music
record review
BLUES _ Tam White's Shoestring
The Real Deal ((32) * kits?
Tam White's Shoestring are captured in vrvrdly Immediate style In this appropriately no-budget live recording from The Dome in Edinburgh, laid down on old-fashioned non-digital cassette tape JUSI as it happened. Originally intended purely for reference, it sounded so good Tam deCIded to put it out With a minimum of studio re-mrxing, and the result is a strong contender for his best album yet The mix of hrs own thoughtful, provocative material wrth covers of songs like John Hiatt’s 'This Is The Way We Make A Broken Heart' Or Gil Scott- Heron's 'Home Is Where The Hatred Is' provrdes a vrbrant snapshot of where the singer is coming from, and Neil Warden and Fraser Sprers provrde their usual sterling support. (KM)
POP
The Supernaturals
A TuneA Day (Elvll) w e a
You know The Supernaturals: live shows which leave you smiling ear to ear, singles creeping gradually higher up the charts, a packed-out tent at T in the Park the year before last and their fantastic debut album, bursting at the sides With good-humouer bounce. Well things have changed a brt. A Tune A Day finds The Supernaturals digging deeper into the seam of melancholy which they occassronally displayed and
it's not altogether certain that it SUItS them as well as upbeat pop does. 'I Wasn’t Built To Get Up' still swmgs as does ’You Take Yourself Too Seriously' but elsewhere you can almost hear someone gulprng back the tears. Lyrically, this album almost reads like the diary to a very painful break-up. (JT)
The B-SZ's
Time Capsule (Reprise) r air air air They shouldn't have worked of course: boho art studes wrth a love of cheap Sci-Fr flicks and polyester 605 kitsch dress in thrift-store beehive wrgs and Star Trek duds who embarked on a mission to annexe the pop scene wrth their dastardly arsenal of mondo-disco dance toons. We should've loathed them in all their snickering camporama but we didn't, we loved them. We re5urrected archaic dances like The Moose and the Boogaloo and shimmied our tushes off like rabid chimps till we c0uld shimmy no more. From the early, tinny likes of 'Rock Lobster’ to the irressistible dayglo F.U.N. of 'Love Shack' and the sublime ’Deadbeat Club' they were truly loveable. A future soundtrack for summer’s past — buy this and stay yOung for ever. (PW)
Theaudience
Theaudience (Elleffe) it a a
Nobody's gorng to complain about a brt of calculated artifice from a new band. This is showbiz, after all. However, theaudrence are so knowrng — from the affected running together of their name to their verbose song
VALVONA 8c CROLLA.
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121THE lIST i5 ff- :ui-cl
titles to their very mature-s0unding teenage vocalist SOphre Ellis Bextor - that It's diffICUlt to stifle the Irritation at yet another clever-clever lyrical reference or JUSi-SO execution of a gurtar part. All the sophistication in the world can't help them when rt transpires that they are potentially the new Sleeper — chansmatichsh) Singer, anonymous other people, average pop tunes and the intelligence but not the chemistry to do better. (FS)
ROCK Jack
The Jazz Age (Too Pure) a w *k a Unlike theaudrence, Jack are as clever as they think they are, sitting there absorbing cafe socrety, letting their latte go cold and thinking pseudo— profound or incurany romantic thoughts. The Jazz Age is their second album and their second exqursite expression of what it rs like to be
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record reviews MUSIC 3"‘3
. in Jack: demonstrably smart composers of songs for bohemian lovers
young, lonely, bitchy, in love, frustrated, liberated, maudlin and urbane in urban Britain. A sentiment like 'Half Cut, Wholly Yours’ is to be treasured, lyrics like 'My World Versus Your World' (a competition to see who has the most screwed-up bourgeois existence) or 'Cinematic' (comparing your love to a Godard film or somesuch) are rare gems and the music is still accessiny orchestral, like a cross between Suede and Tindersticks. Jack are composers of songs for bohemian lovers. (FS)
REVIEWERS THIS ISSUE: Kenny Mathieson, Fiona Shepherd, Jonathan Trew, Paul Whitelaw
STAR RATINGS * e 9: t it Unmissable a- a: e at Very 00d ix wk e Won 3 shot it * Below average it You've been warned
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