4AD began the Nineties - and its tenth anniversary year - with the release of a unique Vaughan Oliver-designed calendar (XAD 0001). Shortly afterwards came the label's first musical release of the new decade - The Comforts Of Madness (CAD 0002), the John Fryer / Gil Norton-produced debut album from the Pale Saints. Later in the year, the group returned with a new EP, Half Life (BAD 0015), which saw them expanding to a quartet, having added Meriel Barham to their line-up. (A Japan-only release, called Mrs. Dolphin (COCY-7096), collected Half Life and the previous year's Barging Into The Presence Of God EP on one CD).
Lush recorded their second EP, Mad Love (BAD 0003), with Robin Guthrie, which documented the rapid sonic progress the band had made in only a few months time. Their evolution continued on Sweetness And Light, made up of three songs produced by Tim Friese-Greene (Talk Talk). The band subsequently signed a U.S. deal with Reprise, and at the end of the year they released Gala (CAD 0017), a compilation of all three of the group's EPs (plus a bonus Abba cover and an alternative version of Scarlet) which was intended to introduce them to American audiences.
As Kurt Ralske prepared to record the second Ultra Vivid Scene album, Ivo suggested he team up with producer Hugh Jones. The result was Joy 1967-1990 (CAD 0005), a veritable encyclopedia of pop possibilities that majored on Ralske's knack for couching lyrical misanthropy in supremely catchy hook-laden songs. The album spawned two singles : "Staring At The Sun" (BAD 0004) and "Special One" (BAD 0016) - a duet with Kim Deal (a wonderful video for the song shows Kurt and Kim crooning the song like Sonny & Cher).
That performance was one of many extra-curricular activities for Kim in 1990 - a year which also found her stepping beyond the confines of the Pixies with her own group, The Breeders. The band's first line-up (of many) was Tanya Donelly from Throwing Muses, Josephine Wiggs of The Perfect Disaster and Slint's Britt Walford - together they went into the studio with Steve Albini to record Pod (CAD 0006), which featured a visceral set of Kim's own songs and a fractured cover of "Happiness Is A Warm Gun."
Dead Can Dance's Aion (CAD 0007) was the natural culmination of Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry's growing interest in non-contemporary music. It's unquestionably the Dead Can Dance album which owes the least to the 20th Century - or the 19th, 18th and 17th centuries, for that matter - and the music beneath its Hieronymous Bosch sleeve was shot through with ancient mystery and profound beauty. A subsequent tour of Europe, and, for the first time, the United States, helped to consolidate a steadily growing audience.
Some months previously, Ivo had received a cassette in the mail from basement auteur Warren Defever of Livonia, Michigan. It bore the hand-scrawled label: "His Name Is Alive - I Had Sex With God" Over the next few months, two more versions of the tape showed up, each loaded with strange variations on the material from previous efforts. Increasingly intrigued by the music, Ivo offered to try mixing it. He went into the studio with John Fryer and began playing around; when he heard them, Warren liked the results, and the finished product became His Name Is Alive's first album : Livonia (CAD 0008).
The Pixies followed Doolittle with another Gil Norton-produced album - Bossanova (CAD 0010). Although it had been a difficult record to make, the record contained its fair share of classic material. It's release was bookended by two singles - the anthemic "Velouria" (CAD 0009) and "Dig For Fire" (CAD 0014), which was accompanied by a phenomenally expensive (and rarely seen) live video clip which found the band commandeering a biker gang and a Dutch football stadium for its own nefarious purposes.
Preceded by the single "Iceblink Luck" (CAD 0011), Heaven Or Las Vegas (CAD 0012) was the Cocteau Twins' final album for 4AD. It was an extraordinary farewell: an album of great warmth and romance featuring the most open and unguarded vocals Liz Fraser had ever committed to tape. Ivo ranks it as his own favorite Cocteau Twins record and ranks it among the very best things 4AD has ever released.