A little bit of everything

The kings of chamber pop have released EPs, composed music for a film ( Days of the Bagnold Summer), a portrait of a divorced woman and her 15-year-old son who is a metal fan. This is at the request of their label, Matador, “ friends”, that Belle and Sebastian is back to thinking big. After recording in Atlanta, Los Angeles and London, the group intended to return to work in the city of angels. “ The main thing I wanted to stay away from was Glasgow. And for once, it didn’t work out very well, admits the multi-instrumentalist and singer Sarah Martin. When you stay at home, everyday life stalks you… For 15 or 20 years, each time we worked on a new album, we isolated ourselves. It was almost a monastic retreat.”

The Scots had hired Shawn Everett, notably crossed with The Killers, Weezer, Har Mar Superstar…” Sometimes, our manager suggests producers in tune with the times, continues Murdoch. We don’t usually do that kind of stuff. But Shawn has worked on some great records. Stuff like Alabama Shake, both delicate and direct. I wanted to save some space for our meeting. I had left songs and ideas fallow. Also ready to write new songs. It never happened.” The virus has been there. The Belle and Sebastian found themselves under house arrest and converted their rehearsal space into a recording studio. “ When we arrived in this building in 2004, there was a blacksmith and an undertaker. Now you have a micro-brewery, a ceramist, a brownie shop and a burrito vendor… It’s become a cool place.”

On the uneven fort A Bit of Previous -first album entirely recorded by the Scottish band in Glasgow since… 1999 and Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant– there is a bit of everything. Folk rock, chamber pop, a touch of Eurovision, a touch of gospel. More stirring pieces too. The chorus of Unnecessary Drama almost sounds like Django Django. “ People who dance and go to nightclubs would tell you that these are not songs to ignite the dancefloors, but these songs have rhythm. We will never go back I think. I couldn’t do an album just made up of ballads anymore. Sometimes, we see artists who lose their grandmother and dedicate a record to her. It was never me. Even if we write about us, people we love, people we miss.”

Fan-based…

If some have always considered it a boy scout group, Belle and Sebastian has not marked the history of pop than its music. He also paved the way for All Tomorrow’s Parties and all those festivals where artists are the programmers. The group of Stuart Murdoch had organized its own event, the Bowlie Weekender, at the Pontin holiday camp, in Camber Sands, in Sussex in 1999. Where the ATP would take up residence the following year. “ If it was a good idea, if it has become one perhaps, it is because often the best ones are the simplest, the most obvious. I didn’t like festivals. We had the T in The Park in Glasgow. But I had the image of guys fighting and pissing each other. I didn’t really see the point. I knew our group and the people who followed us more delicate. We said to ourselves: let’s organize a festival in one of these camps and everyone can rent a small cottage.”

Murdoch had once worked in one of those charming British seaside villages. “ At the time, electricity and heating did not work by prepaid card. I had to go to all the rooms. It was my job. On Saturdays at 9 a.m., you sometimes had guys sleeping naked on the floor in their living room with beer everywhere. You had to step over the corpses.” The atmosphere of the festival proved to be unique. “ People started throwing parties in the cabins. They were cooking. Even groups. I remember Mercury Rev bringing out his own barbecue. It was awesome.” As an anniversary, in 2019, Belle and Sebastian organized the Boatie Weekender, a festival on a boat. “ It was something else. Definitely more posh.”