Enthusiasm for the French philosopher guy comes and goes within the ranks of the band, who still veer between calling their Experience "Jean-Paul Sartre" and "JPS". Dave Yetton and Gary Sullivan first came upon the name after labelling a friend "The Existential Experience" as he battled the demons of psylocibin abuse. Next, a band was born out of the necessity to get "the Jean Paul Sartre Experience" onto a poster.

The place of birth was Woolston, Christchurch -- hometown of bass-player Dave, but not drummer Gary, who hailed from Invercargill. Two more boys from Woolston, a western Christchurch suburb famous for very little, joined in and the Experience became a happening thing. David Mulcahy and Jim Laing added guitars with roughly six strings to the brew and the band set forth with the creed "one world, one love, one God, one child per family." A noise was ready to be made.

The Jean Paul Sartre Experience played around Christchurch through 1985, culminating the year with a successful performance at the Flying Nun Xmas Party. They followed a self-released cassette with an appearance on student radio's Weird Culture, Weird Custom compilation and then mid-1986 saw the band unleash the first salvo in their Flying Nun career -- the critically lauded five song EP, Jean Paul Sartre Experience. Recorded and produced at Nightshift in Christchurch by the band and their soundman, Rob Pinder, the EP's two sides -- labelled 'quiet' and 'rock music' -- laid down an unfrenetic groove that interested a lot of people in these artful youngsters from Christchurch.

The next release was a full album called Love Songs, recorded in Auckland and Christchurch, and released by Flying Nun in 1987. The album was a cheeky grab-bag assortment that mixed Prince-y moves like "Let There Be Love" with purely white boy guitar strum in the form of "Grey Parade" and "Transatlantic Love Song" and threw in the clean pop of the single "I Like Rain" for good measure.

US label Communion were excited enough by the JPSE sound to release a version of Love Songs that mixed the best of both these releases, and American critics joined with the praise locals had been heaping on the band. A "dreamy romantic masterpiece" swooned one critic and that wasn't even the worst of it...

Live, the Experience continued to develop in new directions. By the time Love Songs was in the shops, the band had moved on and were beginning to experiment with samples and other new technology. The group's three singer-songwriters (Laing, Mulcahy and Yetton) had a sackful of tunes and in 1988 they recorded the album The Size Of Food at Wellington's Writhe studio. Wider in sound and with more muscle in its use of dynamics, The Size Of Food was released by Communion in America and in 1990 by Flying Nun, as one of the first releases of the company's new joint venture with Mushroom Records and distribution arrangement with Festival in NZ.

In 1991, JPSE (now pretty much permanently resident in Auckland) released the single "Precious" -- a pure slice of the band's wired guitar pop which was an all-but-hit here in NZ. That year, keyboardist Russell Baillie was added to the line-up prior to the recording of the single. However, after they completed a couple of NZ and Australian tours and composed and recorded music for the soundtrack to Alison Maclean's movie, Crush, the group decided that guitars rule and reverted to being a quartet in early 1992.

The JPSE began recording their long-awaited new album in July 1992, working with producer Mark Tierney at Airforce studio in Auckland. With a wealth of material recorded, it was decided to precede Bleeding Star with a four song EP entitled Breathe, which was released in October 1992.

The EP showed JPSE continuing to work creative wonders in the studio. In the space of just four songs, Breathe managed to be a trip through the band's multi-hued dream pop soundscape -- launching from the sly accessibility of "Breathe" and "Into The Sky", before the menacing "Kickback" segues quite naturally into the more wistful closer "Block". Breathe reached the New Zealand Top 10 in November 1992.

The eleven song album promises more adventure and more delight. Bleeding Star will be released March 14 and is preceded by the single "Ray Of Shine" (released February 1). We predict that experiencing the Experience is going to become a very popular past-time indeed this summer!