Breathless are an English dream pop band formed in 1983 by Dominic Appleton (vocals, keyboards), Gary Mundy (guitar), Ari Neufeld (bass) and Tristram Latimer Sayer (drums).

[5] Dominic Appleton and Gary Mundy knew each other from school and had played earlier in a group called A Cruel Memory.

[1] They split away from the group and started working on songs, with Appleton taking over vocal duties and suggesting Mundy for the guitarist role.

[7] The recording sessions at Alvic Studios in West London marked the first time the band would work with engineer/producer Drostan Madden, who had been recommended to Breathless by 4AD's boss Ivo Watts-Russell.

[8] Three Times and Waving was released in November 1987, and the album cover features a 1961 painting from Jean Dubuffet entitled "Spinning Round".

The double A-side single "Always"/"Flowers Die" was released in the summer of 1990; the former was a non-album track, while the latter—a cover version of a song originally by the Only Ones—would also feature on their fourth album.

Green to Blue was the first new recording from the band following a nine-year hiatus, and features special guest and This Mortal Coil/4AD alumna Heidi Berry providing backing vocals on album track "Just for Today".

After nearly ten years of recording inactivity, the band announced their eighth studio album, entitled See Those Colours Fly, which was eventually released on 29 July 2022.

We had just come back from Italy where we had been playing some of the new songs and a couple of days before we were due to go into the studio to record the first one, we heard that our drummer Tristram [Latimer Sayer] had been in a really bad car accident and was in a coma.

"[15] See Those Colours Fly was released to positive reviews, with The Big Takeover stating, "while progress on the group's eighth album was unavoidably delayed by a stroke of cruel misfortune – not to mention the realities of the global pandemic – the finished work is one of their finest, brimming with melody, transfigured by its long period of gestation and the changes fate imposed on their creative process.

[17] Prior to Breathless, Appleton and Mundy played keyboards and guitar, respectively, on Anne Clark's 1982 debut album, The Sitting Room.

Tenor Vossa's roster has also included releases from Richard Warren, Laymar, Beat Milk Jugs, Bender, Scenic, Moly, Your Black Star and photographer Steve Gullick's musical project Tenebrous Liar.

[20] He told Brookstein that he was "very caught up in the music being put out by 4AD" in the 1980s, including Rema-Rema, Mass, the Wolfgang Press, Cocteau Twins and Dead Can Dance, even prior to participating with the label's supergroup This Mortal Coil.

[20] Appleton noted a preference for female singers, citing Elizabeth Fraser and Billie Holiday as key vocal influences, while hailing Kate Bush as having "the most amazing musical imagination".