My Bloody Superlab

As near as you get to a post-rock supergroup, the personnel of Snowpony mop up members from Stereolab (Katherine Gifford), My Bloody Valentine (Debbie Googe) and the less well known Moonshake (Kevin Bass) and make the sort of music that, while duly acknowledging their progenitors, has the sort of futuristic twist that enables it to be more than the sum of its influences. Using the same producer who does all the Tortoise stuff, we're obviously not talking Rik O'Shea radio airplay territory here - but we are looking at a band who, if they could only pick up a few more hooks and scowl a bit less, could well be on their way to out-Garbaging Garbage.

Formed three years ago, they were only an underground whisper until a Rough Trade Singles Club track, The Little Girls Understand, dented the indie charts; since then, tours with Grandaddy and Mercury Rev have spread the secret a bit further. Their first album, The Slow Motion World Of Snow Pony, is a curious affair in that a couple of years back it would have been described as "sonically challenging" - but that's mainly because the music of Stereolab and My Bloody Valentine was years ahead of its time. Which is not to say that Snowpony are a tribute band to the bands from which they came.

With soundbites from Katharine Gifford (the main songwriter) like "I've always been quite fascinated by medicine and illness; it's really quite interesting how cultural attitudes toward disease have changed" you don't need any pointers to the lyrical content of the work. Sound-wise there's some serious stuff going on with guitars - "the sort of sounds that a real guitar couldn't physically play because they don't really exist," says Gifford, who takes ordinary rock riffs, filters them through effects, records them backwards and generally "fictionalises" them.

"I make a tape with the drums as a loop," she says, "to indicate a tempo and general feel, and then Kevin and Debbie sort of interpret the songs from there. The samples on their own don't make any sense; they sound really bizarre. It's only when you hear them all together that it works. We're into analogue keyboards and really any sound that fits. As long as it works, it doesn't matter where the sound comes from." What about the comparisons with your previous band? "I'm not particularly influenced by Stereolab or My Bloody Valentine," says Gifford. "I guess an interest in textures of sound is something that I kind of learnt from Stereolab. It sort of made me aware of the importance of that and also, the simplicity of structure."

For bassist Debbie Googe, it was a welcome return to the fray after years of inactivity with My Bloody Valentine. "At first it was a shock to play again," she says, "because I hadn't been on stage for four years and even playing our debut gig in Upstairs At The Garage - which is the same size as the stage, or the dressing room, at most My Bloody Valentine gigs - I was really, really nervous. But it was nice to play again." And the old band? "I left and so did Colm. It had just run its course, I think. I mean, I was in there for 10-and-a-half years. It was all fairly amicable. But the Valentines haven't ended - Kevin and Bilinda are still working together."

There's a lot on this present album that's well worth investigating: leaving aside some of the "shoegazing" and Goth excesses. The squalling guitars, driving rhythms and sheer originality of it all signal that Snowpony will become a growing force to contend with.

The Slow-Motion World Of Snowpony is on the Universal label. Snowpony play support to the Afghan Whigs at Dublin's Mean Fiddler on March 12th.