Tag: Indie Pop

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Vinyl

Vinyl love: The Reds, Pinks And Purples “The town that cursed your name”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: The Reds, Pinks And Purples
Album Title: The town that cursed your name
Year released: 2023
Details: seaglass blue

The skinny: From the ‘in case you missed it’ files, I’ll be replaying my top five albums from 2023, albeit in a ‘vinyl love’ post format, every weekend in January and just into February; partially because I love these albums and partially because I have them all on vinyl and want to show off their physical beauty as well. I posted album number five last weekend and today I’ve got album number four: the latest album by Glenn Donaldson’s The Reds, Pinks and Purples, “The town that cursed your name”. I first discovered the project with their third album in 2021 and it topped my best albums chart that year. Since then, I’ve been struggling to keep up with their releases and yet, at least one of their albums have made into my top ten in each of the last two years. I pre-ordered this one from their record label, Slumberland Records’ bandcamp page back in February but with pressing plant issues, I didn’t receive it until June. With the lovely seaglass blue colour (and bonus 7”), though, it was well worth the wait. “The town that cursed your name” is peppy and reverb-drenched and throughout, Donaldson plaintively and romantically sings about the lives and loves of being a struggling musician in San Francisco and in the process, draws us all into his world with his melodic hooks and wistful turn of phrase.

Standout track: “Mistakes (too many to name)”

 

Categories
Vinyl

Vinyl love: Pale Blue Eyes “This house”

(Vinyl Love is a series of posts that quite simply lists, describes, and displays the pieces in my growing vinyl collection. You can bet that each record was given a spin during the drafting of each corresponding post.)

Artist: Pale Blue Eyes
Album Title: This house
Year released: 2023
Details: clear

The skinny: From the ‘in case you missed it’ files, I’ll be replaying my top five albums from 2023, albeit in a ‘vinyl love’ format, over the next few weeks; partially because I love these albums and partially because I have them all on vinyl and want to show off their physical beauty as well. My number five album of 2023 came courtesy of a band I hadn’t even heard of at the beginning of last year. Pale Blue Eyes is a trio that until recently hailed from South Devon, England, and formed just before the start of this pandemic madness. “This house” is the group’s sophomore record and as I wrote about it before: “It is 44 minutes of transporting music, songs that stick to your bones and seep into your skin, and make you want to live in the music and let it delay what comes next just a little while longer.” It also happens to be the last of this top five that I purchased for my shelves, ordered from the online shop of one of my trusted UK record vendors just back in November. It’s the standard clear pressing but you’ll hear no complaints from me on that count.

Standout track: “Simmering”

 

Categories
Tunes

Best tunes of 2003: #15 Camera Obscura “Suspended from class”

<< #16    |    #14 >>

Well here we are, four days into the new year: 2024. New years bring new hopes and positivity and of course, the promise of new music. Of all the new albums that are hotly anticipated, the long awaited return of Glasgow, Scotland’s Camera Obscura is one of those that will be the most welcome in my books. They had originally hinted at a full return back in 2019, after a hiatus that began with the death of their long-time keyboardist, Carey Lander, in 2015, but then the pandemic pushed things back a few years.

So it’s almost too perfect that this song should come up in my Best tunes of 2003 list, given that Camera Obscura’s sophomore record, “Underachievers please try harder”, was my introduction to band and still one of my favourites of their works. I had picked this one up after reading comparisons to and affiliations with Belle & Sebastian, another Scottish group with whom I was already a fan. And I found myself really digging the twee-heavy indie pop, especially of those sung by Tracyanne Campbell, who would eventually take over all vocal duties with the departure of founding member John Henderson after this album.

“Suspended from class” is the opening number on said album and a perfect mood-setter. It’s a jangly and peppy piece of sunshine pop but if you listen closer and on repeat listens, you’ll realize that there’s a lot more going on here than meets the eye.

“I should be suspended from class
I don’t know my elbow from my arse”

This couplet is more than just a cheeky turn of phrase. It is a play upon words and hearkens back to a time when being “suspended” was the worst thing possible that we could think of to happen to us. It is the punishment for stepping out of line, for doing something that doesn’t follow the heavily regimented rules of the educational system. And here, it is a metaphorical kick in the pants for crossing the friend zone boundary, for taking a chance at something more, and being shrunk back down to size when those feelings go unreciprocated. The morning after, that eternal and timeless moment when regrets are enlarged to colossal catastrophes, tear-soaked pillows and mascara smears are all spelled out in Campbell’s delicate vocals and are felt in each tug on the guitar strings and accentuated by horn flourishes.

This is the kind of thing we’ve been missing for these last eight years. Such great storytelling and musicianship.

For the rest of the Best tunes of 2003 list, click here.