Navigator formed in Norwich, United Kingdom in 1994, animated by a shared love of American post-hardcore groups a desire to contribute to the wave of British post-rock groups emerging in the wake of My Bloody Valentine's Loveless. Initially underscored with an introspective melancholy superficially comparable to Tindersticks, they moved progressively away from conventional song structure, embracing silence, noise, free improvisation, electronics, and primitive instrument building over the course of their six active years.
Their first single, 'Killtaker' (1996) and blended tense passages of dissonant guitar with caustic bursts of feedback, scarcely-audible baritone vocals and inventive, melodic bass playing. aA second single, 'A Little Astronomy' (1996) was a more understated affair - a 'tender waltz of dark nursery melodies, with organ layered beneath crisp, interweaving post-slint guitars'. The seven-and-a half minute single 'When the Wires Fall' (1997) rejected percussion in favour of funereal clarinet, violin and piano, while the 'Assay' EP featured an extended range of instrumentation, studio experimentation with found objects, and a more complex and often intricate approach to both orchestration and improvisation.
Navigator's sole album, 'Nostalgie' (1998) was a difficult, bleak but often moving record marked a significant departure from previous releases, featuring pieces for unaccompanied guitar ('MyGrolshy') and tape ('Menlo Park'), alongside the weightless drift of 'Beaching', the wordless graveside lament of 'O. Massa', and the incessant, slow death-march of 'Throw another receptor on the fire'. Having ceased activity in 1999, they reunited briefly in 2005, with Melia, Robottom and Walsh augmented by Laura Cannell (violin), Andre Bosman (guitar, electronics), Alex Sanders (piano), Mel Puga (percussion), and Liam Wells (films).