Sinister: B&S / Field Mice etc.

[Lucy Munro]

Mark wrote:

<< Another friend commented that B&S reminded him of some artists on 
the Sarah label.  The Field Mice are the only ones I know.  Would you 
say Northern Picture Library or Trembling Blue Stars is a significant
development beyond The Field Mice?  Their naivete and greeting-card
sentiment was endearing, but that could become tiresome after a few more
years of it.>>

Well, I'm *really* biased about this, because TBS' Lips That Taste of 
Tears is one of my favourite records of this year - probably the only 
new lp that I've played to death (I've been buying lots of singles 
instead, they're more pop, or indeed P!O!P!, & cheaper to boot).  
It's long, slightly meandering, and varied, but when it's good, it's 
damned good.  And he is one of the few people who seem interested in 
melding guitars and (above all) fully developed lyrics to different 
kinds of sounds and beats.  

Not having been particularly precocious, and not being inordinately 
wealthy either, I don't know that much of the Field Mice's stuff, but 
I did decide a couple of weeks ago that "Sensitive" was the best song 
ever made (if only for that week, when it was continually on my 
walkman) - which *isn't* greeting-card or naive or any of those things, 
just *beautiful*, and much more direct than you'd expect from their 
reputation - and Northern Picture Library's "Paris" isn't far behind. 
The B&S comparison's more valid than a lot that I've heard - Stone 
Roses?! - although it's partly to do with the unabashed sensitivity 
(for want of a better word) of both groups.  "Sensitive" and "Paris" 
are both on the last Sarah compilation, "There and Back Again Lane", 
which doesn't cost 75 dollars, or whatever people are trying to get 
for Field Mice singles, so there's no excuse...  And there is going 
to be a lovely Field Mice retrospective soon, so you can all decide 
whether the comparisons are at all justified (look at the Shinkansen 
website if you don't believe me).

Oh, incidently, I was told last week that someone's made off with the 
signpost of the real There and Back Again Lane, in Bristol.  Not big, 
or clever.

The other Sarah band I've heard likened to B&S are The Orchids, who 
shared a dancey tendency with the Field Mice's later stages - I've 
just got some tapes of their stuff, which I haven't had a chance to 
listen to properly yet, but I'd say that "Electronic Renaissance" is 
the closest reference point.  That and a similar Scottish slightly 
mumbly vocal style (that's supposed to be complimentary).

Hell, there are other people around who are much better qualified to 
say all this stuff that I am...

Also, I've decided that I'm going to wait until the new B&S record 
is released until I hear it - I've just got this rather romantic 
notion that it'll be so much nicer to carry it home in a plastic bag 
and listen to it lovingly while looking at the sleeve... sigh...

Lucy

----------------------
Lucy Munro
lucy.munro at kcl.ac.uk




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