Alison Statton (born March 1958) is a Welsh singer best known for her work with

Young Marble Giants Young Marble Giants were a Welsh post-punk band formed in Cardiff, Wales, in 1978. Their music was based around the vocals of Alison Statton along with the minimalist instrumentation of brothers Philip and Stuart Moxham. Their early sound was ...

. Fans of the singer have included

Kurt Cobain Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – ) was an American musician. He was the lead vocalist, guitarist, primary songwriter, and a founding member of the grunge band Nirvana (band), Nirvana. Through his angsty songwriting and anti-establis ...

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Belle and Sebastian Belle and Sebastian are a Scottish indie pop band formed in Glasgow in 1996. Led by Stuart Murdoch, the band has released twelve studio albums. They are often compared with acts such as the Smiths and Nick Drake. The band took their name from ...

and

Renato Russo Renato Russo (born Renato Manfredini, Jr., March 27, 1960 – October 11, 1996) was a Brazilian musician who was the lead singer of the pop rock band Legião Urbana. A Brazilian film depicting his life and career was released in 2013, called ...

Musical career

Born in

Cardiff Cardiff (; ) is the capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of Wales. Cardiff had a population of in and forms a Principal areas of Wales, principal area officially known as the City and County of Ca ...

, Statton's career in music began in 1978 as the singer for the band Young Marble Giants.Burt, Stephen (1995)
In Search of ... Young Marble Giants
, ''

CMJ New Music Monthly CMJ Holdings Corp. is a music events, online media company and a distributor of up and coming music CDs, originally founded in 1978, which ran a website, hosted an annual festival in New York City, and published two magazines, ''CMJ New Music ...

'', February 1995, pp. 18–19 After Young Marble Giants split up in 1981, she formed the

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...

-influenced band

Weekend The weekdays and weekend are the complementary parts of the week, devoted to labour and rest, respectively. The legal weekdays (British English), or workweek (American English), is the part of the seven-day week devoted to working. In most o ...

with

Simon Emmerson Simon Emmerson (12 March 1956 – 13 March 2023) was an English musician and record producer. He founded the bands Working Week, Weekend, and Afro Celt Sound System. Early life and education Simon was born in London, the son of Alan Emmerso ...

(Booth) and Spike Williams, releasing the album ''La Varieté'' in 1982 and a live EP, ''Live at Ronnie Scott's'', the following year.Paul, John (2014)
Weekend ''The '81 Demos''
, ''

PopMatters ''PopMatters'' is an international online magazine of cultural criticism that covers aspects of popular culture. ''PopMatters'' publishes reviews, interviews, and essays on cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, ...

'', 18 April 2014. Retrieved 26 November 2015 Statton returned to Cardiff and trained to be a

chiropractor Chiropractic () is a form of alternative medicine concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of physical disorder, mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially of the vertebral column, spine. It is based on sever ...

while teaching

tai chi is a Chinese martial art. Initially developed for combat and self-defense, for most practitioners it has evolved into a sport and form of exercise. As an exercise, tai chi is performed as gentle, low-impact movement in which practitioners ...

. She returned to music in the late 1980s and released two recordings with the guitarist from Ludus, Ian Devine as 'Devine and Statton', ''The Prince of Wales'' (1989) and ''Cardiffians'' (1990).Hage, Erik
Devine & Statton Biography
,

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

. Retrieved 25 November 2015Kaplan, Matthew
Alison Statton
, ''

Trouser Press ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who, Dave Schulps, and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference ...

''. Retrieved 25 November 2015 After working with Devine, she released several records with Spike in the 1990s, starting with ''Weekend in Wales'' (1993). Young Marble Giants reunited for a number of live performances from 2007 to 2015 in Europe, the last one in London at the Royal Festival Hall during the Meltdown Festival curated by David Byrne. Statton's singing has been called "coolly unadorned", cool and dispassionate, and ghostly and fragile, with a "shy, singsong delivery". Her vocal style is considered influential on many of the

indie pop Indie pop (also typeset as indie-pop or indiepop) is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with a DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and s ...

artists that followed. She presently works as a chiropractor.Eccleston, Danny (2015)
Young Marble Giants Relive Their Colossal Youth
, ''

Mojo Mojo may refer to: * Mojo (African-American culture), a magical charm bag used in Hoodoo Arts, entertainment and media Film and television * ''Mojo'' (2017 film), a 2017 Indian Kannada drama film written and directed by Sreesha Belakvaadi * '' ...

'', 7 August 2015. Retrieved 25 November 2015

Recordings

With Young Marble Giants

*''

Colossal Youth ''Colossal Youth'' is the only studio album by Welsh post-punk band Young Marble Giants, released in February 1980 on Rough Trade Records. Young Marble Giants were offered the opportunity to record the album after Rough Trade heard just two son ...

'' (1980),

Rough Trade Rough Trade may refer to: *Rough Trade (shops), London record stores *Rough Trade Records, a record label from the stores *Rough Trade Books, a publishing house from the label *Rough Trade (band), a Canadian new wave rock band * "Rough Trade" (''Am ...

*''Salad Days'' (2000),

Vinyl Japan Vinyl may refer to: Chemistry * Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), a particular vinyl polymer * Vinyl cation, a type of carbocation * Vinyl group, a broad class of organic molecules in chemistry * Vinyl polymer, a group of polymers derived from vinyl mon ...

*''Live at the Hurrah'' (2004), Cherry Red *''Colossal Youth & Collected Works'' (2007),

Domino Dominoes is a family of tile-based games played with gaming pieces. Each domino is a rectangular tile, usually with a line dividing its face into two square ''ends''. Each end is marked with a number of spots (also called '' pips'' or ''dots'' ...

With Weekend

*''La Variete'' (1982), Rough Trade *''Live at Ronnie Scott's'' (1983), Rough Trade *''Archive'' (2003), Vinyl Japan

Devine and Statton

*''The Prince of Wales'' (1988),

Les Disques du Crépuscule Les Disques du Crépuscule is an independent record label An independent record label (or indie label) is a record label that operates without the funding or distribution of major record labels; they are a type of small and medium-sized ente ...

*''Cardiffians'' (1990), Les Disques Du Crépuscule

Alison Statton & Spike

*''Weekend in Wales'' (1993), Vinyl Japan *''Tidal Blues'' (1994), Vinyl Japan *''Maple Snow'' (live album, 1995), Vinyl Japan *''The Shady Tree'' (1997), Vinyl Japan *''Bimini Twist'' (2018), Tiny Global Productions

Other appearances

*The Gist – ''Embrace the Herd'' (1982): vocals on "Clean Bridges" *Stuart Moxham & The Original Artists – ''Signal Path'' (1992): vocals on "Knives (Always Fall)"

References

External links

Alison Statton at LTM Recordings
{{DEFAULTSORT:Statton, Alison 1959 births Living people Singers from Cardiff British women new wave singers 20th-century Welsh women singers Welsh new wave musicians