Formed in Reading, England in late 1989, the legendary Slowdive were instrumental in the development of a dreamy, noisy approach to guitar pop that came to be known as shoegaze; but they also exhibit a broader set of inspirations -- folk-rock, dub, and ambient techno, to name a few -- than the majority of their '90s contemporaries. The band's distinctive sound, which combines large walls of effects-drenched guitars with funereal tempos and the pristinely fragile vocal harmonies of singers Rachel Goswell and Neil Halstead, has continually evolved from their early noisy singles like "Morningrise" and 1993's nearly poppy Souvlaki album to 1995's Pygmalion, a misunderstood ambient album that shed nearly all rock conventions. The group broke up soon after, after which most of the members remained active in the folk-tinged group Mojave 3; Slowdive reunited to tour in 2014 and released two albums that cemented their legendary status (2017's Slowdive) and subtly shifted their sound toward a more electronic approach (2023's Everything Is Alive).