SEVEN NOISES

Well, I don't think that any presentation is needed when I'm about to talk about The Pastels, one of the most influential bands of the last 25 years although sometimes misunderstood. Some people still only gets the twee part of their sound but I've always thought there's much more to them as they've always tried to combine melody, performance and many times experimentation. It's been a long way since they published the last proper album Illumination back in 1997 if we don't count the mostly instrumental soundtrack The Last Great Wilderness in 2003, so the news of a new album in collaboration with the Japanese band The Tenniscoats was really good news. They've been recording this record in a three years period, basically when Tenniscoats were touring the UK. And last Monday was the release of their first single together, Vivid Youth, a beautiful song that continues the style they developed during their Domino / Geographic years. The fact that there are added members to the project, Teenage Fanclub's Norman apart from the Tenniscoats themselves, doesn't change so much the final sound you would expect from a Pastels song although you can feel the song has more instrumentation than the classic Pastels sound. The B side About You is a cover of JAMC circa Darklands.
Although Stephen has not been completely out of the music business as he's been managing one of the coolest record shops in the world, Glasgow's Monorail, is good to have him back.