounds a lot like Eno in early Roxy Music, or Kraftwerk. YMG were always keen on the sythesised rhythm machines available at that time (late 1970'2) since they had no drummer.

Related Topics:
Cardiff - Post-punk - 1978

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Whilst signed to UK independent record label, Rough Trade they released two EPs, "Final Day" and "Testcard", and one acclaimed and very influential album entitled Colossal Youth (a reference to the statues implied in their name).

Related Topics:
UK - Record label - Rough Trade

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The band toured and played in the US, Japan and Europe, and played in San Francisco, Vancouver, New York, Berlin. Touring companions included the band Cabaret Voltaire.

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Influences included Eno, Kraftwerk, Neil Young, Lou Reed, The Velvet Underground, Roxy Music, David Bowie, Can and others. The band were acquainted with Scritti Politti, the band of Cardiff native Green Gartside, and ended up signed to the same label, Rough Trade records. It was revealed in the 2003 book Journals that the band were, along with Scotland's The Vaselines, Kurt Cobain's favourite band. Courtney Love's band Hole covered the Young Marble Giants track "Credit In The Straight World".

Related Topics:
Eno - Kraftwerk - Neil Young - Lou Reed - The Velvet Underground - Roxy Music - David Bowie - Can - Scritti Politti - Cardiff - Green Gartside - Rough Trade - 2003 - Scotland - The Vaselines - Kurt Cobain - Courtney Love - Hole

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After the band split up in 1981, Stuart Moxham formed The Gist. Alison Statton formed Weekend. Phil Moxham went on to play bass for The Communards and Everything But The Girl, who were Ben Watt and Tracey Thorn's group. He features on one of their albums.

Related Topics:
1981 - The Gist - The Communards - Everything But The Girl - Ben Watt - Tracey Thorn

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It was rumoured that the band might reform in 2004 to make new recordings, but this project has not yet surfaced.

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