Dif Juz

Dif Juz may not have been the most successful band on the 4AD roster, but their music typified the label's quixotic approach. An all-instrumental quartet whose evocative compositions - sometimes ambient, sometimes angular - were invariably quietly mesmerising, they made a great deal of sense in the context of the so-called 'post-rock' music which emerged some 15 years after the group disbanded.

At the heart of the band were brothers Dave and Alan Curtis, guitarists both, who were joined by bassist Gary Bromley and Richie Thomas, who played drums and also contributed some marvellously evocative saxophone parts. Dif Juz recorded two EPs in 1981 - Huremics and Vibrating Air - before leaving for the Red Flame label, where they released a further EP in 1983.

The band returned to 4AD to make a full-length album, 1985's Extractions, which was produced by Robin Guthrie and featured guest a vocal by fellow Cocteau Twin, Liz Frazer.

Shortly after this, Dif Juz were introduced to Jamaican dub innovator Lee 'Scratch' Perry, serving as his backing band for a series of shows, before eventually attempting to make a record together. The five tracks that made it onto tape (including a nine-minute version of ‘The Mighty Quinn’) never quite gelled, despite Robin Guthrie's attempts to mix them, and the collaboration remains unreleased. Instead, 1986 saw Dif Juz issue a typically quirky mini-album which bundled all of the tracks from the Huremics EP with a re-recorded, re-mixed version of ‘Vibrating Air’. The collection was titled Out Of The Trees and proved to be the band’s final release.