Modesty Blaise Melancholia
Format: CD.
Also available as: vinyl LPx2.
Label: Apricot.
Label reference #: apricd016.
TK Mailorder Reference ID: M7007
Genres: British Bands
Price: $10.50 [In Stock. Available to ship now.]
Number in stock: 2
Add to cart.
Track listing:
1. "Chorale"
2. "Carol Mountain"
3. "Old Woman"
4. "My Life Before You Came"
5. "Swivel Chair"
6. "Melancholia (Three Humours)"
7. "Pretty Smart On My Part"
8. "Even In My Darkest Hour Harmonica"
9. "The Little Things You Do Gregory Fell Into His French Horn"
10. "I'm Going Out"
11. "When We Come Of Age The Love Suite Swarm"
12. "Sounds Like Love"
13. "We Are Love"
14. "The Love-In"
15. "Chorale (Reprise)"
Twee Kitten review of Melancholia
by Keith McLachlan
The last record was filled with smartly compact pop songs that sounded incredibly English and cheerful. This new record which is apparently their third full length is still very English but a bit more subdued, a good deal more baroque, dense and interesting. Depth is always a good thing, pop songs do not always require it but when they can deliver it along with the irresistable pop hook it feels all the more filling like when choosing to eat a bagel rather than a donut.
I just returned from England and let me say that sounding English must be a quite fair stretch of the imagination these days as the ongoing American cultural assault has established a defiant stronghold on the motherland. 24 hour shops, large American chains, American films and red hair dye dominate the view through the eyes of a tourist in London. Perhaps the locals can see through to the Englishness of the core but I couldn't. Homogenization is an ugly word. Do Britons really want to become strictly European or worse yet 'earthlings'? Ugh. A universe populated only with people who think Blink 182 are clever or that 'Fair Warning' is Van Halen's best record.
All, it seems, that the Brits have left is their precious irony and even that is a bit overplayed these days as it is mostly lost in this the great cynical age. Irony free, Modesty Blaise are named after a literary character who seems to be the female equivalent of Shaft at least by appearances of the book jacket in the window of a second hand shop across the way from the British Museum (funny how the museum contains mostly artifacts plundered from other civilizations. I guess it is a monument more to Colonial values than Britain itself).
Modesty Blaise are also a wonderful band, every song here is thoughtful and literate and brilliant (the brits will always have their brilliant, hopefully always available for me to borrow) and the songs here all seem to be structured on an acoustic footprint upon which stands a formidable structure of horns, strings and layered voices. Can't quite pin it down to which particular retro area it borrows from but it does appear that they quite liked the last Ladybug Transistor record and decided to try and incorporate its best elements into their snappy pop songs. Many Bacharachian-like segmented songs, many sad songs, many great songs, oh and churchy organ and is he Edwin Collins' brother or not?
Previous page
Format: CD.
Also available as: vinyl LPx2.
Label: Apricot.
Label reference #: apricd016.
TK Mailorder Reference ID: M7007
Genres: British Bands
Price: $10.50 [In Stock. Available to ship now.]
Number in stock: 2
Add to cart.
Track listing:
1. "Chorale"
2. "Carol Mountain"
3. "Old Woman"
4. "My Life Before You Came"
5. "Swivel Chair"
6. "Melancholia (Three Humours)"
7. "Pretty Smart On My Part"
8. "Even In My Darkest Hour Harmonica"
9. "The Little Things You Do Gregory Fell Into His French Horn"
10. "I'm Going Out"
11. "When We Come Of Age The Love Suite Swarm"
12. "Sounds Like Love"
13. "We Are Love"
14. "The Love-In"
15. "Chorale (Reprise)"
Twee Kitten review of Melancholia
by Keith McLachlan
The last record was filled with smartly compact pop songs that sounded incredibly English and cheerful. This new record which is apparently their third full length is still very English but a bit more subdued, a good deal more baroque, dense and interesting. Depth is always a good thing, pop songs do not always require it but when they can deliver it along with the irresistable pop hook it feels all the more filling like when choosing to eat a bagel rather than a donut.
I just returned from England and let me say that sounding English must be a quite fair stretch of the imagination these days as the ongoing American cultural assault has established a defiant stronghold on the motherland. 24 hour shops, large American chains, American films and red hair dye dominate the view through the eyes of a tourist in London. Perhaps the locals can see through to the Englishness of the core but I couldn't. Homogenization is an ugly word. Do Britons really want to become strictly European or worse yet 'earthlings'? Ugh. A universe populated only with people who think Blink 182 are clever or that 'Fair Warning' is Van Halen's best record.
All, it seems, that the Brits have left is their precious irony and even that is a bit overplayed these days as it is mostly lost in this the great cynical age. Irony free, Modesty Blaise are named after a literary character who seems to be the female equivalent of Shaft at least by appearances of the book jacket in the window of a second hand shop across the way from the British Museum (funny how the museum contains mostly artifacts plundered from other civilizations. I guess it is a monument more to Colonial values than Britain itself).
Modesty Blaise are also a wonderful band, every song here is thoughtful and literate and brilliant (the brits will always have their brilliant, hopefully always available for me to borrow) and the songs here all seem to be structured on an acoustic footprint upon which stands a formidable structure of horns, strings and layered voices. Can't quite pin it down to which particular retro area it borrows from but it does appear that they quite liked the last Ladybug Transistor record and decided to try and incorporate its best elements into their snappy pop songs. Many Bacharachian-like segmented songs, many sad songs, many great songs, oh and churchy organ and is he Edwin Collins' brother or not?
Previous page
email: goldfish "at" tweekitten dot com