Time Out has called Neil Halstead "one of Britain's greatest songwriters"; NME said he wrote "the kind of honest, heartfelt love songs men are too scared or too cool to write these days".
Currently based in Newquay, the singer and guitarist cut three albums with Thames Valley shoegazers Slowdive, before forming 4AD favourites Mojave 3 in 1995 (alongside fellow Slowdiver Rachel Goswell). Neil made his solo debut in 2002 with Sleeping On Roads.
"There was no real plan," he recalls. "What happened was I split up with my girlfriend and ended up homeless and having to sleep in the studio for about two months. And while I was there I recorded some tracks without the rest of the band. They didn't get used on the last Mojave album [2000's Excuses For Travellers], so I started to think about putting them out on a separate record."
After such lovelorn beginnings, Sleeping On Roads became a far sunnier affair as Neil periodically recorded with friends - including Ian McCutcheon from Mojave 3 and Nick Holton of Coley Park - finally completing the album at Airfield Studios, down the road from his home in Cornwall.
"It was nice to be outside the confines of working in a band and not have to worry about that dynamic. Mojave 3 is a democracy, it doesn't matter who writes the song, the way it sounds is down to the five or six people playing it. That's fine, but this time I could just say, 'This is how it's going to be'."
The album retained Halstead's trademark mix of exquisite, quasi-folk melodies and fragile, intimate vocals - he's one of the very few singer-writers who actually deserves the Nick Drake comparisons - but this time they were wedded to gently swaying rhythms and an atmospheric groove.
"In many ways I was trying to get away from song structures a little bit in terms of it being just verses and choruses. I was more interested in the way the record *sounded*. With Mojave, we sit in a room and play the songs, we don't spend a lot of time thinking 'What can we do production-wise to make this sound really different?' I wanted to take the songs and make them into something a little more rhythmic. I liked the idea of doing something like Bert Jansch - sort of folk songs, but recording them in a more Spiritualized sort of way."
The result (despite the banjo on the title track) was less Americana, more English - partly down to the fact that Halstead deployed "a stark, finger-pick guitar style", whereas in Mojave 3 he "just strummed". To support the record, Neil embarked on year-long world tour, visiting America an impressive three times. Every Mojave 3 record has sold more than its predecessor, and Sleeping On Roads continued this upward curve.
Returning to Cornwall, Neil set about converting a building in a field "that stinks of cow shit" into a new recording studio. This was completed in time for Mojave's fourth album, Spoon And Rafter, which came out in 2003. Neil still has plans for a second solo record. As he explains: "Because I've always been in bands - I was 17 when Slowdive signed to Creation records, and then I went straight onto Mojave 3 - it's been really good doing something on my own. I want to do it again."