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| Track list: 1. What Have I Said Now? 2. Crushed 3. Kennedy 4. Thanks 5. Bewitched 6. Granadaland 7. John Peel Interviews David Gedge, Part 1 8. Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah 9. Kennedy 10. Swimming Pools, Movie Stars 11. Click Click 12. It's a Gas 13. Spangle (Acoustic) 14. Gazebo (Acoustic) 15. Fleshworld 16. Sucker 17. The Queen of Outer Space 18. John Peel Interviews David Gedge, Part 2 Running time: 59 minutes Released: 2007 |
I've made it half-way through The Wedding Present's assembled Peel Sessions. What lies ahead now? We have the first repeats that I can spot - Kennedy appearing twice, and acoustic renditions of Gazebo and Spangle from disc 3.
This disc is kicked off with an intro espousing the continuation of "fabness" (or so I hear). How very British. I guess this must be a festival recording or something because the voice was not Peel's and there is a background noise on the track that sounds a bit like general crowd sounds though it is not very distinct and could be the rough edges around the instrument parts. This doesn't sound like a very clean recording. The song, for what it's worth, is a sort of plodding but pleasant indie cycle, one very prominent guitar line and some very structural drumming. There's no sense of real interest, but neither is there anything pushing me away. It's a gently enjoyable tune, but far too long for the lack of any real hook.
Yep, definitely in front of an audience. The applause is a giveaway!
OK, so I think all of these 6 discs are live anyway (as part of the conceit of the Peel Session), but these tracks being in front of an audience not just live in a studio it lends a different interpretation. The sounds here hark back to the first disc, the tinniness of the guitars, a flatness to the overall sound and a distance in the vocal. I am sure I have a better version of Crushed, though ironically it's on another live album; I didn't go back and buy the studio output.
There's definitely a dullness in these recordings which lends a distance to the music. It is as if the recording was incidental and unplanned. The richness that I had become used to over the latter parts of disc 2 and all of disc 3 is absent, and with it some of the engagement. That said, Crushed and Kennedy - which here both suffer by the measures mentioned - are both tunes that showcase the energy of The Wedding Present really well. The breakneck pace is evident and a key part of their makeup, it is just a shame that the sound is a little flat.
The paciness of these first few tunes is really welcome, a good jolt to what has been a lethargic Sunday so far. I've been playing Pyre, finally, and finding it a little bit of a chore in terms of the UI and the amount of clicking it appears to take to get anywhere. It sucked up most of my morning - the characterisation is great, but I wish you could move through the story a bit faster. Now this listen is serving as a break point; this afternoon is cooking and other productive pursuits, at least it is per plan.
I don't know what it says that I find myself half loving and half loathing the tuneset so far. I love the energy and pace, the solid structure and the general tone but I am massively frustrated by the distance of the sound. A few tracks in and this is not the disc 1 scenario of guitars so spangly I had to go lie down with my eyes closed to clear my head; the harsher edge to the instruments is there, but the level of the recording neuters that effect. I'm not sure which is worse... being affected to the extent of headaches or not really feeling the effect at all because of the distance. I've looked it up in the meantime and the live event covering the first 6 tracks, which all flow together well, is the occasion of John Peel's 50th birthday. The subsequent 12 tracks, including both interviews to bookend the show, are another festival performance from the mid 90s. This disc, then, has a distinctly different flavour for those crowd dynamics.
Hearing John Peel's voice, even many years after his death (14 years ago now... how time flies) is still massively evocative, oh so familiar. I have never been the biggest listener of the radio - too much guff to put up with - but somehow Peel's style and tone made it through to me. He was a giant presence, a huge influence. For those of my generation and the one before, a true legend.
The second rendition of Kennedy loses something for being included here so soon after the first. Of course when this was originally broadcast it wouldn't have had the proximity, but here only 5 tracks have passed since it concluded last. Sound quality here is better though. Oh, but I really like the opening of Swimming Pools, Movie Stars. The peppiness here is balanced perfectly by the dryness of the vocal, the pace is positive, the sound rounded. The track loses some lustre as is goes as the pattern is set and becomes familiar, but the opening is really strong. It's dragged back, too - the lull is fought off by more guitars, a little acoustic twang then an overdriven fuzz. Nice.
Isn't our mood and appreciation fickle? Suddenly I am not feeling all that engaged, in the space of two tracks I've gone from stoked to burnt out as my mind wandered. Sure, the over-long Click Click wasn't the best thing ever but neither was it that bad, so why do I now feel nothing but a desire for the listen to close out? So frustrating (as Gedge sings on It's a Gas). That frustration and ending-wish is intensified as the acoustic delivery of Spangle kicks in. Here everything feels off, its almost like a spoiler of an insert - the sound balancing is really weird. All the focus is on Gedge's vocal and the predominant instrumentation is a really shonky piano sound from some form of keyboard. The keys sound so wrong... part out of tune, part utterly incompetent rendering of an actual piano sound.
Thankfully Gazebo seems to drop the keyboard into the background more, and here the softer sound of the amped-up acoustic guitar is nice. The focus on the vocal is still a bit too strong, and the backing becomes a mess as the bonkers keyboard asserts itself some more towards the end of the track, so overall I think I can do without these acoustic interludes.
I am struggling to reconnect, and with only two short tunes and a 30 second interview clip left to go I am not sure I will. Sucker is not an easy tune to like, but I do appreciate how it plays with the formula, particularly in the rhythm. The chorus, which involves repeating the title a few times with some vocalisations before each one, is weak, but the rhythmic structure of the verses makes up for that. It hasn't drawn me back in, but it has rather arrested the slide.
I think disc 3 is likely to remain my favourite of the set. 5 and 6 follow similar patterns to this one - live performances captured and broadcast rather than true session recordings. Still I'll make my way through them soon enough.
This disc is kicked off with an intro espousing the continuation of "fabness" (or so I hear). How very British. I guess this must be a festival recording or something because the voice was not Peel's and there is a background noise on the track that sounds a bit like general crowd sounds though it is not very distinct and could be the rough edges around the instrument parts. This doesn't sound like a very clean recording. The song, for what it's worth, is a sort of plodding but pleasant indie cycle, one very prominent guitar line and some very structural drumming. There's no sense of real interest, but neither is there anything pushing me away. It's a gently enjoyable tune, but far too long for the lack of any real hook.
Yep, definitely in front of an audience. The applause is a giveaway!
OK, so I think all of these 6 discs are live anyway (as part of the conceit of the Peel Session), but these tracks being in front of an audience not just live in a studio it lends a different interpretation. The sounds here hark back to the first disc, the tinniness of the guitars, a flatness to the overall sound and a distance in the vocal. I am sure I have a better version of Crushed, though ironically it's on another live album; I didn't go back and buy the studio output.
There's definitely a dullness in these recordings which lends a distance to the music. It is as if the recording was incidental and unplanned. The richness that I had become used to over the latter parts of disc 2 and all of disc 3 is absent, and with it some of the engagement. That said, Crushed and Kennedy - which here both suffer by the measures mentioned - are both tunes that showcase the energy of The Wedding Present really well. The breakneck pace is evident and a key part of their makeup, it is just a shame that the sound is a little flat.
The paciness of these first few tunes is really welcome, a good jolt to what has been a lethargic Sunday so far. I've been playing Pyre, finally, and finding it a little bit of a chore in terms of the UI and the amount of clicking it appears to take to get anywhere. It sucked up most of my morning - the characterisation is great, but I wish you could move through the story a bit faster. Now this listen is serving as a break point; this afternoon is cooking and other productive pursuits, at least it is per plan.
I don't know what it says that I find myself half loving and half loathing the tuneset so far. I love the energy and pace, the solid structure and the general tone but I am massively frustrated by the distance of the sound. A few tracks in and this is not the disc 1 scenario of guitars so spangly I had to go lie down with my eyes closed to clear my head; the harsher edge to the instruments is there, but the level of the recording neuters that effect. I'm not sure which is worse... being affected to the extent of headaches or not really feeling the effect at all because of the distance. I've looked it up in the meantime and the live event covering the first 6 tracks, which all flow together well, is the occasion of John Peel's 50th birthday. The subsequent 12 tracks, including both interviews to bookend the show, are another festival performance from the mid 90s. This disc, then, has a distinctly different flavour for those crowd dynamics.
Hearing John Peel's voice, even many years after his death (14 years ago now... how time flies) is still massively evocative, oh so familiar. I have never been the biggest listener of the radio - too much guff to put up with - but somehow Peel's style and tone made it through to me. He was a giant presence, a huge influence. For those of my generation and the one before, a true legend.
The second rendition of Kennedy loses something for being included here so soon after the first. Of course when this was originally broadcast it wouldn't have had the proximity, but here only 5 tracks have passed since it concluded last. Sound quality here is better though. Oh, but I really like the opening of Swimming Pools, Movie Stars. The peppiness here is balanced perfectly by the dryness of the vocal, the pace is positive, the sound rounded. The track loses some lustre as is goes as the pattern is set and becomes familiar, but the opening is really strong. It's dragged back, too - the lull is fought off by more guitars, a little acoustic twang then an overdriven fuzz. Nice.
Isn't our mood and appreciation fickle? Suddenly I am not feeling all that engaged, in the space of two tracks I've gone from stoked to burnt out as my mind wandered. Sure, the over-long Click Click wasn't the best thing ever but neither was it that bad, so why do I now feel nothing but a desire for the listen to close out? So frustrating (as Gedge sings on It's a Gas). That frustration and ending-wish is intensified as the acoustic delivery of Spangle kicks in. Here everything feels off, its almost like a spoiler of an insert - the sound balancing is really weird. All the focus is on Gedge's vocal and the predominant instrumentation is a really shonky piano sound from some form of keyboard. The keys sound so wrong... part out of tune, part utterly incompetent rendering of an actual piano sound.
Thankfully Gazebo seems to drop the keyboard into the background more, and here the softer sound of the amped-up acoustic guitar is nice. The focus on the vocal is still a bit too strong, and the backing becomes a mess as the bonkers keyboard asserts itself some more towards the end of the track, so overall I think I can do without these acoustic interludes.
I am struggling to reconnect, and with only two short tunes and a 30 second interview clip left to go I am not sure I will. Sucker is not an easy tune to like, but I do appreciate how it plays with the formula, particularly in the rhythm. The chorus, which involves repeating the title a few times with some vocalisations before each one, is weak, but the rhythmic structure of the verses makes up for that. It hasn't drawn me back in, but it has rather arrested the slide.
I think disc 3 is likely to remain my favourite of the set. 5 and 6 follow similar patterns to this one - live performances captured and broadcast rather than true session recordings. Still I'll make my way through them soon enough.
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