Bradford

Produced and signed by Stephen Street to his Foundation label, Bradford emerged from the British alternative scene at the end of the 1980s with a melodic style indebted to The Smiths, who had appeared a few years earlier. Hailing from Blackburn in Lancashire, the band comprises Ian Michael Hodgson (vocals), Ewan Butler (guitar), John Baulcombe (keyboards), Jos Murphy (bass) and Mark McVittie (drums). A first single released in 1988 on Village Records, "Skin Storm", incidentally the first independent single to appear on compact disc, was followed by a series of tracks produced by Stephen Street for his Foundation label and collected in a compilation released by the French label Midnight Music. This first album, which went virtually unnoticed in 1988, nevertheless received rave reviews and enabled the band to broaden their audience, so much so that the following year, the singles "In Liverpool" and "Adrift Again" appeared in the UK independent charts at number 12 and 20 respectively. However, the album Shouting Quietly did not benefit from this notoriety and led the band, signed in the USA by Sire Records, to break up. Seventeen years later, in 2018, a compilation enriched with alternative versions released by the A Turntable Friend label, Thirty Years of Shouting Quietly, led to the reformation of Bradford. Now a trio with Hodgson, Butler and Street as official members, the band recorded the album Bright Hours (2021), followed in 2025 by You Are Stronger Than You Think.

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