ARTiST: Beachfield
ALBUM: Brighton Bothways
BiTRATE: 189kbps avg
QUALiTY: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.97 Final / -V2 --vbr-new / 44.100Khz
LABEL: Tuition
GENRE: Indie
SiZE: 56.64 megs
PLAYTiME: 0h 40min 00sec total
RiP DATE: 2007-10-03
STORE DATE: 2007-11-05
Track List:
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01. Coles To Newcastles 4:32
02. Wintertime Again 2:43
03. Come Down 3:40
04. Mandy 3:20
05. Oneway Ticket 3:15
06. Theme Person 3:24
07. Suburban Life 3:02
08. Demons 3:30
09. Freight Trains 3:32
10. Birds Eye View 2:42
11. Danish Kronor 6:20
Release Notes:
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"Can you imagine?" - An album that starts with that question can't be so bad.
That's what pop is about, after all: imagination. "Can you imagine," asks Glenn
Thompson, just a second and a half into his debut album, and forty minutes of
imagination and inspiration follow. Imagination and inspiration blossom in their
own way, far from the centers of pop, in the "splendid isolation" of Australia.
There Glenn Thompson was the drummer in one of the most inspired and inspiring
bands since the invention of the guitar: The Go-Betweens, whom NME called "a
dream of what a pop group should be." A dream of a pop group with two coequal
and yet so different singer-songwriters, Grant McLennan and Robert Forster. The
dream ended in May 2006 with McLennan's sudden death. Now we know that the
Go-Betweens had a third highly talented auteur. That Forster and McLennan could
not tolerate a third songwriter, when Forster had to tolerate McLennan and
McLennan Forster, is understandable somehow. And so Glenn Thompson saved his
songs for his own coming out. Welcome to the enchanting and sometimes strange
world of Beachfield.
Beachfield? Sounds almost like a Go-Betweens song, but in fact it is Glenn
Thompson's new one-man-with-a-little-help-from-his-friends-band. But let's stop
talking about his ex-band now. Better to recall what can happen when drummers
step out from behind their cover and get behind a microphone with their own
songs. Iggy Pop was one case, Maureen Tucker a very special one, and Robert
Wyatt a tragic one with great consequences. So, never underestimate the drummer
who goes independent!
Like the great band that shall no longer be mentioned here, Beachfield is also a
little inconspicuous, and like that band his inconspicuousness turns out to be
elegant understatement. Glenn Thompson tells stories from the everyday lives of
the people next door, writes an insightful critic, but he is looking through the
wrong end of the telescope. Listening to it causes a series of deja vu
experiences about which one remains uncertain: Hey, isn't that the beginning of
"My Sweet Lord"? Or "I don't want to talk about it"? Yeah, but the Crazy Horse
original. And do people in Australia know this odd combo called Smokie?
BEACHFIELD: BRIGHTON BOTHWAYS
Such deja vus flash up, only to disappear again in these nearly perfect song
postcards. Postcards? The band that shall not be mentioned had one single on the
Postcard label, whose slogan was "The Sound of Young Scotland." That's a place
where people understand a certain euphoric melancholy that certain Beachfield
songs exude as well. Aztec Camera wunderkind Roddy Frame in particular was an
artist of this emotional register. You get carried away like that by "Brighton
Bothways," something that doesn't happen that often, after all. You go into
raptures, make comparisons and remember, and you hear Glenn Thompson sing about
picking up fallen leaves in the road and putting them back on the tree: "it's
winter time again" . . . songs about seasons and the weather are among the most
difficult to pull off, and the band that shall not be mentioned was great at it
as well. Beachfield carries on the tradition.