Following on from Saturday's Creation Records selection, label mate Idha released a couple of albums and a handful of singles on the label between 1993 and 1997. I first heard her on Secret Tracks 2, a freebie cassette with music magazine Select, which featured her cover version of Primal Scream's I'm Losing More Than I'll Ever Have. The previous track on the compilation was by Ride, which included her then-husband, Andy Bell. Bell performed on her records, along with a variety of guest musicians, from Edward Ball and Ian McLagan to Stephen Duffy, Sally Herbert and Debsey Wykes from Dolly Mixture (the latter also guesting on Saint Etienne's cover of Who Do You Think You Are around the same time). According to Wikipedia, Idha Övelius retired from the music industry in 2000 and since 2009 has been working as a structural engineer in Stockholm.
Trawling YouTube for the Primal Scream cover, I discovered a snippet from The Graveyard Shift, a late night BBC Radio 1 show presented by Mark & Lard aka Mark Radcliffe and Marc Riley. This apparently dates from 1994 and features Mark speaking to Idha and guitarist Jason King as well as a couple of songs. The first is a cover of Ooh La La by Faces, a studio version of which featured as the lead track on Idha's A Woman In A Man's World EP, released in October 1994. The second is a then-as-yet-untitled song, which was subsequently released on her second album as Me And Johnny in August 1997. Wonderful stuff.
A special mention to the Idha Övelius fan site, which for obvious reasons hasn't been updated in many years, but contains a bio, discography and some great photos and magazine snippets in the gallery.
