
The great Scottish twee-pop band
Belle & Sebastian has just released
The BBC Sessions, a 14-track set dating from 1996 to 2001. The superfans among us will find it well worth the money to spring
for the deluxe edition, which includes a 12-song bonus disc recorded in Belfast
around Christmastime in 2001.
While the twee-est of the twee
might wonder why Stuart Murdoch and company would bother releasing a BBC
compilation without including their 2002 John Peel holiday set, there are at
least 15 good reasons to set aside those gripes and give the new album a great
big hug.
1)
It’s old-school. The band sounded different back in the day,
more shambling and more precious than they do now. Their recent confidence
becomes them. But there was something charming about the early days.
2) One particular photo in the liner notes to the deluxe edition
includes the band dressed up as a soccer team, with guitarist Stevie Jackson’s
face contorted into a hilarious grimace.
3)
The death-metal guitar crunch (for real) in “Judy And The
Dream Of Horses.”
4)
The thrumming intensity of “Sleep The Clock Around.”
5)
The shimmering guitar solo on “I Could Be Dreaming.”
6)
The slow, glorious instrumental outro to “Seymour Stein.”
7)
The fast, surprisingly rocking instrumental outro to “Lazy
Line Painter Jane,” (abbreviated here to “Lazy Jane”).
8)
The hard, pounding instrumental outro to their cover of the
Velvet Underground’s “Waiting For The Man.”
9)
The jaunty previously unreleased song “The Magic Of A Kind Word,”
which is along the lines of “Legal Man” (though
not as awesome).
10)
“Here Comes The Sun,” which is a perfect choice of cover song
and a joyous way to open the bonus disc. The band at its innocent best.
11)
Isobel Campbell.
The belle of the Belles left the band after their rocky fourth album Fold
Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant,
and—despite her one-note range—it’s great to hear her back in the mix. Listen
to her go on “Nothing in the Silence,” a previously unreleased track that also
features harmonica!
12)
Stevie ordering
up “flamenco-style” handclaps from the audience on “Wandering Alone,” and the
audience delivering!
13)
Stuart saying “Let’s have plenty of Wurlitzer” as “The Boy
With The Arab Strap” ramps up.
14)
The lyric “I’m a fan of The Go-Betweens,” one of the only good
things about the previously unreleased song “Shoot The Sexual Athlete.”
15)
The swaggering opening riff of “The Boys Are Back In Town.”
Then the shriek of real fan ecstasy—an un-ironic musical gesture of pure rock
fun, and a primal response from the band’s supposedly sheepish fans.
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