Cornershop

Cornershop is an alternative music, indie rock band, emerging in the early 1990s. Often associated with the Britpop phenomenon, their breakout single was ‘Brimful of Asha’ which had major chart success when it was remixed by the DJ Fatboy Slim.

Tjinder Singh founded the band in 1991 after he moved to Leicester – he had previously fronted the band General Havoc while a student at Lancashire Polytechnic in Preston. Other members in the line-up included his brother Avtar Singh, David Chambers and Ben Ayres. They played their first gigs in Magazine pub, a local music venue where Tjinder Singh also worked as a barman.

The band took their name from the stereotyped associations of South Asian corner shops and drew from Singh’s experiences as a British-born Punjabi Sikh, which influenced the band’s soundscape, blending Punjabi musical heritage with British indie rock. Between 1991 and 1996, the band released their debut EP, In the Days of Ford Cortina, and their first album, Hold On It Hurts, which led to their being signed by David Byrne to his label, Luaka Bop. David Chambers left the band in 1994, and Nick Simms joined in his stead. In 1995 the band released the single ‘6.a.m Jullandar Shere’ and the LP Woman’s Gotta Have It. They also started touring with bands including Beck, Stereolab and Oasis.

Their 1997 release When I was Born for the 7th Time received much critical acclaim, evolving their combination of sounds with electronic music and hip hop. The album further popularized the band through its breakout hit single ‘Brimful of Asha’, which charted internationally. During the late 1990s Tjinder Singh and Ben Ayres also developed their careers as DJs through their project Clinton. Cornershop released their disco-infused album Handcream for a Generation in 2000, which further expanded the band’s soundscape with soul, funk, house, disco and reggae music. Some tracks featured Noel Gallagher of Oasis.

In 2011 Cornershop won the prize for Commitment to the Scene at the UK Asian Music Awards. The released a collaboration with the Punjabi singer Bubbley Kaur, Cornershop and the Double ‘O’ Groove Of. They released the album England Is a Garden in 2020.