I might be wrong, but I think it all started with The Animal Collective. After much musical squirming to fit their particular peg into the 'Mainstream Alternative hole' they finally became music press darlings about five or six years back. With them they dragged much from the past, Vashti Bunyan, The Incredible String Band and to a lesser extent and through lazy press name checking rather than anything else, Bridget St John. I suppose a one sentence review of the above might read: 'Bit like a female Nick Drake' but then that would be selling BSJ, for that is how I intend on referring to her for the duration of this review.
I haven't heard the comparison before (This could be because I was busying myself with collecting the ThreeOneG back catalogue or something similarly futile and eventually un-worthwhile) but BSJ sounds an awful lot like Nico, that's Velvet Underground's Nico rather than the drummer from Iron Maiden. The big difference would be that BSJ's delivery is infinitely more tuneful and where Nico had that worn in skag beaten art-whore edge, BSJ sounds like puppy dogs, summers day picnics, fabric conditioner adverts featuring animated teddy bears.
That really shouldn't be a recommendation but it is. BSJ successfully replaces Nico's tired, late night rusty needle foghorn with something sweetly naive and sprightly. This said, on reading the lyrics it becomes obvious that despite the virginal delivery there is a strong chance that acid or other hallucinogens did come into play, take the lyrics to 'Lizard Long Tongue Boy'
'Canoe in maroon time and grow your way through time - whenever you come I'll be there'
Right. Add to that the vacant look, 'don't give a fuck' hair and paisley dress and BSJ definitely has something illegal going on even if it isn't the heroin.
So, yeah, nice post-Easter, 'Bank holiday Monday' listening this. Very pleasant and a good aural substitute for what tradition usually sees me do with this day: Watch 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' whilst sticking myself to the sofa with chocolate Easter egg based flotsam. Yes, I miss the bit where the guys face melts at the end but I'm pretty sure I can find that on Youtube without sitting through the rest of it and shouting at the screen with the same tired annual observations:
'Doesn't he look young?'
'So this was set after 'Temple of Doom' but it was released before it?'
'How doe's he stowaway on board the submarine? He cant get in. He'd drown! You can't open the hatch from the outside, I mean surely you can't... Even if you could submarines are small, they'd find him and shoot him as soon as it climbed down.'
So despite my music based ramblings, let us not forget the true meaning of Easter...
Harrison Ford in a Fedora hat brandishing a whip and looking mighty handsome.
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