(editor's note: This one was done when I was quite poorly so may not be up to scratch but I didn't want to leave any longer between posts)
Ah, i do like a good library-based pun in a title. This is a bit of mid-1980s Scottish indie janglepop that seems mysteriously to have been recorded in New York in 2009.
Strangely and sadly it's become a journalist cliche to say that in every piece written about this band, so I'm getting it out of the way early. It's not without some merit of course, it does sound quite jangly and the cover art (also used on their album. And badges. And tote bag) does, it's been pointed out to me, resemble early Belle and Sebastien covers.
It's not like this has come completely out of nowhere though - Kevin Shields has recently scuttled back out from wherever he's been hiding and is as obsessed with waves of noise as ever, talking last year about hitting buildings' "resonance points" and thus making the masonry shake so that bits of dust fall on the crowds, or something, with his revitalised My Bloody Valentine and The Wedding Present (!) have been stotting around the country with TPOBPAH in tow. There are also bands like A Sunny Day in Glasgow who, with a name like that have obviously not been near Glasgow, let's be honest.
TPOBPAH (catchy, that) obviously have been though, because I saw them live a couple of nights ago. There were a lot of black polonecks in the room but it was enjoyable. I got a real sense that TPOBPAH's music should definitely be played at the sort of volume a venue's sound system can afford, blissful tuneful twee waves of sound with a melancholy edge and lyrics about being in love with Christ and heroin. The band opened their set by saying "Thanks for letting us play your songs" and were repeatedly effusive about Glasgow and its musical heritage - they know as well as I do where their sound comes from.
Musically this single, which preceded its parent album by a couple of months, is for my money, their best song. I'm not grumbling, but this sets out their stall well. I particularly like the double meaning of the "don't check me out!" coda, even though it's just pinched from "Take me Out" by Franz Ferdinand.
Derivative, then, is what seems to be coming across mainly and I suppose it is. No bad thing though.
In the picture above I've also put one of the badges that came with the album as an illustration of the, ahem, uniformity of sleeve design. (except that I forgot, didn't I? Anyway, no prises for guessing what it looks like. You'll just have to take it on trust that it exists. Come to think of it though, it looks very like the centre label of the record itself. Funny that.) While some uniformity can be good (I'm thinking Take Me Out-period Franz Ferdinand again, with their Russian Constructionist artwork, or Penguin or Persephone Books) or bad (Hard-Fi's lamentably weedy "No Cover Art" nonsense), they did tend to vary it a little bit, and in their defence I see that their newest ep (or, y'know, support your local record dealer) has new cover art in the same style, so maybe they're playing the long game. Problem is though, to my jaded, tired eyes it all looks a bit cool and trendy, and the problem with things that look cool and trendy is they look a bit naff and old very quickly. (I do know about this, incidentally. I own a Trimphone, after all) and I suspect it will be abandoned before it really begins to work as a brand. Still, it made it easy for me to spot it in the singles box here at Anticant Towers.
Normally, that would be my conclusion, but I don't really want to stop it there. I'm aware that I've not really sold this record to you, the reader, and I don't want to end on that sort of note. I really like it, despite its, shall we say, obvious heritage and limited aesthetic appeal. This is why I put a link to a video of the song itself at the top of the post, so's yous can hear it yourselves. I can write at length about any piece of music but it's no substitute for hearing it.
No comments:
Post a Comment