The Wave Pictures – We Dress Up Like Snowmen
This song is so good it makes my ears weep with joy. I only discovered the Wave Pictures last year, courtesy of Fun Fun Fun, and what a discovery they have been. Having self-released a handful of albums they were finally – finally - signed by Moshi Moshi Records late last year, and a new album is approaching very soon. I am fucking itching with anticipation.
In the meantime, they have released a 7″ on Moshi Moshi’s singles club called We Dress Up Like Snowmen which is sold out now, but the digital files are still available. Honestly, go and buy it – the b-side alone is worth a tenner at least. It’s called Now We Are Pregnant and is an absolute nailed-on embodiment of why David Tatersall is such a brilliant songwriter. It’s all just slightly out of tune, melancholy, yearning, yet witty and spirited. There’s scrape and scratch to the guitars and some of the most tortured strings you’re likely to hear. But unusually, not shit ones.
Tatersall has an uncanny talent for perfectly capturing modern life, but he does not achieve this by making ostentatiously insightful comments or telling obtusely allegorical tales. He does it by finding a mundane everyday anecdote that just happens to be the archetypal embodiment of the exact sort of banal desperation or everyday disappointment he is trying to express and tells it with a perfectly turned normality, full of wry wit and raw honesty: “and I don’t have any bad memories only bitter regrets”. He’s a rare talent indeed and I could hardly recommend anyone higher, in terms of the people I have discovered since and because of writing this blog.
Their forthcoming single (I Love You Like a Madman, 10th March 2008) and subsequent album will both be devoured in Toad Hall like a starving supermodel sets about breakfast on the morning she retires.
The Wave Pictures – Now You Are Pregnant I pinched this from Mike at Nothing But Green Lights.(Quiet Version)
If you’re going to buy one of their earlier CD-R albums I really can’t recommend Sophie enough. It’s just brilliant, so go and get that one to warm you up for the new album. Mrs. Toad approved, no less. And can there be a higher accolade?
The Wave Pictures -Â Tanzi on the Phone Line
The Wave Pictures – Sophie
thanks matthew, this is great
Cheers Rob. Some of it’s a bit hard to get used to – his wail can be a bit full-on – but I love their stuff.
How was your gig yesterday? I’m dissing Broken Records on Wednesday to come to your show at Henry’s.
matthew, you don’t have to y’know (i think) i know people who are doing both, because the wee red (i’m 99% certain) has a 10pm curfew, and i’m on at 10.30pm at henry’s. i can put you (+ whoever) on a cheap tickets list, if you like. we’re playing with quite a big bad, i hope, we had a good warm up for it at the collective last night. cheers, rob.
ooh..this is brilliant stuff, thanks for posting these..truly beautiful.
Fucking glorious isn’t it. Album album album!