She's losing it, she's losing it... She's lost it

It’s another Belle And Sebastian post. That’s a little premature, I hear you cry, there was one recently. Well yes, there was, but I’ve been listening to Belle And Sebastian a lot recently. Deal with it.
Fact is, when I purchased The Life Pursuit, I just might have been opening up a can of worms, a veritable Pandora’s box of Glaswegian indie-pop if you will. For it’s rare that a band can inspire me to buy another record of theirs, let alone prompt thoughts of buying the whole catalogue. I’m always a little jealous when someone I’ve introduced a band to loves that band, as there’s a whole back catalogue to be discovered.

Think about it, when you hear a new band that really, really grabs you, cries out to you and touches you, you want to hear more, right? Of course you do. If it’s a brand new band, there’s always a scuffle to find B-sides, material is limited after all, but if it’s an established act that’s passed you by all these years, you’ve got a wealth to choose from. I have just two B&S albums at this stage: the oldest and the youngest. It appears that the band have a strong enough repertoire to even face off the potential millstone of a record considered worthy of a Don’t Look Back show – Tigermilk would certainly grace most bands as their finest hour, yet The Life Pursuit is just as good. So do I work backwards, or stick a pin in? Dear Catastrophe Waitress, or Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant? I’ve seen the utterly charming video for Step Into My Office, Baby, from the former, yet the latter is literally the first memory I have of the band. I recall even over and above my distaste (at that time) for what I supposed to be twee, lightweight nonsense, kind of liking the idea of calling an album that.

These were days of Steve Lamacq, even Jo Whiley (now the Dido of daytime radio) on the Evening Session (now swallowed and spat out by Zane Lowe); the days when to hear Bis on the radio was not a signal for confusion or mass panic, but the norm; when talky bits in songs went beyond All Saints and constituted such solid material as Arab Strap’s The First Big Weekend, or The Eels’ Susan’s House. When Kula Shaker was not an embarrassment. Alright, maybe the last is stretching the definition a bit.

But you know what? I never recall, even in those halcyon, adolescent days, hearing Belle & Sebastian on the radio. Maybe that’s my mistake, maybe that will be corrected, maybe a flood of memories will heap upon me when a certain chord strikes, I just don’t know. But that’s kind of what I want to find out.

So back catalogue here we come, maybe this will be another Kristin Hersh or Pixies, where to build it up comes over time, as listening goes in indefinable phases when you end up listening to a certain artist so much you just have to have more.
Maybe I’ll end up buying it all at once and not being able to make rent. We’ll see.

From Tigermilk
Belle & Sebastian – The State I Am In
Belle & Sebastian – Electronic Renaissance

For comparing and contrasting the latter:
Casiotone For The Painfully Alone – Young Shields (from Etiquette)

There’s some uncanny similarities right there.

From The Life Pursuit
Belle & Sebastian – Another Sunny Day

Visit B&S/MySpace/buy B&S from Rough Trade/Amazon

Tags: Belle & Sebastian; CFTPA; Jeepster; Bis; Arab Srtap; Evening Session