Belle & Sebastian arrived, for me, in 1996 championed by the late night Radio 1 golden era of Mark Radcliffe. A literate Scottish band who’d appear reading poetry, playing crafted and tuneful pop songs of a much finer grain than the mid-nineties Britpop Indie norm. They were enigmatic and for a while there wasn’t a definitive image to attach to; in fact for ages I never saw a picture of the band and even more frustratingly for a while, prior to this CD re-issue, the debut album ‘Tigermilk’ was impossible to get hold of; a collectors item. This was very frustrating because back in 1996 these were the tracks that Radcliffe got a bit of a buzz going with.
And what tracks! The opener ‘The State I Am In’ alone is as impressive a mission statement from a bands debut album as I’ve ever heard. Pop music of an early seventies folky type but played by a band with an ear for every post 60’s style the indie fraternity held in estime...a touch of garage jangle here, a hint of Spector girl-group pop there and an overall dedication to songcraft, melody and poetic lyrics. In this song alone the story of one mans inner struggles with the expectations of others, the desire to do right and how it leads him to sin is coloured with various layers of storytelling that include a priest with a photographic memory writing down all the protagonists confessions to create a novel called ‘The State I Am In’. It’s a book that neatly turns up in the final song too, being read by ‘Mary Jo’ who wants “A thespian with a caravanette in Hull”. These songs are packed with pinpoint character detail like the schoolgirl outsider making models of The Velvet Underground in clay. ‘I Don’t Love Anyone’ too is a fine piece of writing. On the face of it an abused loner’s song of defiance but look closer and you realise the statements are that of someone in denial: “I don’t love anyone. Not even Christmas. Especially not that”.
Musically the songwriters introspective foundations are pretty firm but pointers to Belle & Sebastian’s future explorations into wide ranging pop styles are all here. ‘You’re Just A Baby’ (one of the albums seriously under-rated tracks) sharply echoes the raw three-chord riffing of the Velvets while ‘Electronic Renaissance’reveals a keen ear for 80s pop sounds and beyond. I’d go as far as to say that this album represents a starting point for at least 10 years worth of ambitious, kaleidoscopic record making that entered the UK and US Alternative scenes soon after this release, albums far beyond the imaginations of the mid-nineties buttoned-down collar shirt ‘n’ trainers brigade. After ‘Tigermilk’ some incredible records were made by the likes of The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Elliott Smith and The Delgados, to name just the tip of a massive iceberg, that tried pushing the album format to new levels of artistry with more attention to production, scoring, concept, song structure and sequencing. I’m not saying they all were influenced by or even heard this Belle & Sebastian album, but I see it as the first step on a ladder leading to some wonderful music to come. I personally had little or no interest in any guitar combo opting for the heads down vocal-barked-into-a-bucket style meat ‘n’ potatoes indie from this point on. Not that I cared for them much in the first place.
There’s nothing to fault here really. Closing track ‘Mary Jo’ opens with a flute or something that reminds me of David Essex’s ‘A Winters Tale’, which is not what I want in my head, but it quickly becomes a decent album ending. That’s a minor moan really because I’ve got to face facts that this is definitely my most played Belle & Sebastian album. It’s that classic scenario of a band with a musical ethos and concept, overloaded with ideas on a debut album that presumably they had a lot of time to plan and execute and they got it bang on. There’s isn’t a bad track on here and it has to be said, I’m not sure they’ve ever bettered it.
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