Sneaker Pimps formed in Hartlepool, County Durham in 1994 around Liam Howe and Chris Corner, with Kelli Ali (then Kelli Dayton) singing lead on the 1996 debut Becoming X. Trip-hop with a pop songwriter's spine: sultry, string-laced, immaculately arranged, and genuinely influential on what British electronic music sounded like for the next decade. Becoming X is still the landmark, selling over a million copies. Splinter (1999) and Bloodsport (2002) followed with Corner on the microphone, and the reunited band came back with Squaring the Circle in 2021. What's remarkable is how far the alumni went. Corner built the long-running IAMX project, and Howe kept producing. The band turned out to be a launchpad as much as a group.
From the notes for EKHO Sonic Chill #8 · fact-checked Oct 4, 2026.
The records
Where I played them
