7" Heaven: Urusei Yatsura - Plastic Ashtray

The late 90s and first few years of the 00s aren't generally seen as a particularly exciting time for British rock music, at least by the popular press anyway. Britpop was dead and the superclub was king. This was the opinion of just about everyone who wasn't listening very hard, and hearing some of the great British indie records coming out then. Some of the bands only lasted for a few singles, others for a few albums, but a quick glance at my music collection shows that a continuous stream of great stuff was indeed being released by bands such as... Mansun, Symposium, Idlewild, the Super Furries, Gorky's, Groop Dogdrill, Sona Fariq, Therapy?, Midget, Llama Farmers, The Crocketts, Cay, Ultrasound, and a ton of other bands that i've covered on here in the past.

Another of those bands were the quite lovely Urusei Yatsura. They were a Glasgow lo-fi indie three-piece much in the style of GBV and Sebadoh who released three albums and a myriad of singles from 1994-2001. After being bought to the attention of John Peel, they soon became a cult favourite for a small generation of indie fans weaned on shoddy 7" sleeves and Steve Lamacq. The band's only single to hit the top 40 was Hello Tiger (1997), which hit the suitably underachieving position of number 40. All three of their albums, We Are Urusei Yatsura (1995), Slain by Urusei Yatsura (1997) and Everybody Loves Urusei Yatsura (1998) are well worth seeking out for any self-respecting indie pop fan. Here are both sides of 1995's wonderful Plastic Ashtray 7".

Urusei Yatsura - Plastic Ashtray
Urusei Yatsura - Got The Sun