UNDER THE RADAR

Artists, bands, and labels meriting more attention

- Shaun Hand

The twilight years of the 90s were a wonderfully strange time for British indie music. In the liminal space between Britpop's peak and the invasion of The Strokes, Evening Sessions and Melody Maker cassettes were filled with off-kilter acts who couldn't be herded into a scene.

Hailing from Galashiels in the Scottish borders, Dawn Of The Replicants were a prime example. An angular five-piece influenced more by Tom Waits and the Pixies than Paul Weller and The Beatles, they nevertheless reached for glory. They almost succeeded, too. They were signed to a major; their EPs, with cool, grainy artwork and cryptic lyrics, were NME Singles Of The Week; Peel championed them, and The Times named them 'Best New Band Of 1997'.

It was all there. But, through an unfortunate mix of circumstance and strong weed, the moment passed, and they've since slipped, undeservedly, into the '33 from £0.36' section of Discogs.

"It was a weird time," former frontman Paul Vickers reflects. "I think people were hoping Britpop would continue longer than it did. But it became more about rock bands with 303s, a bit more dance-tinged and new wavey. I don't think we fit in with anything in particular."

Only knowing the band through the still-cherished singles bought as a 13-year-old and a vaguely remembered interview with them on Teletext (Planet Sound on Channel 4, anyone?), I was surprised to discover that Vickers isn't Scottish.

"I'm originally from Marske-by-the-Sea, between Middlesbrough and Whitby," he explains in a Teesside accent that only occasionally betrays years of living north of the border. "I moved to Galashiels to join a music magazine called Sun Zoom Spark with Mike Small, who I'd met at Carlisle Art College."

When Sun Zoom Spark folded, Vickers began writing songs with Small's brother Roger as The Replicants, a name inspired by