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| Track List: 1. California 2. Flying Saucer 3. Softly Softly 4. Come Play with Me 5. Gazebo 6. So Long, Baby 7. Spangle 8. Him or Me (What's it Gonna Be?) 9. Drive 10. Love Machine 11. Sports Car 12. Go, Man, Go 13. Blue Eyes 14. Ringway to Seatac 15. Shivers 16. Queen Anne 17. White Horses Running time: 54 Minutes Released: 2007 |
On to the third disc. After this one I'll be half way through John Peel's obsession with The Wedding Present. The first disc gave me headaches, the second gave me warm fuzzies, what will the third disc bring?
The first strains suggest this will be more like 2 than 1. The guitars are muted, relaxed even, giving more space to the voice, which feels for a change to be layered over the backing rather than embedded in it. There is a nice cadence to California, and an airiness which makes it both highly enjoyable and instantly forgettable, which is an odd combination but reflective of convergence with a more general trend in guitar music. It feels less clearly like a Wedding Present track is what I'm saying.
Flying Saucer disabuses me of the notion that they have lost their personality though. The guitar pattern has filled in again, and whilst there is still a certain distance in the vocal it isn't as far removed. A long bridge with just the wailing guitars reminds us where they came from - a more controlled snarl than anything from the early days, it feels a little dad-rock-ish, but it is also a lot more, dare I say, musical than those earlier energy filled blasts.
When the pace does rise, it maintains that extra musicality, and some added depths through a changes of tone. It's the natural rhythm of the pieces that carries you along though. No longer a youthful energy, but there all the same. When the pace is removed, such as on Come Play With Me, there is now a real character about the cocoon built by those slower strummings. That said, I am not sure the atmosphere created is quite enough to sustain the song as long as it does, and I am very grateful for the change up for the second half of the track even if it is just a loop.
It has been a long couple of weeks since I managed the last disc in this set. Life has been a bit too busy for my liking, so I have taken a couple of days off and eventually found time to do this one, but not the two I was hoping for. Still have a tone of boring household admin to fit in today, too. Days off are just for a different type of work these days.
There is a significantly different feel to So Long, Baby. A relaxation, a "Parklife-esque" insouciance, a change of pace. Then for a track called Spangle, the sound is more of a dull growl than the titular bright sound. Ironically the next track has that very clearly, albeit wrapped in the deeper, gurning sounds. The tracks are flying by and I am only barely finding thoughts to commit to type. I am rather enjoying it though as a form of procrastination. I could do with some of the energy that has gone into thrashing those guitars; getting started on anything is causing me some issues of late.
This disc feels very different from the previous two in a couple of notable ways. Most obviously there are no Ukrainian folk songs to chunk up the indie tracks, but I think the second difference is actually the more impactful one and that is the changes of tempo. Disc 3 is for the most part significantly slower than the previous two. This drop in tempo comes with the consideration and the sophistication of the compositions; it is a more mature collection of performances of more mature songs, and probably my favourite of the three so far (remember this is just the half way mark of the collected Peel Sessions).
Go, Man, Go has a really nice melancholy to it, and that is part of the overall theme. I think these slower, broader songs suit the mood of their pieces better. Whilst the fast pace creates a nice contrast with the lyrical content on the earlier tracks, here the two feel in sync, building a more coherent song set.
I am falling into repetition; the only thoughts I have to share are the ones already written. On that basis I might just relax through the... oh wait. What the hell is that? Shivers is really odd, a complete change of tone and instrumentation. All muffled, old-timey strings and off-key piano. I find the whole thing rather unsettling and unpleasant. In another context it might work but here it feels off and I am not sure I want to maintain it. Thankfully a more familiar sound is back for Queen Anne - though it has a consistency of vocal approach with Shivers. There is a little more of an edge to the guitar parts here too, a nice ringing sound that fleshes out the sound on the track.
The final number is slow, percussion given prominence, the voice given a wide crucible. It is a bit slow and low for a finale and doesn't really work in its positioning here; it is a rather nice track but a huge let down on the end of the disc.
The first strains suggest this will be more like 2 than 1. The guitars are muted, relaxed even, giving more space to the voice, which feels for a change to be layered over the backing rather than embedded in it. There is a nice cadence to California, and an airiness which makes it both highly enjoyable and instantly forgettable, which is an odd combination but reflective of convergence with a more general trend in guitar music. It feels less clearly like a Wedding Present track is what I'm saying.
Flying Saucer disabuses me of the notion that they have lost their personality though. The guitar pattern has filled in again, and whilst there is still a certain distance in the vocal it isn't as far removed. A long bridge with just the wailing guitars reminds us where they came from - a more controlled snarl than anything from the early days, it feels a little dad-rock-ish, but it is also a lot more, dare I say, musical than those earlier energy filled blasts.
When the pace does rise, it maintains that extra musicality, and some added depths through a changes of tone. It's the natural rhythm of the pieces that carries you along though. No longer a youthful energy, but there all the same. When the pace is removed, such as on Come Play With Me, there is now a real character about the cocoon built by those slower strummings. That said, I am not sure the atmosphere created is quite enough to sustain the song as long as it does, and I am very grateful for the change up for the second half of the track even if it is just a loop.
It has been a long couple of weeks since I managed the last disc in this set. Life has been a bit too busy for my liking, so I have taken a couple of days off and eventually found time to do this one, but not the two I was hoping for. Still have a tone of boring household admin to fit in today, too. Days off are just for a different type of work these days.
There is a significantly different feel to So Long, Baby. A relaxation, a "Parklife-esque" insouciance, a change of pace. Then for a track called Spangle, the sound is more of a dull growl than the titular bright sound. Ironically the next track has that very clearly, albeit wrapped in the deeper, gurning sounds. The tracks are flying by and I am only barely finding thoughts to commit to type. I am rather enjoying it though as a form of procrastination. I could do with some of the energy that has gone into thrashing those guitars; getting started on anything is causing me some issues of late.
This disc feels very different from the previous two in a couple of notable ways. Most obviously there are no Ukrainian folk songs to chunk up the indie tracks, but I think the second difference is actually the more impactful one and that is the changes of tempo. Disc 3 is for the most part significantly slower than the previous two. This drop in tempo comes with the consideration and the sophistication of the compositions; it is a more mature collection of performances of more mature songs, and probably my favourite of the three so far (remember this is just the half way mark of the collected Peel Sessions).
Go, Man, Go has a really nice melancholy to it, and that is part of the overall theme. I think these slower, broader songs suit the mood of their pieces better. Whilst the fast pace creates a nice contrast with the lyrical content on the earlier tracks, here the two feel in sync, building a more coherent song set.
I am falling into repetition; the only thoughts I have to share are the ones already written. On that basis I might just relax through the... oh wait. What the hell is that? Shivers is really odd, a complete change of tone and instrumentation. All muffled, old-timey strings and off-key piano. I find the whole thing rather unsettling and unpleasant. In another context it might work but here it feels off and I am not sure I want to maintain it. Thankfully a more familiar sound is back for Queen Anne - though it has a consistency of vocal approach with Shivers. There is a little more of an edge to the guitar parts here too, a nice ringing sound that fleshes out the sound on the track.
The final number is slow, percussion given prominence, the voice given a wide crucible. It is a bit slow and low for a finale and doesn't really work in its positioning here; it is a rather nice track but a huge let down on the end of the disc.
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