well i toiled and i troubled and i... well you really don't want to know what else i did. but i did finish my 'review' of 3,6,9 Seconds of Light. It's pasted in it's entirety below, but i really do urge you to go look at it in it's pretty splendour (okay so swiped some of Davids images... sue me) on the tangents web site. just follow the link kids! sunday nights... listening to the Crabs again. yum. the duke PS please david, don't sue me... i have no money. just a sticking big cold :-( -- Tangents On-Line http://www.virtual-pc.com/tangent/ Tangents On-Paper: PO Box 102, Exeter, EX2 4YL, UK tangent@mail.zynet.co.uk -------the review! --------- [the introduction] So Claire comes around to say hello. I go hey, I have a present for you, and I give her a Belle & Sebastian badge. She goes, thanks, thats really cool. She tells me shes been playing the tape I gave her, tells me its different. She qualifies this with good different. And then smiles. I tell her about Union Chapel and about Jarvis. I tell her that Lazy Line Painter Jane missed the charts by 172 sales. At this shes amazed. She goes, Belle & Sebastian arent a chart band, and I tell her what Isobel said about her favourite bands never getting in the charts. Claire smiles as is to say see? and then goes, and if they do get in the charts and into Smash Hits, then youll not like them as much, will you? Theyll not mean as much to you when theyre successful. I smile, and say nothing, because its good to know that me and Pop can be so transparent. I just go, you want to hear the next single? Claire goes, oh go on then. The tape plays Century of Fakers. Ever the observant type, Claire spots that its the same tune as Century of Elvis. She says she prefers Elvis because its a lovely story and besides it made people ask if Elvis was a cat, a dog or indeed a piece of broccoli. We go for the broccoli. I say I think Elvis is great because its a transitory, essentially Pop, essentially throwaway. I say, heres what I wrote about it all the other day. Claire starts reading. She reads: [the theory] I think Century of Fakers is a great song and I cant stop it from going around in my head, but maybe thats because Ive been listening to it for ages already. The melody enhances the backing track, which still reminds me of the Sabres sublime Smokebelch perfectly, and as ever Mr Murdoch intones his intelligent lyrics in a voice that is fleet of foot and light of touch. Its almost apologetically scornful, a way of making social and political commentary seductive, refusing to express anger or distrust in boringly obvious and traditional ways. In this, he sings in a style that could be likened to Malcolm Eden in the great lost 80s group McCarthy, a fact not unlinked to the next tune The marvellously titled Le Pastie De La Bourgeoisie (translates as apathy of the middle classes apparently) echoes McCarthys own great We Are All Bourgeois Now in title, and in sentiment it rather brings to mind the feelings behind their The Well Fed Point Of View, wherein the poetic concept of finding salvation and freedom from oppression lying within the soul is openly and vitriolically attacked. I feel that Belle & Sebastian are launching a similar assault, albeit in a much more elliptical manner. I cant help feel that the knowing references to such obvious yoof cultural icons as Catcher In The Rye and Kerouac / On The Road are intentionally placed to be mocking of this feeling that the middle classes can escape some sense of moral and spiritual responsibility by taking these routes of escape with the excuse of finding yourself. There is a sense that here is a resentment at being made impotent by upbringing and sociological education. But then that escape from the everyday into fantasy is the traditional purpose of Pop of course, and Belle & Sebastian are as trapped as McCarthy were within its contradictions, although perhaps they are slightly more willing to embrace those contradictions and make them work for them. Or maybe they are just blessed or cursed to be living in this Post-ideological age where Politics have dissolved to the state of perfume. Perhaps. Certainly they are as obsessed with the concept of great Pop, and Le Pastie rollocks along with typically chipper keyboards and a surf guitar that is pure Beat Poets. Sonically, it all sounds a bit mad, a bit like it could all collapse at any moment and as such of course it is an exhilarating delight. Speaking of collapse (hey, dont you love these connections!), track three, the delirious Beautiful seems to be rotating around the idea of collapse. The collapse of received visual expectation, wherein the object of Popular Desire is seen to be beautiful, only slightly mental, and that if we only knew what was going on in her life, there would be a documentary on Radio 4. The collapse of shuffling jazzy brushed drums into a spiralling crescendo of mournful trumpet and brittle guitar pirouettes. Its a strange song that stays inside you for hours. A song for mildly psychedelic funeral services. Put The Book Back On The Shelf is another song Ive been playing and adoring for several months, and with its glorious opening and trumpet refrain its going to be easy to see why. Its another of the songs that features the semi-mythic Sebastian character, and as such continues the theme of self-questioning doubt and pity that previous songs in the series have brought to the fore (the eponymous track on the Dog On Wheels EP being the most obvious example). Theres the essence of deliberate withdrawal from the world here, a feeling which is prevalent in the whole Belle & Sebastian story, the very essence which is reflected upon with scorn in Le Pastie. And its these open peculiarities, this struggling to come to terms with personal status within society which Belle & Sebastian seem to me to so successfully embody. The sleeve tells you that this is the end of the record, but instead theres a short pause before the final, un-listed track Songs For Children fades in. With its nod to the Pastels and the independent scene of the 1980s that Stuart at least was part of (if you doubted go read the sleevenotes here with the reference to bowl cuts and Postcard cats), its an odd but fitting adjunct to the record, with its simple insistent repetition of Belle & Sebastian, on the radio, playing Songs For Children, and although the apologetic ending almost grates, theres still the feeling that they arent really sorry at all. Certainly one hopes so. It all sounds like the early Ben Watt records, or Blueboy in their acoustic and most fragile of moments. Pretty much insubstantial but all the more lovely for it. So, five songs, the quality and depth of which you will struggle to find anywhere else in the ruins of Pop this year. Certainly as an antithesis to the brickie rock of Oasis, its way out paving the way for the new generation of lost but happy shambling poets and songwriters who have the souls of tender perverts. When you see them on Top Of The Pops youll know the revolution is under way, and they as you will know all about the (ir)relevance of it all. Theyll be down the front penning pictures of the hangings. [the conclusion] So Claire puts this paper down and goes yeah yeah yeah. She nods at me and the tape recorder. You forgot one thing she says. I go whats that then? and as she jumps off the desk, whips the tape from the recorder and legs it out the door I hear her shout THEY SOUND FUCKING GREAT!! ------- the end ------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- . This message was brought to you by the Sinister mailing list. . To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". . For subscribing, unsubscribing and other list information please see . http://www.majordomo.net/sinister . For questions about how the list works mail owner-sinister@majordomo.net -----------------------------------------------------------------------