Seefeel

Ever No Way

Ashburn

Somewhere between the often connected worlds of British indie rock and experimental techno, Seefeel explore a dizzying strain of dream pop within a framework of electronic beats and loops, and also forge a more caustic sound bathed in static. Begun as a relatively conventional underground rock band in early 1992, the quartet soon grew bored within the constraints of normal musical forms and started working with loops and programs rather than lyrics and choruses. After a handful of EPs, the albums Quique (<a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Too+Pure%22">Too Pure</a>, 1993), Succour (<a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Warp%22">Warp</a>, 1995), and (Ch-Vox) (<a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Rephlex%22">Rephlex</a>, 1996), and the development of numerous splinter projects, Seefeel went on extended hiatus. They returned in the 2010s on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Warp%22">Warp</a> with fourth LP Seefeel (2011), and in the following decade became active once more with archival releases like Rupt and Flex (1994-96) (2021) and a newly recorded mini-album entitled Everything Squared (2024).

Guitarist Mark Clifford and drummer <a href="spotify:artist:4WlmB6hwSKd5zYzjhKNXE9">Justin Fletcher</a> met up at a London college, and by 1992 the duo had recruited vocalist Sarah Peacock and bassist Darren Seymour. Seefeel began auditioning songs and was ready to record their first single for the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Too+Pure%22">Too Pure</a> label, but experienced a change of heart that caused the resulting EP More Like Space to owe more of a debt to <a href="spotify:artist:6kBDZFXuLrZgHnvmPu9NsG">Aphex Twin</a> than alternative rock. The band then recorded the Pure, Impure EP, which increased the distance from most rock acts, and acknowledged the gap with the addition of two <a href="spotify:artist:6kBDZFXuLrZgHnvmPu9NsG">Aphex Twin</a> remixes.

In 1993, Seefeel released their debut album Quique, an even colder document of ambient indie techno than the previous EPs had predicted. The album was hailed -- mostly in rock circles -- as a techno album which indie kids could listen to, and it received an American release that same year on the dance label <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Astralwerks%22">Astralwerks</a>. During 1994, <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Astralwerks%22">Astralwerks</a> compiled the two early EPs as Polyfusia, and Seefeel made the leap from rock to techno via a contract with the British electronic label <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Warp%22">Warp</a>. The group played with techno acts <a href="spotify:artist:6WH1V41LwGDGmlPUhSZLHO">Autechre</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:7AiamoV760pPGGM5PbOC6X">µ-Ziq</a>, and released the Starethrough EP -- their most electronic work yet -- later that year. The subsequent second album, 1995's Succour, continued to advance a comparatively skeletal and sometimes brittle sound.

Seefeel's impending break was signaled by 1996, when <a href="spotify:artist:5hkjh4uNB1fItsgLDJOVG5">Disjecta</a> became Mark Clifford's main occupation with a style more oriented to audiences of farther-afield experimental music. Peacock, <a href="spotify:artist:4WlmB6hwSKd5zYzjhKNXE9">Fletcher</a>, and Seymour in turn joined <a href="spotify:artist:7mEHndkM91rEPLkC8LfYx3">Mark Van Hoen</a> (aka Locust) for an EP and album of indie/trip-hop recorded as <a href="spotify:artist:4LpILxfR9oVEein0gvoGMH">Scala</a>. Though Seefeel returned on <a href="spotify:artist:6kBDZFXuLrZgHnvmPu9NsG">Aphex Twin</a>'s <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Rephlex%22">Rephlex</a> label in late 1996 with their third proper LP, (Ch-Vox), the group took an open-ended hiatus after its release. Peacock and Seymour continued to record as <a href="spotify:artist:4LpILxfR9oVEein0gvoGMH">Scala</a>, while Clifford recorded an EP for <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Warp%22">Warp</a> as Woodenspoon and later surfaced as <a href="spotify:artist:7FvheskIRq9iu0lfUsaDOi">Sneakster</a>.

In 2010, almost fifteen years after their last new recording, Seefeel reunited to play at <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Warp%22">Warp</a>'s 20th-anniversary celebration, and a new lineup coalesced around Clifford and Peacock plus bassist/DJ Shigeru Ishihara and drummer Iida Kazuhisa aka EDA (the latter from <a href="spotify:artist:4pxlntE89zyfL0txVloogM">the Boredoms</a>). Continuing with <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Warp%22">Warp</a>, they issued an EP entitled Faults later that year, and in early 2011 released the studio album Seefeel. Their one session for John Peel's BBC program, recorded in 1994, was given a full commercial release in 2019; titled Peel Session, it was available on its own and as part of <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Warp%22">Warp</a>'s WXAXRXP boxed set. Two years later, Seefeel's '90s <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Warp%22">Warp</a> and <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Rephlex%22">Rephlex</a> recordings were anthologized as Rupt and Flex (1994-96). Clifford and Peacock started making new music again, and reappeared in 2024 with Everything Squared, an EP previewed with the lean and trippy tracks "Sky Hooks" and "Hooked Paw."  ~ John Bush & Andy Kellman

Seefeel Reduct

Discography 1993 - now, backwards chronology 

Seefeel

Pure, Impure (Expanded EPs Edition)

Quique Redux (2025 Remaster)

Squared Roots

Rupt and Flex (1994 - 96)

St / Fr / Sp

Seefeel

Quique (Redux Edition)

(Ch-Vox) Redux

Succour

Succour (Redux)

Ever No Way

Stonefly (Seefeel Remix)

Everything Squared

Hooked Paw

Sky Hooks

Rapture To Rupt

Sp19 Ga19

Reduct

Spangle (Autechre Remix)

Peel Session