Out on Nov 17

1. The State I Am In
2. Like Dylan In The Movies
3. Judy And The Dream Of Horses
4. The Stars Of Track And Field
5. I Could Be Dreaming
6. Seymour Stein
7. Lazy Line Painter Jane
8. Sleep The Clock Around
9. Slow Graffiti
10. Wrong Love
11. Shoot The Sexual Athlete - Previously Unreleased
12. The Magic Of A Kind Word - Previously Unreleased
13. Nothing In The Silence - Previously Unreleased
14. (My Girl's Got) Miraculous Technique - Previously Unreleased


http://eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=446866

A 2 CD set comes with a live CD

CD 2 – Live In Belfast:
1. Here Comes The Sun
2. There's Too Much Love
3. The Magic Of A Kind Word
4. Me And The Major
5. Wandering Alone
6. The Model
7. I'm Waiting For The Man
8. The Boy With The Arab Strap
9. The Wrong Girl
10. Dirty Dream # 2
11. The Boys Are Back In Town
12. Legal Man

http://eil.com/shop/moreinfo.asp?catalogid=446867

They've missed off the slow version of Seeing Other People, which is a bit of a shame. It's better than the proper recording, at least until Isobel tries to reach that really high note.

At the risk of exposing myself as woefully out of touch..... what's happening with B&S these days? have they split up? I heard that Stuart is married to a model and living in New York?

This album should be good, I only seen them live once years ago but it is still one of my fave gigs ever.

Stuart's wife is a photographer, I believe. I assume he still lives in Glasgow. He was certainly at the last NPL. He gave a speech and presented John with the book of messages.

As for B&S, Stuart's writing a film.

http://www.nme.com/news/belle-and-sebastian/33110

I seem to recall several interviews (i'm thinking primarily of that awful one that Zane Lowe did with him) and a few stage announcements (i'm thinking primarily of when i saw them in Melbourne 2006 - where Stuart climbed 20ft up to the top of the venue and the band started playing a cover of "Jump".. Stuart managed to get back down to the stage to give it his best David Lee Roth impression... anyhow) where Stuart had hinted that band were going to be put on ice to a degree as the general feeling is that record sales wise they've hit a bit of a glass ceiling.

Anyone wanna put money on the musical film coming and then going, then two years of almost silence followed by the original line reforming for the "Tigermilk in it's entirity" tour / ATP headlining slot (naturally Isobel will be in sulk by day two and quit a fortnight into the tour).

Really? I'd be really surprised if sales were a motivation. They're one of the biggest cult bands in the world I would have thought. Sold out Hollywood Bowl, blah blah. Maybe it was just a joke? I can hear Stuart saying it with his tongue in his cheek. It would suit his sense of humour.

Oh agreed that Sales arent the biggest factor in their career plan which is why B&S wont ever split up fully... they truly are "The Indie Gratefull Dead". A band that can sell out huge venues and have a familar name BUT the average man in the streets probably couldnt name you one their songs.

At this stage i'm guessing they feel it wouldnt really be beneficial to whack out album after album, deal with all the label / promotion / potential backlash from the ever disgruntled hardcore old skool fans and then tour all the over the world for a year to try and generate the sales that Rough Trade expect from them. I know that the current line up love playing live but I think that they prefer to play special gigs like "Hollywood Bowl" or the "sinister" gig. I think that going around the world with a stripped down line up and playing commercial festivals probably feels a bit like a compromise for them.

When i saw them in Melbourne, I swear Stuart made a comment roughly along the lines of "it's great to be here in Australia. We seem to be touring everywhere with this album.. it shame it's not generating more sales like they said". As you say he did say it that typical "Stuart Murdoch tongue in cheek sense of humour" style. I dont think the sales matter to the band so much but rather the fact that they did everything that they could with the last album in terms of promo but still couldnt fully break into the mainstream.

Also artistically, I'll stick up for recent B&S more than most however the last two albums have been more about making stunning well crafted pop records rather than the early stuff that sounded like it simply had to leave Stuart Murdoch's head and heart before they explodeed Scanner's style. I mean they're all quite mature and settled these days.. perhaps the inspiration simply isnt there and the're doing the decent thing by sitting it our rather than churning out 40 minutes of below par songs.


If you take various quotes from things like the Fans Only dvd, the "Modern Rock Story" book and the Q&A sleeve notes from "TLP" sleeve notes I feel that since winning the brit award there has been a slight sense of worry and frustration within some members of the band that sales and airplay wise they've never been able to get beyond being a cult band. I dont think it has anything to do with money... more of a sense of worry about their place in things I guess. After 1998 they were too successfull for them to stay as a cult band and not chart friendly enough for the mainstream. They have inhabited a strange kind of "pop limbo" on the cusp of breaking through but not quite for an unpresidented long time which is why i think they've taken a step back and decided to focus on projects that excite them (the musical) rather than stay on a pointless treadmill.

there's a version with the christmas peel sessions, correct? i'd love to have an 'official' release of that..

I'm still gutted that I moved to Glasgow two years ago and they never played a gig before I had to move to London. The closest I got was watching Stuart sing hymns at church and seeing Stevie play a few covers at an open mic night.

I've seen them at the Barrowlands and QMU. The QMU show was part of the Two Concerts thing they did after Sinister. One at QMU, the other at the Assembly Rooms in Edinburgh. Both wonderful nights. I've still got the poster for that somewhere.

SO jealous of you Ian! I saw them 2x outdoors in NYC and once in Boston, but figured that seeing them in their natural habitat of cozy Glasgow would be an absolute dream.

I saw them in a synagogue in New York. That was pretty cool. Plus they played "What Goes On" for the encore. But, alas, I've never been to Boston.

I've got OOTMOETC

(that's Original Original Tigermilk On Eight Track Cartridge)

I've got TMOF

That's pretty shit. what about all the Christmas Peel songs? there's loads missing. It's great that the Magic of a Kind word is finally getting released. I can stop copying it for people now!

As an aside, I've found myself less and less in love with Belle & Sebastian over the past two years or so. I was pretty appalled with The Life Pursuit, but grew to love some of it. Listening back to it recently it is quite enjoyable in parts, but it's also quite embarrassing, and not just White Collar Boy. That sort of spread to the rest of the catalogue, which I can only muster a fraction of my previous enthusiasm for. A strange situation considering that until this June, they were the band I'd seen in concert the most number of times (eight, though Sparks now tops the poll as I've seen them 12 times)

So, I'm not particularly sad if it takes them a few years to make a new album. Maybe I can start liking them again.

Brian - Stuart Murdoch's wife is the lady on the front cover of the Fans Only DVD.

The version of Lazy Line Painter Jane on this makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.