NEIL Halstead travelled down a dusty B road on last year's solo detour, Sleeping On Roads; Rachel Goswell has spent much of the first six months of 2003 recording her solo debut for release early next year.

However, Halstead and Goswell are as committed as ever to Mojave 3, the melancholic five-piece with the misleading desert name and American West Coast instrumentation but rainy Thames Valley roots.

Recording in their new studio on the Cornish north coast, these former Slowdive shoegazers have crafted their fourth, typically slow-smoking, tremulous Mojave 3 album.

Spoon And Rafter finds them becoming ever more pastoral yet sonically complex, the sunshine never more than wan on ten new Halstead compositions on the theme of broken hearts. Nine-minute opener Bluebird Of Happiness, psychedelic and tender and sad, threatens to overshadow all that follows, but its warmth spreads throughout this dreamy trip into sweet sorrow.

Updated: 08:49 Thursday, September 25, 2003