I first heard about this mysterious Glasgow band in 1997 when i was at uni. I'd while away the hours between lectures and tutorials by sitting in the computer lab (being a software engineering student these were always open to me) and making my first tentative steps into exploring the internet. The NME website and it's angst message board (named after the letters page of the magazine at the time) where other students up and down the country discussed there musical tastes. I'd never heard Belle and Sebastian on the radio or read much of the them in the music press but there was a small band of fans constantly talking about them on the angst board and this roused my interest. I went straight to the Jeepster website and ordered their second album, though first widely available album If You're Feeling Sinister and awaited the postman to let me in on the secret of this band.
When the cd arrived i was struck by the cover, the arty picture of a girl (i imagine on a train) with a novel at her side, black and white on a red background, was somewhat reminiscent of the kind of covers The Smiths had on their records. The first track started quietly and the words were the first thing i noticed - The Stars Of Track and Field went it's business quietly but with rhyming couplets such as 'now he's throwing discus for liverpool and widnes' and from that moment i was hooked. The album offered up ten songs, or ten stories even, in a gentle but incredibly infectiously melodic manner that sounded so different from all the britpop that was being churned out elsewhere.
I loved that face that they augmented that indie guitar, bass and drum sound with more old fashioned instrumentation such as trumpets and pianos. I also
Another part of the charm was that they were Scottish and quite intelligent and not afraid to putting beauty prose and little vignettes that resonated with me and people like me. Especially as there was a lot of mentions of school life and I'd just left school and my word they even mentioned my place of work at the time (and in a way still is my place of work) Safeway in songs (though not from this album). Particular highlights from this album for me were the trio of The Fox In the Snow, Get Me Away From Here, I'm Dying, and If You're Feeling Sinister. The album then closes on the most poppy song from the album the wonderful Judy and the Dream Of Horses - a precursor to some of the great moments that were to come.
What turned my curiosity into what's now been a 17 year fandom is that they've always done things their way and always been able to evoke the same emotions and feeling of comfort and belonging in their later work as i felt when i first listened to this.
If you don't have it - get it here
And here's a fantastic documentary about the album that pitchfork did and put on you tube....well worth a watch.
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