Sinister: Oxford Zodaic Review from ages ago !!!

[ben ferneyhough]

Dear all, after a long wait, Nightshift (the local gig guide magazine here in 
Oxford) have reviewed the B&S gig. This review didn't appear in the hard copy 
(i.e. the paper copy), as B&S objected to them using a photo, and also the 
review was too long !!
 
 
The actual website is, for those who want to see it in it's entirety (it's a 
good site):
 
	http://www.oxlink.co.uk/nightshift/sept97/live_5.html
 
 
BELLE & SEBASTIAN
The Zodiac
 
Question: What's got sixteen legs, eight heads and the voice of an angel; 
rarely appears in public but when it does causes panic and desperation of 
biblical proportions? The answer, of course, is Belle & Sebastian, an 
unassuming, publicity-shy pop group from Glasgow who have, in the space of two
short years and two discreetly classic albums, achieved legendary status among 
the ranks of the country's gentle-hearted romantics and fey, dysfunctional 
outcasts.
 
The scenes outside the Zodiac beggared belief. Two hundred punters from out of 
town queuing for an hour to get in because they'd all booked their tickets by 
phone and had to endure the credit card processing rigmarole. Their's is the 
panic - will they get inside before the band come on? The desperation is on 
the faces of another two hundred people who, with no chance of getting in, 
still queue up, hoping for a miracle. And miracles can happen. How else do you 
explain the unheralded triumph of pop beauty over the ugly lad zeitgeist? The 
world needs Belle & Sebastian even if they don't seem to need the world. 
 
On the face of it it's all so unimposing. One pretty, late twenty-something 
boy with an acoustic guitar surrounded by a ramshackle troupe of musicians 
that include a cellist and a trumpeter as well as two keyboardists mounted on 
a platform in the middle of the hall because there's no more room on stage.
The music is so gentle it could evaporate in a club setting like this (they're 
more accustomed to playing in libraries and cafes) but Stuart Murdoch's 
gentle, folky voice holds the audience in something approaching rapture. He 
sings tender songs for pale, skinny people who treat him with genuine 
reverence.
 
It hardly matters that Belle & Sebastian refuse to play a `greatest hits' set. 
Aside from a couple of new songs, as yet unreleased, everyone knows all the 
obscure stuff anyway. So much so that when Stuart messes up the beginning of 
`State I Am In' the crowd are singing the words for him. And this is no 
`Wonderwall' anthem; instead it's a fragile lullaby with a convoluted story of 
confusion and angst in the mould of Nick Drake or Felt and perhaps the most 
beautiful song written since `Northern Sky'. 
 
Belle & Sebastian's influences are many and varied and crop up throughout 
their set, from Love to Simon & Garfunkel to The Smiths. Yes, it's folk-pop 
but it's much much more. New single, `Lazy Line Painter Jane' is the one great 
song that The Beautiful South never wrote, and if the comparison makes you 
balk, don't let it, it's more the way Stuart's voice contrasts with that of 
guest singer, Monica Queen, from Thrum, while its rising crescendo of 60s 
organ chime takes it closer to the more melodic side of the Velvet 
Underground. At the opposite end of the scale there is the jazzy
instrumental of `Tigermilk' before cellist/tambourinist Isobelle takes over 
vocal duties for the country-tinged `It's Wicked Not To Care', perhaps the 
only song ever to feature a glockenspiel solo. 
 
The way that every softly played, carefully crafted song is greeted by 
rapturous applause that's twice the volume of the music is bizarre but they 
seem neither fazed by such adulation nor do they play up to it. They're happy 
to potter about, tuning up or swapping instruments as if in a bedroom 
rehearsal, before sheepishly announcing `Another new one'. There may well be 
many out there who will see Belle & Sebastian as the start of the rebirth of 
wimp-pop while others might dismiss them as an anomalous throw-back to 60s 
folk whimsy. These people have no souls. So blinded by a haze of ugliness (did 
anyone else feel physically sick at the sight of John Power on the front cover 
of Melody Maker last month?) that they fail to see real beauty when it blooms. 
What a rosebud is to a garden, so Belle & Sebastian are to pop music. Wake up 
and smell the blossom.
 
 
Dale Kattack 
 
 
There is a Belle & Sebastian mailing list. To subscribe, send a message to:
majordomo at majordomo.net with the text 'subscribe sinister' in the body of the 
message.
 
 
So there you go, if you do get to this stage of this mail, I hope you enjoyed 
reading it.
 
Ben.
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