I have to admit that I have have had a little bit of help this year. Much as I wish that I could, I don’t sit here, sage-like, plucking unheard-of records out of the air. It’d save me a fortune for a start. But no, I have been assisted on more than one occasion this year with handy recommendations, pointers and samples from a friend over in the Pacific Northwest of the US – indeed, in addition to this pearler, my favourite EP would have remained unknown to me still if not for her, and another one later in this here list got listened to a lot earlier than I would have otherwise done thanks to many, many, many enthusiastic plugs. To be honest, I should have said “Thankyou!” to Sheri back when I was doing my Singles/EPs rundown back whenever that was. But, it seems far more apt to do that here, given that the Northwest UK/Northwest US bridge is spanned by more than friendship with this record from yet another Seattle band,given that their sound is far more rooted in my Northwest rather than their own, thus completing some circle or other that probably made a lot more sense at the start of this sentence than it does at this end.
Cheers matey.
As I type this, the weather outside has finally realised that it’s winter and we’re getting several weeks’ worth of crap weather all in one go. In here however, I’m listening yet again to my hands-down favourite album of the Summer. A part of the reason for me taking Shangri-La Indeed to heart so easily is that it arrived at a time of year perfectly suited to this wide-eyed brand of slightly phych-ey indie pop; no easy feat here when 2011 over here largely consisted of a damp Spring morphing into an indifferent Autumn with only the narrowest of hot, sunny margins inbetween. The biggest reason though is the Black Whales’ expert ease in channelling the spirit of bands all over Granadaland, whether it be the 1980s Merseyside underground of Echo & the Bunnymen and the Mighty Wah!, the 1990s Mancunian universe-recentering of the Charlatans and Stone Roses and, during Where I Come From, a quick jaunt into the Peak District’s Chapel-en-le-Frith, home of Lloyd Cole.
Of all the bands mentioned above, the bases touched are all the very early, rough and ready and excited periods before most of them went all miserable, so these elements all go towards making this record upbeat and cheery throughout, with standout tracks such as Books on Tape (and what a chorus that one has) and Walking in the Dark bouncing along infectiously alongside the boisterous 2nd half of single Rattle Your Bones.
This is a record to have fun with – I’ve gone on a fair bit about the influences here, but that’s because they’re (particularly the 80s Liverpudlian original Velvet Underground theft of the Bunnymen) part of my own musical makeup from when I was an early teen. The Black Whales take these reference points and make their own unique thing out of them, and the end result is as fine a debut full-lengther as you could hope to hear.
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