Alison Statton
Welsh singer
title: "Alison Statton" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1958-births", "living-people", "singers-from-cardiff", "british-women-new-wave-singers", "20th-century-welsh-women-singers", "welsh-new-wave-musicians"] description: "Welsh singer" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alison_Statton" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0
::summary Welsh singer ::
::data[format=table title="Infobox musical artist"]
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| name | Alison Statton |
| image | Alison portret april 26, 1989.jpg |
| landscape | |
| alt | Photo of Alison Statton from 1989 |
| caption | Statton in 1989 |
| birth_date | |
| birth_place | Cardiff, Wales |
| death_date | |
| genre | New wave, post-punk, jazz |
| years_active | 1978–present |
| label | Rough Trade, Les Disques du Crépuscule, Vinyl Japan |
| associated_acts | Young Marble Giants, Weekend, Devine & Statton |
| website | |
| :: |
| honorific_prefix = | name = Alison Statton | honorific_suffix = | image = Alison portret april 26, 1989.jpg | image_size = | landscape = | alt = Photo of Alison Statton from 1989 | caption = Statton in 1989 | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = | alias = | birth_date = | birth_place = Cardiff, Wales | origin = | death_date = | death_place = | genre = New wave, post-punk, jazz | occupation = | instrument = | years_active = 1978–present | label = Rough Trade, Les Disques du Crépuscule, Vinyl Japan | associated_acts = Young Marble Giants, Weekend, Devine & Statton | website = | module = | module2 = | module3 = ::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Young_Marble_Giants_live_at_Factory_Festival,_Nivelles,Belgium(2008).jpg" caption="Young Marble Giants live at Factory Festival, [[Nivelles]], Belgium, 1 November 2008"] ::
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/db/Weekend_live_at_Paradiso,_Amsterdam,1983.jpg" caption="Paradiso, Amsterdam]], 5 February 1983"] ::
::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Simon_Booth_And_Alison_Statton_(Weekend_live_at_Paradiso_in_Amsterdam,_februari_2,_1983).jpg" caption="Weekend at the Paradiso, Amsterdam, 2 February 1983"] ::
Alison Statton (born March 1958) is a Welsh singer best known for her work with Young Marble Giants. Fans of the singer have included Kurt Cobain, Courtney Love, Stephin Merritt, Belle and Sebastian and Renato Russo.
Musical career
Born in Cardiff, Statton's career in music began in 1978 as the singer for the band Young Marble Giants. After Young Marble Giants split up in 1981, she formed the jazz-influenced band Weekend with Simon Emmerson (Booth) and Spike Williams, releasing the album La Varieté in 1982 and a live EP, Live at Ronnie Scott's, the following year.
Statton returned to Cardiff and trained to be a chiropractor while teaching tai chi.
She returned to music in the late 1980s and released two recordings with the guitarist from Ludus, Ian Devine as 'Devine and Statton', The Prince of Wales (1989) and Cardiffians (1990).
After working with Devine, she released several records with Spike in the 1990s, starting with Weekend in Wales (1993).
Young Marble Giants reunited for a number of live performances from 2007 to 2015 in Europe, the last one in London at the Royal Festival Hall during the Meltdown Festival curated by David Byrne.
Statton's singing has been called "coolly unadorned", cool and dispassionate, and ghostly and fragile, with a "shy, singsong delivery". Her vocal style is considered influential on many of the indie pop artists that followed.
She presently works as a chiropractor.
Recordings
With Young Marble Giants
- Colossal Youth (1980), Rough Trade
- Salad Days (2000), Vinyl Japan
- Live at the Hurrah (2004), Cherry Red
- Colossal Youth & Collected Works (2007), Domino
With Weekend
- La Variete (1982), Rough Trade
- Live at Ronnie Scott's (1983), Rough Trade
- Archive (2003), Vinyl Japan
Devine and Statton
- The Prince of Wales (1988), Les Disques du Crépuscule
- Cardiffians (1990), Les Disques Du Crépuscule
Alison Statton & Spike
- Weekend in Wales (1993), Vinyl Japan
- Tidal Blues (1994), Vinyl Japan
- Maple Snow (live album, 1995), Vinyl Japan
- The Shady Tree (1997), Vinyl Japan
- Bimini Twist (2018), Tiny Global Productions
Other appearances
- The Gist – Embrace the Herd (1982): vocals on "Clean Bridges"
- Stuart Moxham & The Original Artists – Signal Path (1992): vocals on "Knives (Always Fall)"
References
References
- Larkin, Colin (1995) ''The Guinness Encyclopedia of Popular Music'', Guinness Publishing, {{ISBN. 978-1-56159-176-3, p. 4419
- True, Everett (2006) ''Nirvana: The True Story'', Omnibus Press, {{ISBN. 978-1-84449-640-2
- Burt, Stephen (1995) "[https://books.google.com/books?id=IS0EAAAAMBAJ&dq=devine+and+statton&pg=PA19 In Search of ... Young Marble Giants]", ''[[CMJ New Music Monthly]]'', February 1995, pp. 18–19
- Paul, John (2014) "[http://www.popmatters.com/review/180271-weekend-the-81-demos/ Weekend ''The '81 Demos'']", ''[[PopMatters]]'', 18 April 2014. Retrieved 26 November 2015
- Hage, Erik "[http://www.allmusic.com/artist/devine-statton-mn0000716290/biography Devine & Statton Biography]", [[AllMusic]]. Retrieved 25 November 2015
- Graf, Christian; Voigt, Sven (2003) ''Punk! Das Lexicon'', Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Germany, p. 652
- Kaplan, Matthew "[http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=alison_statton Alison Statton]", ''[[Trouser Press]]''. Retrieved 25 November 2015
- Spin]]'', May 1994, p. 24. Retrieved 25 November 2015
- Young, Rob (2006) ''Rough Trade'', Black Dog Publishing Ltd., {{ISBN. 978-1-904772-47-7, p. 176
- Bonini, Alessandro; Tamagnini, Emanuele (2006) ''New Wave'', Gremese Editore, Italy, {{ISBN. 978-88-8440-412-1, p. 195
- ''Inventory: 16 Films Featuring Manic Pixie Dream Girls, 10 Great Songs Nearly Ruined by Saxophone, and 100 More Obsessively Specific Pop-Culture Lists'', Scribner, {{ISBN. 978-1-4165-9473-4, p. 162
- Eccleston, Danny (2015) "[http://www.mojo4music.com/21376/young-marble-giants-relive-colossal-youth/ Young Marble Giants Relive Their Colossal Youth]", ''[[Mojo (magazine). Mojo]]'', 7 August 2015. Retrieved 25 November 2015
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