Album: If You're Feeling Sinister
Artist: Belle & Sebastian
Picking a favourite Belle & Sebastian record is no easy task, but I do think Sinister is the band's best collection of songs. Along with Tigermilk, it also set the template for the group's storytelling style and unique sound. In opener, Stars of Track & Field, the great songwriting, full of humour and nostalgia (partly of Alan Wells winning gold in 1980) helps create one of my favourite B&S songs. Murdoch not only expresses his adoration for the young and athletic, but also his desire to live their wholesome lives (Murdoch was a marathon runner and boxer before he got sick). The song builds into a crescendo reminiscent of the Velvet Underground. Seeing Other People is another classic, blessed with a strange rhythm and piano melody, and lyrics that brilliantly explore the pitfalls of open relationships. Dylan In The Movies is unique in that it's not melody-based, like most B&S songs, but guitar riff-based, and the lyrics share the same poetic quality you find in Nick Drake songs ("Yeah, you're worth the trouble and you're worth the pain / and you're worth the worry, I would do the same / if we all went back to another time / I will love you over"). Fox In The Snow is one of the record's most stunning moments, painting a picture more than telling a story, full of the folklore of a mythical Kelvingrove Park. Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying is autobiographical, exploring Murdoch's feelings about being in the band, a song full of whimsy and sarcasm. The title track is the most haunting song on the album, starting with the ambient noise of a school yard, representing the sound of innocence, followed by a dark tale of somebody contemplating suicide with religious overtones ("the pain of being a hopeless unbeliever"). Mayfly has a light, summery feel while Judy & The Dream Of Horses makes for a celebratory ending to the album. The song has become a fan favourite at live shows. This is a definite contender for best album of the 90s.
Born: Glasgow, Scotland
Released: October 1996
Genre: Indie Pop
The meaning of indie as a genre label became very diluted in the 90s, but it can be applied accurately to Belle & Sebastian's first album, Tigermilk (1996), issued on Electric Honey Records, an in-house college label in Glasgow. As an annoucement of a major new talent, the first song on Tigermilk, The State I Am In, is one of the great moments in pop music. Stuart Murdoch, the brains behind the operation, had spent his early adult years recuperating from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or ME, a period that proved to be the perfect incubator for his songs, which are often about normal people & their everyday lives, an exotic state of affairs for someone who had been ill so long. Murdoch's songwriting is his attempt to engage with a world outside of his home, and the success of his demos with bassist Stuart David inspired him to assemble a seven-piece band, including guitarist Stevie Jackson, keyboardist Chris Geddes, drummer Richard Colburn, trumpet player Mick Cooke and multi-instrumentalist Isobel Campbell. Murdoch had already written a short story called Belle & Sabastian (about a fictional hipster couple making music in Glasgow), so when he met "Belle" (Isobel Campbell) at a party, he felt like it was fate and named the group after the story. Murdoch and Campbell also fell madly in love. Just as the demo tape Dog On Wheels had convinced Electric Honey Records to allow B&S to record an album, so Tigermilk convinced a bigger label, Jeepster Records, to allow the group to release another album soon after. The band stipulated though that there would be no singles released (a trick famously employed by Led Zeppelin), and no promotion or press. If You're Feeling Sinister and Tigermilk were recorded within 3 months of each other, with Tigermilk recorded in 3 days and mixed in 2 days, while Sinister was recorded in 5 days and mixed in 3, with multi-instrumentalist Sarah Martin added to the line-up. According to Bob Stanley, B&S -- like Magnetic Fields in the US -- revived the "hermetically sealed indie pop scene of the mid-eighties", especially drawing inspiration from the Smiths. B&S album covers are a monochromatic homage to the Smiths' record sleeves. Other groups that influenced the group's unique sound were the Velvet Underground and The Left Banke.
The meaning of indie as a genre label became very diluted in the 90s, but it can be applied accurately to Belle & Sebastian's first album, Tigermilk (1996), issued on Electric Honey Records, an in-house college label in Glasgow. As an annoucement of a major new talent, the first song on Tigermilk, The State I Am In, is one of the great moments in pop music. Stuart Murdoch, the brains behind the operation, had spent his early adult years recuperating from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, or ME, a period that proved to be the perfect incubator for his songs, which are often about normal people & their everyday lives, an exotic state of affairs for someone who had been ill so long. Murdoch's songwriting is his attempt to engage with a world outside of his home, and the success of his demos with bassist Stuart David inspired him to assemble a seven-piece band, including guitarist Stevie Jackson, keyboardist Chris Geddes, drummer Richard Colburn, trumpet player Mick Cooke and multi-instrumentalist Isobel Campbell. Murdoch had already written a short story called Belle & Sabastian (about a fictional hipster couple making music in Glasgow), so when he met "Belle" (Isobel Campbell) at a party, he felt like it was fate and named the group after the story. Murdoch and Campbell also fell madly in love. Just as the demo tape Dog On Wheels had convinced Electric Honey Records to allow B&S to record an album, so Tigermilk convinced a bigger label, Jeepster Records, to allow the group to release another album soon after. The band stipulated though that there would be no singles released (a trick famously employed by Led Zeppelin), and no promotion or press. If You're Feeling Sinister and Tigermilk were recorded within 3 months of each other, with Tigermilk recorded in 3 days and mixed in 2 days, while Sinister was recorded in 5 days and mixed in 3, with multi-instrumentalist Sarah Martin added to the line-up. According to Bob Stanley, B&S -- like Magnetic Fields in the US -- revived the "hermetically sealed indie pop scene of the mid-eighties", especially drawing inspiration from the Smiths. B&S album covers are a monochromatic homage to the Smiths' record sleeves. Other groups that influenced the group's unique sound were the Velvet Underground and The Left Banke.
Picking a favourite Belle & Sebastian record is no easy task, but I do think Sinister is the band's best collection of songs. Along with Tigermilk, it also set the template for the group's storytelling style and unique sound. In opener, Stars of Track & Field, the great songwriting, full of humour and nostalgia (partly of Alan Wells winning gold in 1980) helps create one of my favourite B&S songs. Murdoch not only expresses his adoration for the young and athletic, but also his desire to live their wholesome lives (Murdoch was a marathon runner and boxer before he got sick). The song builds into a crescendo reminiscent of the Velvet Underground. Seeing Other People is another classic, blessed with a strange rhythm and piano melody, and lyrics that brilliantly explore the pitfalls of open relationships. Dylan In The Movies is unique in that it's not melody-based, like most B&S songs, but guitar riff-based, and the lyrics share the same poetic quality you find in Nick Drake songs ("Yeah, you're worth the trouble and you're worth the pain / and you're worth the worry, I would do the same / if we all went back to another time / I will love you over"). Fox In The Snow is one of the record's most stunning moments, painting a picture more than telling a story, full of the folklore of a mythical Kelvingrove Park. Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying is autobiographical, exploring Murdoch's feelings about being in the band, a song full of whimsy and sarcasm. The title track is the most haunting song on the album, starting with the ambient noise of a school yard, representing the sound of innocence, followed by a dark tale of somebody contemplating suicide with religious overtones ("the pain of being a hopeless unbeliever"). Mayfly has a light, summery feel while Judy & The Dream Of Horses makes for a celebratory ending to the album. The song has become a fan favourite at live shows. This is a definite contender for best album of the 90s.
Comments