Slowdive have celebrated the 25th anniversary of their self-titled debut EP with a 2014 live version of ‘Avalyn’.

The band discussed the writing and recording of the EP in a lengthy Facebook post, reminiscing on how they came up with ‘Avalyn’ on the spot: “We didn’t really have a structure for the song until we got to the studio. In fact, it was almost an afterthought. We had the bass part that was simply repeated all the way through, and Neil and Christian found that they could make weird noises with their guitars. One part almost sounds like a wind instrument.

“Otherwise it was really just composed on the spot, Rachel bringing the words and vocal melody – and we recorded it pretty much live, and possibly in a single take. We knew immediately that together with Slowdive, this was the direction the band was taking. Listening back to Avalyn at that time, we couldn’t really believe that we’d come up with something that sounded like that when a few months earlier we were being talked about as ‘Reading’s answer to The Primitives’.”

The band also revealed that they’re planning to release a live album from the 2014 tour: “We are currently working on releasing the entire live set from that tour as a collection, so look out for news of that soon.”

Hear ‘Avalyn’ below, watch the band play ‘When The Sun Hits’ at their first reunion show, and catch up with Slowdive’s FACT mix.