For most self-confessed indie kids, growing up, musically, in Glasgow in the late 90′s meant a certain familiarity with a collection of twee troubadours collected around a songwriter named Stuart Murdoch. Belle and Sebastian, named after the 60′s children’s book by French writer Cécile Aubry, came together around the now sadly missed Grosvenor Cafe on Glasgow’s Ashton Lane. The band were formed to record Stuart’s songs for an album to be released through Stow College’s Electric Honey record label as part of their Music Industry course – and that album became Tigermilk, not so much a seminal album as a Twee ‘bible’.
Tigermilk begins with a statement of intent with the astonishing “The State That I Am In”. Even 16 years later, and after countless moments of genius, Murdoch has still to better this wonderful piece of writing. Though absolutely my favourite song on the album, it wasn’t the first I had heard; “She’s Losing It” takes that honour. I remember after hearing it for the first time on the Radio, I made a bee-line for Avalanche Records the very next day coming away with both Tigermilk and the Dog on Wheels e.p. There is a beautifully, almost whimsically, naive quality to the songwriting of songs like “Mary Jo” and “We Rule The School” that is finely balanced against the mesmerizing storytelling of “Expectations” or “I Could Be Dreaming”.
Everything about Tigermilk reminds me of the last days of school, my first stabs at songwriting and my first days of college; though it was several years later that I found myself on the same Stow college course, staffing Electric Honey for a year. Shamefully, however, we didn’t sign a band suited to the label’s illustrious back catalogue, bands like Belle and Sebastian, Biffy Clyro and Snow Patrol. No, we signed some ‘Big Beat’, ‘Baggy’ dross from Airdrie. Oh well, you live and learn.
