Belle & Sebastian
Issue #27
The Life Pursuit (Matador)
By AK Gold
Published: March 1st, 2006 | 12:00am
When If Your Feeling Sinister came out, I was in the 12th grade and was music director of my high school radio station. It took me at least 10 listens before I realized what Stuart Murdoch and his band of Scots were singing. To this day, I still marvel at how they made the line, “Get me away from here, I’m dying,” sound so sunny.
Over the years, much of Belle & Sebastian’s music hasn’t veered too far from the sound they cultivated on that release. But their latest offering, The Life Pursuit, reveals a band ready to explore some new ideas, having outgrown much of their restraint and self-consciousness.
Belle & Sebastian’s newfound confidence allows them to push beyond traditional pop arrangements and incorporate funk – “Sukie in the Graveyard” being a case in point. While adding to the Belle & Sebastian repertoire of narratives about arty outcasts and their sexual revelations, Sukie’s story is told against a backdrop of organ and percussion that makes you want to sway like Stevie Wonder. Along with that, “Song For Sunshine” mixes funk with psychedelia so effectively that you feel the rays of sun emanating from the harmonized chorus.
There will always be a special place in my heart for the band’s early work, but on The Life Pursuit, Belle & Sebastian declare that awkward, creative teenagers can grow up to be funky, creative adults.
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