New Fast Automatic Daffodils

New Fast Automatic Daffodils formed in Sheffield in 1981 around brothers Sulky and Clare Kenny with Steve Stringer. Their name came from a line in a James Joyce novel, which gives you some idea of their sensibility. They put out a debut album called 'Big' in 1982, and the title track became one of their better-known songs.

Their sound was hard to pin down, drawing from post-punk and early electronics without settling into any one style. They didn't do many interviews or play live often, which added to their somewhat elusive reputation. The band released a couple more records, including 'This Chair Is Mine' in 1983, before wrapping things up a few years later.

While they weren't around for long, their atmospheric approach, heard on tracks like 'Stockholm', found an audience among listeners drawn to moodier, textured music. Some later bands in the dream-pop and shoegaze spheres would cite them as an early touchstone.