Press Release From Permanent Records MICE starring Julianne Regan

New band: MICE One abrasive statement of intent. Edgy guitars chop in and out over neck-jarring percussion as three, make that four sweet melodies scrap for supremacy. A screeching tannoy rasp piles into the blissfully familiar. "Some of my friends won't recognise me. Recognise me." Produced by Mice, engineered by Gary Stout (Suede).

THE PERSONNEL Tim McTighe: bass/guitar Christian Hayes: guitar Julianne Regan: vox/keyboard/guitar

SHORT STORY (BIG NEWS) McTighe and Regan spend two full years on the dole doing shit piecework (cleaning studios and transcribing market research questionnaires ), writing songs, making tapes and thinking. Regan is approached by ex-Suede guitarist Bernard Butler and leaves for France to record an album. McTighe, introduced by Starclub, joins the fledgling Powder and signs to Parkway. Butler wants a folk diva, Regan a riff machine with a pop brain. But time moves on (been there, seen it, done it) and both have chosen unwisely. At their first and last gig - at Hampstead's Raj Tearooms, they receive a princely 40 pounds each - Butler glues wine corks to a keyboard, pulls his socks off and plays with his big toe. In the true spirit of justice, it all gets a little acrimonious. McTighe... well, how unwise do choices get?

McTighe and Regan regroup and begin working on an album for Permanent, home of The Fall. Recording in Kilburn one evening, Regan struggles with a guitar part and frustration drives them to the pub. Here they meet Christian Hayes, ex-Cardiacs and Levitation, who's rehearsing up the road with Miranda Sex Garden. He slopes back with them for a drink, a giggle and a bit of a jam. He likes the pop, the melodies, they like the new cacophony. This is a serious perversion of sound. It sounds like a band.

THE ALBUM There are the simplistic structures of big rock and headfuck psychedelia maudlin pop and wide-eyed histrionics. Sixties sentiment and gutchurning metallics. This is a risk that should not have come off, an album that should not hold together. But it did. And it does. Due out early 96...

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MICE (READ CLOSELY)

Christian Hayes Born in Camden, raised in West London. He's enthused by the Beatles, but hearing them chiefly when sick and off school, for years they reminded him only of violently debilitating illness. He forms Bic and the Biros (hence his nickname, and no, it's not Biro) and plays bass for hardcore electro-stormtroopers The Dave Howard Singers. Stultification sets in and he leaves rock'n'roll to join the circus as a unicycling fire-juggler. Next comes The Cardiacs whose shadowfalls harder on 1995 than most would care to admit, and then Levitation, arguably the most brilliant and challenging freeform rock band of the last decade. Finally the twitching, intricate punk of Panixphere, a hardnosed knockabout set up with The Cardiacs' Tim Smith and Levitation's Dave Francolini. And now Mice.

"It's great to do pop, a real departure for me. I've always liked it but I've never really done it before."

Tim McTighe Born in Coventry though previously unacquainted with Regan. Forms Blue and moves to London in search of a singer. Then it's Green Tambourines (lest we forget) and French europoppers Vox Populi who also briefly employ All About Eve's Mark Price. Cantona Ginola and Philippe Sella are rightly worshipped but French europop is a zany requiem for good taste. The limey duo quit and Price introduces McTighe to his sister-in-law - Regan. Songs, tapes, Butler, Powder ("I can't stand that. I really, really don't want to mention that"). And now Mice. But you already knew all that.

"These are early days for us, but I'm into songs and melodies, tasteful pop with noise and originality. Simple, really."

Julianne Regan Born in Coventry to Irish Catholics, she checks out for Sainsbury's before her purple barnet gets her moved into administration (like, out the back). Studies journalism at the London College of Fashion, a couple of years after Bananarama. Works in Foyles, Charing Cross Road in the Psychology, Occult and Philosophy department, fending off lascivious nutters with straw in their hair and pentagrams on their tee-shirts. Acts as a nanny to an American cryptologist whose wife works in the hospital where they removed the presidential polyps of Ronald Reagan.

Writes freelance for ZigZag, interviews anarcho-glam industrialists Gene Loves Jezebel and joins on bass ("It was great, like Public Image or Virgin Prunes, these harrowing songs with big dubby bass. Not like the LA rock tarts they turned into"). Involves herself with x-Wasted Youth members Persian flowers. Moves in with Manuela from X-Mal Deutchland and forms All About Eve, originally a teutonic Cocteau Twins. Tim Bricheno arrives, accompanied by the concept of The Song. Then "Our Summer", Phonogram, that massive debut and three increasingly intriguing and risibly reviewed albums culminating in "Ultraviolet" for MCA, an unmistakably contemporary cross between Curve and "Ummagumma".

"We had a massive backlash on that tour. People would come up and say 'Why have you cut your hair off? You're like a stranger, you don't talk to us between songs anymore'. I said, 'You know, I've just got nothing to say. Don't take it personally.' But they did take it personally."

She splits All About Eve, blows all her savings making demos, meets McTighe etc. etc. and now there's Mice.

"Because Bic wasn't involved in the writing of it all he could come in fresh, hear these songs that'd been there for two years or whatever and have the distance to try something completely different. He really lifted it for me, really obliqued it all, and then we all started egging each other on. To begin with Tim was a bit concerned, like 'Look what they're doing to my songs, ma' and Gary thought Bic was a lunatic, but everybody got into it in the end. The melodies were still there, it was just that bit more interesting, the hardest stuff I've been involved with since All About Eve's first sub-industrial goth single".

A FEW FINAL WORDS

Christian Hayes "Once you know your strengths and weaknesses you can really work together. You can swap tapes, change things, have them changed and end up with things you love but could never have done on your own. That's what Levitation were about, everyone bringing something of themselves to it, and that's why I'm here, really, because if it wasn't like that, I wouldn't be".

Julianne Regan "I've got a tape recording at home of me at the age of four singing along to The Kinks so I'm almost first generation as far as Sixties stuff goes. I remember when I'd got my first batch of demos together for this, hearing Elastica for the first time and thinking 'Oh, shit, this is a bandwagon thing now, and I'm only at the demo stage'. But then I thought I'd be damned if I'd let some trivial zeitgeist thing murder what I wanted to do, something that's in me, and I know no band today is doing anything like most of the stuff on this album.

People told me that I should either do a Bjork or an Annie Lennox. But I can't do Bjork because I'm not Icelandic, I'm not fantastically photographic and I don't understand dance like she does. And I don't want to do Annie Lennox because she's all grown up and I'm not and I've never seen should-pads as a measure of maturity anyway. I just do what I want to do, what excites me. I like the challenge and I like it more now than I ever did because impressing yourself doesn't get any easier."

(Information transcribed by Ian Latuskie from information supplied by SPLASH@The Water Rats, London Kings Cross, UK)