A couple of really terrific reviews over at Hit Harmony Haven.
New Pine Overcoat/ Angel: “…raw, human, and unmistakably real… the kind of lyric Britpop could have produced but rarely did… ahead of its time… an emotional arc that feels less like a demo reconstruction and more like a cinematic short film.”
Hovercraft’s revival is not simply nostalgic, but restorative. It bridges time, technology, memory, and grief, turning the act of musical resurrection into an artistic statement of its own.
And Blown Away: “…an emotional excavation… stylish, restless, and subtly melancholic beneath the adrenaline… swagger laid over vulnerability, noise layered over doubt… hypnotic soundscapes… a unique dream-blues sensibility.”
Hovercraft presents not the polished fantasy of what the band could have been, but the flawed, brilliant, beating heart of what it was.
Our friends at Sinusoidal in India reviewed New Pine Overcoat / Angel and Blown Away.
a chance to face the pain, instead of running away from it.
Songwriting, with purpose
Dave Franklin reviewed New Pine Overcoat (“brilliantly mercurial”) and Angel (“wonderfully not quite what it seems”) at The Big Takeover.
What would the Hovercraft story have been had they gone the distance? What would the modern popscape look like today if things had been different? We can only imagine.
Fred Bambridge at It’s All Indie described New Pine Overcoat as “mesmerising” and was “astounded that [Angel] is a 30-year-old track.”
I just feel bad as if this came out in the 90s I honestly feel like the whole world would know about Hovercraft.
Another lyrical and evocative review from our Brazilian friends at Music For All.
Shake, rattle and roll?
There’s plenty of hiss on the old original tape audio from which this new version was created, and you can certainly hear Mr Shimble rattling around on his drum kit. An alternative translation might be: “The track is supported by the ride cymbal’s consistent shimmer (which gives it that raw lo-fi texture) and the snare’s rhythmic rattle, while the sweet fragile female vocal fills the lyrical space, graced by a careful but sufficient bassline.”
“…romantic guitars that reshape into the unusual angles of Mazzy Star.”
“The song unfolds like something out of Phoebe Bridger’s Punisher, taking its time to reveal itself and building steadily with emotional delivery and evocative storytelling.”
Lovely review from LT1KF.
“Americana guitar soundscape and sublime, atmospheric vocals…”
“…the pairing of tracks holds a high emotional quotient and we are fully in awe. We appreciate the sync friendly nature of the releases, and can imagine both songs in movies and TV shows.”
Great review from KIMU.
New Pine Overcoat / Angel
The antidote to Christmas singles you didn’t know you needed.
Before the AI reconstructions, before the rnb and neo-soul transformation of The Promised Land, before the Hovercraft resurrection project — these were the original 1990s demos that survived only because they were kept in cardboard boxes for thirty years.
“New Pine Overcoat” is close to Charlie Pepper’s raw acoustic folk original of the song that later became The Promised Land. It travels from youthful defiance to something darker in under three minutes. Unpolished, intimate, and far closer to the bone than the later reconstruction.
“Angel” begins with breathless acoustic longing and ends in bitter, coming-of-age defiance — Christmas angels with broken wings, impossible love turning into clarity. The ending lands exactly the way Charlie wrote it: unexpectedly sharp.
These tracks come from the original Hovercraft tapes recorded in Grimsby, 1995–96. Digitised, repaired, and released as part of the ongoing search for our missing songwriter and friend, Piers “Charlie Pepper” Wildman, last known to be in the Bournemouth area.
Every release is both memorial and message.
Sending a note, hoping someone reads it.
Lost Songs.
Vanished Songwriter.
Resurrected Band.
In 1995, four friends from Grimsby formed a band called Hovercraft.
They played loud.
They played raw.
They wrote songs that meant something.
Their demo “Mr Tooting Brown” hit No. 1 on the local charts.
And then, in 1996, their songwriter Piers “Charlie Pepper” Wildman vanished.
One day he was rehearsing with the band.
The next, he was gone.
No note. No explanation.
Just a missing friend and a box of cassette tapes.
Hovercraft fell apart.
The Resurrection
For nearly thirty years, the tapes sat in drawers and cupboards — warped, tangled, half-erased by time.
In 2024, surviving members Golly God and Ron Nasty began a strange experiment:
Rebuilding lost songs using:
- battered cassette tapes
- fragmentary lyric sheets
- half-remembered arrangements
- and new AI reconstruction tools
Not remastering.
Not re-recording.
Reconstructing.
What emerged wasn’t nostalgia.
It was sound archaeology — a band being dug up and rebuilt, piece by piece, memory by memory.
Current momentum
Hovercraft’s resurrection is spreading:
- now on 72 playlists with a combined 186K reach,
- nearly 3,000 streams across Spotify,
- over 500 playlist adds,
- 26 press features across five continents,
- and listeners saving songs at above-average rates.
Three Albums. One Long Message.
SHAKEN NOT STIRRED
Neo-soul sophistication · October 2025
“A work of sound archaeology.” — La Caverna (Mexico)
ON THE ROCKS
Darker, experimental terrain · November 2025
“Falls into our world through a crack in time.” — Punk Head
BLOWN AWAY
Raw indie-punk catharsis · December 5, 2025
The Story We’re Still Living
- 1995: Hovercraft form in Grimsby. “Mr Tooting Brown” hits local No. 1.
- 1996: Songwriter Piers “Charlie Pepper” Wildman disappears. Band collapses.
- 2015: Brief Facebook contact, then silence.
- 2025: AI reconstruction begins. Cassette tapes digitised. Lost songs resurrected.
- 2025: Listeners around the world hear Hovercraft for the first time.
But the story was never just about the music.
It’s about four friends who lost one of their own.
It’s about finishing something that never got an ending.
It’s about sending a signal into the dark and hoping someone hears it.
Every song we release is both memorial and message.
The Search for Charlie
Piers “Charlie Pepper” Wildman
Last believed to be in the Bournemouth area around 2017.
No confirmed contact since.
If you knew Charlie — if you met him, worked with him, saw a post, heard a rumour, or have even the smallest detail — we would like to hear from you.
Contact:
All messages kept confidential.
EARMILK Reviews "On The Rocks": "This album takes them into a moodier, more experiential terrain."
“On The Rocks,” the new album by hovercraft, reflects the group’s most audacious attempt to explore the emotional abyss left by the band’s vanished songwriter, Piers “Charlie Pepper” Wildman. Self-released via BandLab, the 12-track blend of Alt, R&B, Neo-soul, and Indie-rock finds Pepper’s surviving members, David “Golly God” Marsden and Aaron “Ron Nasty” Downing, doubling down on their mission to bring Pepper’s unreleased catalog from the dead, with way more grit, introspection, and emotional volatility.
Via EARMILK
Apricot Magazine on On The Rocks: "...haunting, electrifying, deeply human..."
“Some albums arrive gently. Others crash through the door like a memory you thought you buried. Hovercraft’s On The Rocks, released November 5, 2025, falls into the latter category. It doesn’t knock. It doesn’t ask permission. It simply appears, as if pulled through a rip in the timeline, carrying with it the spirit of a band half-present, half-lost, and fully resurrected through a project unlike anything else happening in modern music.”
Via Apricot Magazine.
Two music critics debate the hovercraft resurrection story
A podcast explores the ethical implications of AI in music, album narratives, and the quest to find a lost songwriter.
A Hidden Gem
“Shaken Not Stirred sounds like something that falls into our world through a crack in time. It’s haunting, retro, and yet, not overly nostalgic. It feels like an album that doesn’t belong in this century, or perhaps it’s just ahead of its time. Hovercraft’s 2025 album is elegant and sensitive, passionate but melancholy. A hidden gem that’s haunting and powerful.”
“Shaken Not Stirred is more than an album—it’s resurrection art.”
Mr Tooting Brown
90’s Grimsby indie band uses AI to resurrect their lost catalog, but discovers that their most important song - written by their mysterious songwriter who disappeared a decade ago - can only be brought back through the alchemy of human memory and artificial intelligence working together.
Higher Ground
“Higher Ground” is an uplifting song that encourages perseverance and self-discovery, featuring an energetic Afrobeat/Neo-Soul sound.