During Elastica’s dark period in the late 90s, fans pounced on any indication that Justine Frischmann and company were still making music. Those indications came only sporadically, and until the flurry of activity in 2001 many people had simply given up on the once-ascendant Britpop band. Rumoured drug problems and lineup changes probably had something to do with the silence from the Elastica camp, but the story of the band’s missing half-decade is still one left largely unexplored.

In the summer of 1996, Elastica came into the BBC studios to lay down a couple of works in progress, and thus “I Want You” was put to tape. Four songs in total were recorded during the session, with two making it in revised form to 2001’s The Menace. This song never made the cut. It’s possible the band thought it was simply too dated, and that “Human” and “Love Like Ours” (apparently Frischmann’s favourite track out of thr four) fit better with the rest of their final album.

“I Want You” is a brief glimpse into Elastica’s long and painful transition period, when the band was trying to move away from the short pop-punk songs that filled their 1994 album towards a more serious sound. Back in 1996, the still-sizable group of fans who heard the Evening Session latched on to the new tracks, believing that the session was a preview of things to come. How wrong we were.