Belle & Sebastian: The First Four
A detailed dive into the initial quartet of offerings from the Scottish ensemble that embodies the very essence of twee.
Stuart Murdoch was just hitting his first years of adulthood when he began to suffer from Myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome. For nearly seven years, Murdoch labored with the arduous symptoms of this neurological disease. Perennially exhausted, weak, and frail, he found himself unable to work or engage in extended physical activity, and too tired to invest in academic pursuits.
It was during this period of severe isolation and loneliness that Murdoch began to develop a belief that he could be a songwriter, “That was a big desert at the time, a kind of vacuum in my life. From that, these songs started coming out, these melodies where I could express what I was feeling.”
Gradually, Murdoch began feeling well enough to start crafting songs. In 1994, he enrolled in the Music Business course at nearby Stow College. Each year, the program at Stow would select one artist to record and then release a physical product via their Electric Honey label. Murdoch submitted some of the songs he had been working during his chronic fatigue recovery, and was selected as the artist for the 1994-95 academic year.
Murdoch recruited a host of local musicians for the project and christened the “band” Belle & Sebastian, which he named after a beloved 1960s children’s book series. Most of the players involved saw the recording as a one-off for a school project. Still, it was hard to deny the catchiness and power Murdoch’s original material.
As the players amassed to record Murdoch’s tunes, they had not yet even rehearsed together as a group. The sessions were loose and hasty, but produced remarkable results. Guitar player Stevie Jackson had arrived rather skeptical of the project but was bowled over by the quality of the tunes and the magic that was happening almost immediately in the studio.
Murdoch’s songs told the intimate stories of underground heroes and indie rock protagonists living out their semi-dreary lives working retail, going to school, and trying to hide their queerness from their parents. Musically, the songs were a buoyant pastiche of the catchier side of Velvet Underground, glam rock, Nick Drake, Burt Bacharach, and a dozen things more. It was a joyous paean to rock and roll from the heart of ardent sonic nerds.
With almost no prep time or rehearsal, the makeshift band spent three days recording ten of Murdoch’s original tunes, allowing an additional two days for mixing - a breakneck pace for making a record in that era.
The buoyant enthusiasm of the album is obvious from the opening strains of lead track, ‘The State I Am In’, a song which regales the closeted life of a young man posing in a straight relationship to fit in with his family. It’s a brilliant tale of isolation wrapped inside a simple, condensed melody.
Murdoch christened the set of songs, Tigermilk, and Electric Honey set to pressing up 1,000 copies for release in the middle of 1996, which then sold out in just a matter of months. Vaunted DJ John Peel played a cut from the album sparking buzz and critical street cred almost instantly. Positive press from the album, and The BBC airplay led to a bevy of labels seeking to sign the outfit.
London label Jeepster wound up winning the Belle & Sebastian sweepstakes, and the band went right back into the studio to work on their follow up to Tigermilk. The group were happy to have found a home, but they had specific plans for their followup effort and needed the label to be on board. Murdoch and company insisted that there be no singles pulled from the album. They also announced that they would not be doing press or promotional events, and the band themselves would not be appearing in promotional materials. Still, Jeepster happily signed on and work on album two began almost immediately.
By this point, Murdoch and drummer Richard Colburn were living in a flat at a church in Glasgow where Murdoch was caretaker. In addition to a spot to stay, the church also provided a spot for the band to rehearse, and they began getting together almost compulsively to work on material for a second album.
The band returned to Cava Studio in Glasgow with engineer Tony Doogan at the controls just weeks after the release of Tigermilk. For this newer batch of tunes, Belle & Sebastian would take a comparatively luxurious five days for tracking with three more days for mixing. With the additional recording time, the band were able stretch their vast musicality and lend a baroque pop pastiche to the proceedings. Trumpets, flutes, mellotron, strings, and classical percussion all make appearances on a series of recordings that plays like a bedroom Pet Sounds straight from the streets of Scotland.
The album begins with a phrase of perfection, “Make a new cult everyday, at the back of the stairs.”
Murdoch’s deft touch in telling the stories of hidden characters and forgotten souls was evident in flashes across the first Belle and Sebastian record. On If You’re Feeling Sinister, it’s follow-up, we find Murdoch reaching an acme of melodic and empathetic conjunction. With aching realism and stark pathos, we are witness to a series of three minute films writ as pop songs that tell the tales of homophobic abuse, teenage sexual exploration, loneliness, isolation, regret, and youthful abandon.
Musically, the band are stretching ever outward with new layers, and additional countermelodies. Each tune is a miniature pop symphony with a riveting narrative arc. Again, Belle and Sebastian pull musical inspiration from all corners of the pop landscape. We witness moments of Motown, and catch glimpses of glam. The band in full pays homage to baroque pop outfits like The Zombies and The Left Banke while also showing off how much they dig Thin Lizzy and prove to us that they’ve spent more than one night listening quietly to Nick Drake’s Pink Moon.
Multi-instrumentalist in the band, Sarah Martin compared Tigermilk and If You're Feeling Sinister to The Beatles’ Rubber Soul and Revolver due to the two records were made so closely together and feeling so intertwined in their existence. Both instances find the bands in question deeply entrenched in the midst of an overwhelming burst of creativity and productivity, resulting each time in a pair of records created almost in one fell swoop, so much so it’s tough to see the dividing line between the records, even for the players themselves.
By weaving the playful (‘Judy And The Dream Of Horses’) with the painful, (‘Fox In The Snow’), Murdoch and his musical compatriots were able to craft a quilt of absolute artistry and beauty, bringing forth the innate humanity of Murdoch’s characters. While many bands find themselves battling the sophomore slump, Belle and Sebastian were approaching pop perfection.
Following the release of If You're Feeling Sinister Belle & Sebastian did their best to limit their live appearances and profile due to Murdoch’s ongoing recovery from Myalgic encephalomyelitis. Still, the band made their live debut in the US at New York’s CMJ Music Festival. The band also unveiled a trio of terrific EPs as they kept up their breakneck pace of studio production.
Unlike the first two albums by the band, the recording process for their next LP, The Boy With The Arab Strap was much more intentional and deliberate. The band spent several months in pre-production working out arrangements and parts before hitting the studio for actual sessions.
Another key difference on the band’s third LP was the appearance of other members as lead vocalists in lieu of Murdoch’s voice out front. Guitarist Stevie Jackson lends his wistful lead vocal to a pair of tunes on the album, while cellist and singer Isobel Campbell takes the lead on “Is It Wicked Not to Care?” and shares duet duties with Murdoch on “Sleep the Clock Around”.
Although the band only spent a few days recording, the resulting album presents a full collective of talent pushing in one creative direction to great effect. While Tigermilk and If You're Feeling Sinister are rife with charm and beautiful songs, The Boy With The Arab Strap finds Belle & Sebastian emerging as a full-fledged band and not just the supporting group behind Murdoch and his songs.
After a pair of brilliantly charming albums and three equally enjoyable EPs, critics were in full swoon upon the arrival of The Boy With The Arab Strap. John Mulvey, writing for the New Musical Express, noted that “the band leaves almost all their contemporaries for dead” with a record that “locates an emotional chord largely neglected by the British mainstream since the demise of the Smiths, but is presented with an air of aloofness and/or shyness more suitable to a tiny side project of the Pastels.”
In Uncut, Robert McTaggart declared that the album “marks Belle and Sebastian's arrival as a fully-fleshed group”. The legendary rock critic Robert Christgau described the band’s sound on the record as “beautiful and fragile”.
The success of the album led to the band’s first national TV appearance in the UK in 1998 as well as further touring opportunities throughout the world. Once again, instead of jumping back into production for a fourth album, the band churned out another pair of four song EPs; This Is Just A Modern Rock Song and Lazy Line Painter Jane. It seemed that this Scottish outfit was a never-ending font of new material.
By New Years of 2000, the band had a new collection of tunes that they’d begun previewing in their live sets. These new songs, according to bandleader Stuart Murdoch “demanded a pop precision that you just couldn’t skirt around”, forcing the band to rehearse the new tunes with a new degree of exactitude that had not been in place for previous recording sessions.
While the new batch of songs still felt like Belle & Sebastian material, it was clear that the band were heading in a new direction, musically speaking. Shades of Motown, Phil Spector, Francoise Hardy, and Northern Soul began to pop up more frequently and with greater verve within the band’s musical pastiche.
With the additional rehearsal time and these new musical paths, the band were able to stretch their sonic legs a bit more on the fourth long player, Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant. The album begins with a pair of tunes that sound as though they could have appeared on earlier efforts from the band. The especially charming tune, ‘The Model’ bursts with terrific Murdochian wordplay such as ending a verse with the phrase, “It was the best sex that she ever had.”
‘Don’t Leave The Light On Baby’, is a minor pop symphony that pulls at the same musical strains as giants like Burt Bachrach. It’s a clear sign of the advancing musical maturity of the band. Even tunes like ‘The Wrong Girl’ that would before have been delivered as quickly recorded romps find more of a refined manner on Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant.
Ultimately though, the fourth record is a bit of a step back in terms of overall quality. After the deluge of output for several years, the songs on the album are just not quite at the same level of consistency as the trio of previous albums. The highlights remain just as high as the first three records with standout tunes like ‘The Model’, but childish efforts like ‘Nice Day For A Sulk’ seem to just be occupying space.
The reviews for Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant were a mixed bag. AllMusic noted that “The record has many intriguing ideas (like the delicate ‘Beyond the Sunrise’, which evokes the classic duets of Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, and the vaguely rootsy ‘The Wrong Girl’), but few of the concepts seem fully developed. For better or worse, Fold Your Hands Child's best moments are those which hew most closely to the classic Belle & Sebastian sound -- that is, Stuart Murdoch songs.”
NME described the record as, “Quintessentially Belle & Sebastian. Frustrating. Contrary. Insubstantial. Yet, in that insular, cloyingly sanctimonious world they inhabit, still peerless, still irresistible.”
Even with a minor step back on their fourth effort, Belle & Sebastian had capped off a marvelous five year run that featured four stunningly good albums and four more excellent EPs, resulting in a staggering count of forty three songs recorded and released in just a five year period - all from a band that began as nothing more than an art school project. This is the sort of prolific output that one might expect from Guided By Voices or King Gizz, but not from these bashful arbiters of twee.
Following their initial five year run, Belle & Sebastian would undergo a series of lineup changes including the departure of bassist Stuart David after Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant. The band’s sound has continued to evolve over the intervening years as well by incorporating additional electronics and dance elements to some of the records.
At its core, Belle & Sebastian remains rooted in the songs of Stuart Murdoch. They have continued to record and tour with great success in the last twenty five years. Their collected discography now features twelve studio albums, three compilation albums, four live albums, two box sets, nine EPs, and twenty one singles. It’s a heady collection of pop gems that are a special treat, especially when witnessed live.
I saw Belle & Sebastian open the summer concert series at Bell’s Beer Garden in Kalamazoo, MI in May of 2024. It was my third time seeing the band, but my first in more than a decade. The set was a wide swath of songs from their long and storied career, but the tunes from those first four records resonated more deeply and more intensely with the crowd than anything else.
The show was a testament to the power of the band’s early work and the connection that it built with a movement of dedicated fans that found peace and meaning within the world of Murdoch’s characters and philosophies. I was also reminded what a wonderful, nerdy universe that B & S fandom can be. To be a Belle & Sebastian fan is a bit like being a part of the hippest book club in town. We drink Negronis, clean our homes with Florida Water, and purchase houseplants at an unhealthy rate. And we probably do it all soundtracked by Belle & Sebastian’s first four records.
Cheers,
Matty C
Right on. My kinda Friday morning reading!