Reading, UK legends bring ‘Whirlpool’ back to North America with regional support acts and Slide Away festival appearances
Chapterhouse — the shoegaze icons out of Reading, UK — have revealed who’s sharing the bill for their upcoming North American tour celebrating the 35th anniversary of their debut album ‘Whirlpool’. First announced back in February, the run now has its support slots locked in, and it’s a pretty ideal lineup depending on which coast you’re on.
The Asteroid No. 4 will handle opening duties on the West Coast dates, while She’s Green takes the East Coast stretch. Any dates falling under the Slide Away multi-city shoegaze festival umbrella — NYC, Chicago, and LA — will feature Hum and Nothing headlining alongside Chapterhouse, with a rotating undercard. She’s Green also gets a couple of Slide Away spots, pulling double duty in both NYC and Chicago. For the full Slide Away rundown, head to slideaway.co.
“Breather” — Live in London, 2009
About Chapterhouse
Chapterhouse always managed to be in the right place at the wrong time. Acid-rockers when acid house hit. Shoegazers when grunge germinated. Experimental dance-rockers as Britpop broke. It’s only with hindsight that the picture snaps into focus — they were just perpetually ahead of their time.
Formed in the summer of 1987 by a crew of school friends from Reading, they started out jamming Stooges covers and digging through the Pebbles compilations, which eventually got them taken under the wing of Spacemen 3. After a few EPs, they dropped Pearl — a genuinely audacious blend of guitar noise and beats lifted from John Bonham and Schoolly D that still sounds bold today. It’s rightly mentioned in the same breath as My Bloody Valentine’s Soon as one of those records that shoved indie music somewhere it hadn’t been before. Rachel Goswell of Slowdive contributes backing vocals, and Slowdive guitarist Christian Savill has called those early Chapterhouse shows “some of the best I’ve ever seen.”
Their 1991 debut ‘Whirlpool’ — made in collaboration with Robin Guthrie of the Cocteau Twins — is a genuine shoegaze touchstone: weird and accessible at the same time, which is a harder needle to thread than it sounds. The follow-up ‘Blood Music’ had a rougher road thanks to record company politics, but it’s aged remarkably well. Its fusion of dance and rock has been cited as an influence by electronic artists including Ulrich Schnauss, and the Global Communication rework Pentamorous Metamorphosis gave it a whole second life.
As Britpop took over and everyone started looking backward, Chapterhouse couldn’t find a path forward and called it a day in 1995. But a one-off festival appearance in 2008 snowballed into a full reunion the following year — UK, US, Japan, the whole thing — and they beat basically every one of their shoegaze contemporaries to the reunion punch. Now they’re back again, 35 years on from ‘Whirlpool’, which sits at #17 on Pitchfork’s list of the best shoegaze albums ever. Right place, right time — finally.
Tour Dates
- May 15 — Brooklyn, NY — Brooklyn Paramount (Slide Away Festival)
- May 16 — Brooklyn, NY — Brooklyn Paramount (Slide Away Festival)
- May 17 — Washington, DC — Black Cat w/ She’s Green
- May 19 — Boston, MA — The Sinclair w/ She’s Green
- May 20 — Montreal, QC — Theatre Fairmount w/ She’s Green
- May 21 — Toronto, ON — The Concert Hall w/ She’s Green
- May 22 — Chicago, IL — Aragon Ballroom (Slide Away Festival)
- May 23 — Chicago, IL — Aragon Ballroom (Slide Away Festival)
- May 25 — Seattle, WA — The Crocodile w/ The Asteroid No. 4
- May 26 — Portland, OR — Aladdin Theatre w/ The Asteroid No. 4
- May 28 — San Francisco, CA — August Hall w/ The Asteroid No. 4
- May 29 — Los Angeles, CA — Hollywood Palladium (Slide Away Festival)
- May 30 — Los Angeles, CA — Hollywood Palladium (Slide Away Festival)
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