I’m not sure how much I can really say about a two and a half minute instrumental track from an album of Belle and Sebastian b-sides.
This song has that familiar surf rock sound, which I like. It conjures up a modern western vibe, memorably tapped into by Quentin Tarantino in Pulp Fiction.
It’s been three years since Belle & Sebastian’s last full-length album, Write About Love, so I’ve been itching to hear news of a future release.
So imagine my surprise when an email newsletter from Amoeba Records (remember them?) mentioned new music from the Scottish septet.
It turned out to be not a new album but a compilation of B-sides and assorted odds and ends from the past decade. Hey, good enough.
#4 – The Life Pursuit – Belle & Sebastian
The most-represented year in this little reconsideration of top ten lists past is 2006, with four albums. And the top-ranked among those four seven years ago remains the top-ranked today.
At the time, I made a case for Belle & Sebastian’s The Life Pursuit as the best album in the band’s catalog. Today I stand by that assessment with even more confidence.
In looking for good songs to feature this week, I was surprised to see that I hadn’t posted a Belle & Sebastian song for 6 months, and only two in the past year.
I was even more surprised to learn that I’d never featured today’s SOTD, ‘My Wandering Days Are Over,’ one of Belle & Sebastian’s signature songs and a favorite of mine.
Every time I listen to Belle & Sebastian, I’m overcome by this feeling that I never need to listen to anything else.
It’s a quality of their music that doesn’t just strike a nerve but grabs hold of a nerve and strums it like an upright bass.
Meet Me In Montauk 