We are(n't) the waiting
Okay, so the title doesn't make sense. It's just I was listening to Green Day's American Idiot last night, and I thought that We are the waiting would make a great post title if my package from amazon.co.uk hadn't arrived this morning. But guess what popped through the letterbox this morning (well, arrived on my desk at work - I get CD's sent there so that they think I'm buying books), if it wasn't Sons & Daughters' The Repulsion Box, the 50ft Wave mini-album and Belle & Sebastian's Push Barman To Open Old Wounds... joy...
I saw Sons & Daughters in the St Andrews Union months ago, and as JK can testify, I wasn't best impressed - I'd enjoyed the gig, certainly, but thought their sound was a bit too raw, and that maybe the singers couldn't actually sing very well. But since being persuaded to buy the Love the Cup EP in Edinburgh's Avalanche records - the kind gentleman assured me that they'd 'outplayed' the Delgados when supporting them the week before (something I still have trouble believing) - I've grown to really appreciate this odd wee bunch of gadgies. BBC collective have described their sound as 'fuelled by some mythic panic', and there is certainly a dark urgency to their music that overrides the need for smooth melody, a manic energy that suggests malevolence as much as it thrills, all driven by a relentless drum beat ('drum-heavy tribal starkness'). Beyond lyrics, there seem to be accents.
All a complete contrast to the Belle & Sebastian compilation in which everyone's favourite fey indie-popsters re-issue some hard to find material; running from Dog on Wheels throught to the last Jeepster single I'm Waking up to Us (and lacking all of the recent singles from recent breakthrough album Dear Castastrophe Waitress, released last year by Rough Trade) Q recently described the album as highlighting B&S at their best, but also at their most twee. But any record that can boast the (Monica Queen guesting and apparently recorded in a church) epic Lazy Line Painter Jane, lyrically nonsensical but somehow achingly evocative ('You are in two minds / Tossing a coin to decide whether you should / tell your folks / about a dose of thrush you got while you / were licking railings'), can easily survive the low points of The Gate and You Made Me Forget My Dreams. The EP's on disc 2 following Legal Man represent the 60s-esque trajectory that B&S were to follow even more successfully on their last record, all harmonies and distinctive guitar twangs (certainly on Legal Man, another breakthrough track that saw their stage on Top of the Pops being invaded by a man in a gorilla suit).
As I mentioned in a previous episode, I've been off on a Kristin Hersh kick at the moment, and 50ft Wave represents her continuing move back to a band-based sound after the near acoustic wonders and pared down beauty of Hips & Makers and Strange Angels. All of her solo albums since then have featured a harder sound, but 50ft Wave moves further back towards Throwing Muses territory. As ever, Hersh's distinctive vocals, the spiked edge to the music, and her obtuse lyrics supply plenty of interest. Like the Sons & Daughters album, there's a driving percussive element that gives the music a frantic urgency, and insistence that it has to be heard. But, as ever, it's Hersh's voice that gives the record its soul.
I saw Sons & Daughters in the St Andrews Union months ago, and as JK can testify, I wasn't best impressed - I'd enjoyed the gig, certainly, but thought their sound was a bit too raw, and that maybe the singers couldn't actually sing very well. But since being persuaded to buy the Love the Cup EP in Edinburgh's Avalanche records - the kind gentleman assured me that they'd 'outplayed' the Delgados when supporting them the week before (something I still have trouble believing) - I've grown to really appreciate this odd wee bunch of gadgies. BBC collective have described their sound as 'fuelled by some mythic panic', and there is certainly a dark urgency to their music that overrides the need for smooth melody, a manic energy that suggests malevolence as much as it thrills, all driven by a relentless drum beat ('drum-heavy tribal starkness'). Beyond lyrics, there seem to be accents.
All a complete contrast to the Belle & Sebastian compilation in which everyone's favourite fey indie-popsters re-issue some hard to find material; running from Dog on Wheels throught to the last Jeepster single I'm Waking up to Us (and lacking all of the recent singles from recent breakthrough album Dear Castastrophe Waitress, released last year by Rough Trade) Q recently described the album as highlighting B&S at their best, but also at their most twee. But any record that can boast the (Monica Queen guesting and apparently recorded in a church) epic Lazy Line Painter Jane, lyrically nonsensical but somehow achingly evocative ('You are in two minds / Tossing a coin to decide whether you should / tell your folks / about a dose of thrush you got while you / were licking railings'), can easily survive the low points of The Gate and You Made Me Forget My Dreams. The EP's on disc 2 following Legal Man represent the 60s-esque trajectory that B&S were to follow even more successfully on their last record, all harmonies and distinctive guitar twangs (certainly on Legal Man, another breakthrough track that saw their stage on Top of the Pops being invaded by a man in a gorilla suit).
As I mentioned in a previous episode, I've been off on a Kristin Hersh kick at the moment, and 50ft Wave represents her continuing move back to a band-based sound after the near acoustic wonders and pared down beauty of Hips & Makers and Strange Angels. All of her solo albums since then have featured a harder sound, but 50ft Wave moves further back towards Throwing Muses territory. As ever, Hersh's distinctive vocals, the spiked edge to the music, and her obtuse lyrics supply plenty of interest. Like the Sons & Daughters album, there's a driving percussive element that gives the music a frantic urgency, and insistence that it has to be heard. But, as ever, it's Hersh's voice that gives the record its soul.
Labels: belle and sebastian, kristin hersch, sons and daughters
posted by skye | 9:38 AM
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