Song, by Toad

Dan of Green Gables is a project by David Tatersall and Franic Rozycki from the Wave Pictures, and a fellow called Dan Mayfield. I think, but I’m not absolutely certain, that Dan played that gorgeous violin part on Now You Are Pregnant. Here he plays violin all the way through, accompanying Franic on mandolin and David on guitar.

The songs are all Tatersall’s, so in a sense I suppose you really could call this a Wave Pictures side project, although I presume they must have their reasons for keeping the things separate.

Certainly it doesn’t sound much like the Wave Pictures. What it does sound like, however, is a natural progression from the all acoustic If You Leave it Alone, their last album.

The lyrics are distinctively Tatersalian – powerfully evocative and, whilst not flowery and always couched in plain English, surreal enough in their choice of image and detail to have a wonderfully artful feel. I always admire people who can do that: manage to write in natural language, but pick out sufficiently particular fragments of a scene that the effect is nevertheless that of poetry.

Musically this really isn’t an insistent record, so please do give it some time. The first time I listened to it was in the van on the way down to Wickerman, with four boisterous passengers, and that really was the wrong way to try and appreciate it.

I amost think that the gorgeous violin on this might be providing what was missing from If You Leave it Alone. It brings something of a flourish to the emotional expression, whereas Leave it Alone was just a little flat, in my view. I won’t go and recommend this entirely without qualification, but near as dammit I think. A couple of the tracks are a little soft, somehow, and perhaps the whole thing could do with a little shaking up in places. As a whole piece of work it perhaps need a little bit of a jump-start at some point, although I couldn’t tell you where. Walk the Back Stairs Quiet isn’t really my cup of tea, so perhaps something a little livelier or more tortured (in the Warren Ellis style perhaps!) might have just shaken the rest of the album up a little; thrown it into relief, perhaps. It doesn’t really matter though, because this is still really good.

Dan of Green Gables – Notes for a Book on Buster Keaton

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Dan of Green Gables – Goodbye John Andreas

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The Wave Pictures – Now You Are Pregnant

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