In Motion
by Sp!n (UK)

From MadhattanJack 01/19/2026 07:20 | #312697

Despite the excessively clever way they spelled their band name, Sp!n were doing quite well as an up-and-coming dance-oriented post-punk/guitar-pop act in the UK when this album was released. By all rights, they should have been remembered as one of the primary "baggy" progenitors of Britpop, along with Pulp, The Charlatans, and the La's. The music tabloids loved them, their shows were well-attended, they were signed to Rough Trade... They were so confident, they and their management thought nothing of using a 1987 Scanning Electron Microscope image of aspergillus niger fungus, a form of mold, as this album's cover image (it's licensed from SEM photographer David Scharf, and still available at https://www.scharfphoto.com/gallery/allergens - or outside of the USA at https://www.sciencephoto.com/media/13447/view - but he's not to be confused with David Scharff, a music producer who also designs album covers). They never mentioned the presumably intentional irony of the album cover being an image of mold (or "mould," since this was the UK) on an album called "In Motion" by a band called "Sp!n," which only made it THAT MUCH CLEVERER.

But all this was for naught, when shortly after the album's release the band was involved in a terrible van accident that left nearly all of them seriously injured, especially bass player John Mason who was in a coma for 11 days. Things just went downhill from there, and Sp!n ultimately disbanded. Two of the original members, Steve Mason and Matt James (along with singer Martin Rossiter and drummer Kevin Miles) went on to form Gene (that's the *band* Gene, not some guy whose name is "Gene" or anything having to do with genetics). So all of this is just my way of saying the album sounds like "early Gene." Sorry I didn't lead with that.