Pram (band)

Pram are an English post-rock band formed in Birmingham in 1988 by singer-keyboardist Rosie Cuckston, guitarist Matt Eaton, drummer Andy Weir and bassist Samantha Owen.

[1] Their electronic pop sound, described by AllMusic as "equally quaint and unsettling,"[1] employs unconventional instruments and draws on stylistic influences such as krautrock, exotica, and dub.

"[7] In 1988, Weir reunited with the other three and they began playing music together in Birmingham under the temporary name Hole (at that point, performing solely with vocals and a homemade theremin).

Pram's name emphasised their unearthly, childlike tone and presentation, with Rosie Cuckston's eerie vocals and lyrics dealing with depression, loneliness and the dark side of childhood.

"[7] Other cited influences on the nascent Pram included Sonic Youth, Pixies, My Bloody Valentine, The Fall, Big Black, The Residents and Alice Coltrane as well as various dub and bhangra artists.

Pram's growing reputation soon engaged the interest of Too Pure Records (then home to Stereolab, Mouse on Mars and PJ Harvey).

Andy Weir left shortly after the release of the EP and was replaced as drummer by Daren Garratt, who would perform on all subsequent recordings until the dawn of the new millennium.

This new line-up gelled instantly and would write, record and mix the band's debut album, 1993's The Stars Are So Big, The Earth Is So Small... Stay as You Are in time to meet their agreed, scheduled September release date.

During the recording sessions, a trumpeter (credited only as "The Verdigris Horn") also joined the band and played on several album tracks, including the quarter-hour "In Dreams You Too Can Fly".

Although their third album, 1995's Sargasso Sea, was awarded a rating of 0/10 when reviewed by the NME (which Pram took as a compliment), the band continued to gain momentum and popularity.

Also in 1997, the band expanded and reissued their debut EP Gash as a full-length album on the æ label, adding five tracks from Perambulations and doubling the length.

In 1998, Pram recorded the soundtrack to Martin Davies of bolexbrothers 10-minute animated film "Keep in a Dry Place and Away From Children" and in 1999, they released it as an EP, including a remix by Mouse on Mars.

These were the final recordings to feature Daren Garratt on drums (with the notable exceptions of the "Last Astronaut" 7", the Sleepy Sweet EP and around half of the tracks on the North Pole Radio Station album).

By 2000, three new members had joined Pram - former Broadcast drummer Steve Perkins, multi-instrumentalist Nick Sales (of the long-running Birmingham performance art group Blissbody) and trumpeter Alex Clare.

A remix EP based on various Moving Frontier tracks, Prisoner of the Seven Pines, followed in 2008 [12] as did a full self-released collection of the band's visual work (short films, music videos and animations), collated on a limited edition 90-minute DVD called Shadow Shows of the Phantascope[13] These would be the band's last commercial releases for a decade.

Following the release of Prisoner of the Seven Pines and Shadow Shows of the Phantascope, Rosie Cuckston permanently left the band in 2008 to concentrate on academia (and, later, politics).

As Pram, the group conducted workshops in sound art and field recording, producing as yet unreleased work that was performed live in 2016.

Now working as a semi-instrumental project, with an increased interest in film and site-specific work, the band performed at the Imaginary Musics festival in Switzerland in May 2017 (playing an audio-visual "Music for Kopfkino" set) and at a combined sound-art installation and concert ('Under the Blossom That Hangs On The Bough') in Birmingham's Martineau Gardens as part of the for-Wards project and festival for June 2017.