Lush, fuzzy, and distortion-soaked, I’d Like Your Hair Long is from Hum’s 1995 major label debut You’d Prefer An Astronaut.

Along with Failure, Hum are probably the best-known of the “space rock” sub-genre, characterised by shoegaze-like layers of distorted guitars, meandering song structures, and (loosely) science fiction-themed lyrics.

If you’re unfamiliar, I’d Like Your Hair Long is about as good an intro as you could get to both Hum and the genre. By Hum standards it’s quite fast at around 140bpm, and with tons of distortion, lush suspended chords and a couple of rhythmic gotchas it’s good fun to play. The band are best known for their one hit, Stars, from the same album.

The band disintegrated in the late ’90s and, aside from occasional one-off shows around their native Illinois, remained dormant until the release of Inlet in 2020. In the interim, frontman Matt Talbot went on to front a new band, Centaur, as well as running his own recording studio. Guitarist Tim Lash released a straight-up shoegaze album as Glifted.