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'Gedge is back - and trading under the name that first endeared his brand of frantic guitars and conversational lyrics to countless bed-sit romantics.

Take Fountain by The Wedding Present

?The boy Gedge has written some of the best love songs of the Rock ?n? Roll era. You may dispute this, but I?m right and you?re wrong!? - John Peel.

David Gedge is back - and once again trading under the moniker that first endeared his particular brand of frantic guitars and heartfelt, conversational lyrics to countless bed-sit romantics.

It?s roughly twenty years this year since the fledgling Wedding Present first trod the boards in small venues around West Yorkshire and grabbed a handful of souls. Now, all these years later, the band is back on tour (well, if it?s good enough for The Pixies...) and they?re all set to kick up a storm with the release of an album that?s closer to the band?s last recordings on the Saturnalia album, than their earlier work, spliced through with the epic sweep of Cinerama?s sound, to create a third way that?s still 100% Gedge, through and through. Go Out And Get 'Em Boy(s). And girl...

Anyone Can Make A Mistake

Having called a temporary halt to The Wedding Present in 1997, David Gedge embarked on a duo project with his then girlfriend Sally Murrell that was soon to adopt the name Cinerama. Their debut album, Va Va Voom, was released in 1998 and Cinerama became the primary creative output for Gedge?s writing, recording and performing. By 2002?s Torino, however, the melodic Cinerama sound was becoming darker in tone and more guitar driven and the band had also taken to mixing the odd Wedding Present song into the live shows.

Gedge?s personal life also entered a darker place itself following his break up, after fourteen years, with Sally. He moved to Seattle and began writing a series of songs that appear to be influenced by his despair over the split. The resultant album, which was recorded in Chicago and Seattle by Steve Fisk - who also produced Watusi, The Wedding Present?s 1994 LP for Island Records - sees Gedge revive The Wedding Present name for the first album since 1996?s Saturnalia. Titled Take Fountain, it was preceded by two singles: last November?s thriller Interstate 5 and I?m From Further North Than You, which escaped into the public domain at the close of January.

After almost an eight-year hiatus, The Wedding Present will also be touring through the UK, Europe and North America in the wake of the album?s release with the line up of David Gedge, Terry de Castro ? on bass - John Maiden ? drums - and Simon Cleave ? guitar - who was a member of the last Wedding Present line up. For Gedge it will be full circle.

It?s now twenty years since he formed The Wedding Present, a band that has remained true to itself, albeit without ever taking or acknowledging the full credit and recognition it deserves as one of the UK?s most influential and successful alternative bands. Take Fountain is a body of songs so heartfelt that it?s impossible not to be moved by them and an album that is the equal, if not surpassing, anything Gedge has previously recorded and released.

Hit Parade

The Wedding Present have had seventeen UK Top 40 hit singles...not bad for a band who have stubbornly refused to play the record industry?s game since their inception. That was back in 1985 when David Lewis Gedge boarded a National Express coach in London with a handful of dreams and a pocket full of ideas. Oh, and about 500 records packed into a pair of his mother's suitcases.

In this fashion, the single Go Out And Get 'Em Boy! was collected from the pressing plant, delivered to the distribution company, and The Wedding Present was born. That pioneering spirit has been at the core of the band's philosophy ever since. From George Best "an unmitigated delight" [NME] the first full length release on their own Reception Records onwards, the band have charted an appealing, if often eccentric course of their very own.

With their independent releases, The Wedding Present acquired a reputation for bittersweet, breathtakingly real love songs immersed in whirlwind guitars, so it was quite extraordinary that Ukrainski Vistupi V Johna Peela, with the band exploring traditional Eastern European folk music, should be their major label debut on RCA. ?(They) carry off what is basically a bold experiment with verve? [NME]. However, this was soon followed by the more traditionally incendiary Bizarro, ?simply unbeatable? [Melody Maker] which featured their first hit single Kennedy. Now defunct Rock paper Sounds said: ?it?s their major label debut, but it?s a transition they?ve mastered beautifully?.

The next step, made with characteristically twisted Wedding Present logic, was to enlist noise-mongering - and relatively unknown, at that time - sound engineer Steve Albini's aid, at a time when everyone else was releasing Madchester style dance mixes. The resulting Seamonsters, recorded in the snowy wilds of Minnesota in just 11 days, suggested a more thoughtful Wedding Present. The Guardian noted that: "Albini has given The Wedding Present considerable weight, with Gedge's voice trickling between banks of scowling guitars". Indeed, the singing ranged from sensual whispering to feverish screams, as the singer investigated more challenging subjects.

I?m Not Always So Stupid

1992 brought another intriguing idea. By the end of December the group had released twelve records, one in each month, equalled Elvis Presley's 35 year old record for "most hits in one year", rekindled everyone's interest in that ultimate pop format, the 7" single, and led the NME to describe the band as "casually revolutionary and underhandedly unique". A gang of impressive names, including Ian Broudie from The Lightning Seeds and legendary Rolling Stones producer Jimmy Miller collaborated on the industry-challenging project, ultimately to be compiled on the two Hit Parade albums and awarded 'record of the week' by Tony Parsons in The Daily Telegraph.

Watusi, produced by Steve Fisk (a prime mover in the celebrated avant-garde scene of Seattle, Washington) then whisked the band off into yet another new area with its trademark lo-fi pop, 3-part acapella harmonies and Waikiki-ready surf strains. This ?strong, multifaceted album? [Select], sprinkled with 60s and 70s pastiches, was described by some critics as their most varied and dynamic to date. ?Watusi is (their) White Album, a late period re-assessment of their sound that finds them doing what they do best? [Melody Maker].

In 1995 the band released yet another 7" single, Sucker, and completed a British tour with two drummers. Although the record sold several thousand copies and reached No.3 in The Festive 50 (the late BBC DJ John Peel's end of year listeners' poll) you won't see it in any other charts, because, typically, it was only available at the concerts or by mail order.

The band returned to a more traditional form of record distribution with the car themed Mini - "a gem of a record" [Melody Maker] in which Gedge cloaked his tales love, lust and infidelity with automobile iconography in what can only be described as a concept album! To commemorate this release, the band played at the BBC's Sound City Event, which was held that year in Leeds, the group?s home town. During the concert, the winner of a "Mini Prize Draw" was announced, and a lucky Wedding Present fan became the owner of a real life classic Austin Mini motorcar provided (and delivered!) by the band.

For the next full length LP, the group decided to apply a decade?s worth of studio experience and produce the recording themselves. Thus, the Top 40 album Saturnalia was released by Cooking Vinyl to a flurry of critical approval. The NME exclaimed that "David Gedge has?just written one of the best pop albums of the year" while Melody Maker noted that in the new recordings, which were completed in the London studios belonging to The Cocteau Twins, you could "hear an experimentalism that would send half of New York back to the lab".

Va Va Voom(ed)

It was at this point, in 1997, that Gedge called a halt to The Wedding Present and started work on a solo project that would eventually see the light of day under the banner Cinerama. A fittingly titled outfit, Cinerama indulged Gedge's love of film music from John Barry to Blaxploitation via Ennio Morricone, as well as the classic song writing of people like Bacharach and David. Cinerama started life as a duo that Gedge shared with his then girlfriend Sally Murrell together with a shifting line-up of collaborators.

1998's Va Va Voom ?turbo-driven melodies and bittersweet vignettes taking in everything from John Barry to the Zombies? [The Times] featured The Church's Marty Wilson-Piper and Emma Pollock from Glasgow?s The Delgados. Then, in 1999, Gedge rescued the rhythm section of the disbanded Goya Dress (Terry de Castro and Simon Pearson) and combined them with Wedding Present guitarist Simon Cleave. Since 2000 the line-up has remained relatively steady, apart from Finnish drummer Kari Paavola replacing Pearson and Murrell?s retirement from live performance. [Gedge, Cleave, de Castro and Paavola went on to record The Wedding Present?s ?comeback? album in 2004].

Surely on pace to rival the abundant shelf filling of The Wedding Present, Cinerama released a clutch of singles in support of their debut LP, as well as a number prior to 2000's Steve Albini-recorded Disco Volante ?dangerously, seductively sweet? [Melody Maker]. Notable were the heart-rending Superman (complete with alternative Spanish take) and the six and a half minute epic Health And Efficiency ? which was also recorded in French ? mirroring a similar dalliance by the band with a continental European sound, when, as 'Cadeu De Marriage', they recorded a French language cover of their own single Why Are You Being So Reasonable Now?

The third Cinerama studio album, Torino (released in 2002), was an altogether darker and more substantial affair than the first two, with Gedge returning to a much more guitar driven sound and writing, primarily, about sex! ?Cinerama are escaping the shadow of Gedge?s illustrious indie-legend past. Torino is a giant beast of adulterous lyrical fantasies, cult soundtrack flourishes and the screams of Albini-engineered guitars? - Uncut.

At the end of 2002, Gedge split up with his girl friend of 14 years, Sally Murrell, and decided he had to move away from Leeds. So he moved to Seattle and busied himself with writing a new Wedding Present album. Which is where we came in...

Tour

The newly reenergised Wedding Present ? the seventh incarnation of the band at last count - are touring the UK, Ireland and Continental Europe throughout February and March. Miss them at your peril. If the last few year?s Cinerama shows have been anything to go by ? and they should be, as the core of this version of the Wedding Present is essentially the Cinerama band that toured Torino two years ago ? then plenty of older Wedding Present songs should be in evidence for those looking for that rush of nostalgia ? or a chance to see them performed on stage for the first time, if you weren?t there back in the day. Let the new invasion of The Wedding Present begin!

Take Fountain is out now, from Scopitones.

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