Salako

Salako is a downbeat electro-pop quintet from Hull, UK that was put together in 1995 by Luke Barwell, David Langdale, James Waudby, Stu and Thomas Spencer. In 1998 their debut Re-Inventing Punctuation (printed "rE-InVentiNg; Punc.tU!at?iOn>:) came out on Jeepster as an eye-opener to some parts of the UK indie pop scene, but it never really got the sales to fit the scattered nice reviews, maybe because the sound was as claimed in many of these reviews too messy and not as strict- and tightly produced as some of the similar artists' releases at the time.

In 1998 their debut Re-Inventing Punctuation (printed "rE-InVentiNg; Punc.tU!at?iOn>:) came out on Jeepster as an eye-opener to some parts of the UK indie pop scene, but it never really got the sales to fit the scattered nice reviews, maybe because the sound was as claimed in many of these reviews too messy and not as strict- and tightly produced as some of the similar artists' releases at the time.

Salako's sound was though very experimental within the boundaries of rhythms, loops and typical use of drum machines for a UK band of that period in time.

In 1999 the follow-up album Musicality was released to much better reviews. This could be the result of what sounds like a much tighter production and the wide range of guest-musicians and - for instance - the extravaganza of recording with a 200 voice choir in a church in Hull for one of the album singles "Look Left".

At the end of a tour with Pavement in 1999, Langdale left the band, which then continued to record and release 4 EPs the following year - The titles refered to the date and place of the cover photos. The albums were thus entitled "Mappleton Sands 201298 EP", "Ventimiglia 120899 EP" etc.

In 2000 founding member Barwell left the band, and the rest of the members took some time off without officially splitting up.

In 2004 Salako re-emerged with the release of The Story of Our Life So Far on Tablature Records.