1. If You Leave It Alone
2. Canary Wharf
3. My Kiss
4. I Thought Of You Again
5. Tiny Craters In The Sand
6. Bumble Bee
7. Come On Daniel
8. Too Many Questions
9. Bye Bye Bubble Belly
10. Softly You, Softly Me
11. Strawberry Cables
12. Nothing Can Change This Love
Songs written by David Tattersall except 12. by Sam Cooke
Played by The Wave Pictures with Stanley
Recorded by Clemence Freschard in Berlin
Released on Moshi Moshi Records, May 4th 2009
Catalogue number: moshicd26 and moshilp26
DAVID TATTERSALL’S TRACK BY TRACK
'If You Leave It Alone'
The title track is also the first track, and it’s a good, long, sad song in which, amongst other things, I describe the contents of my fridge.
'Canary Wharf
I once went and sat in Canary Wharf
'My Kiss'
This is a re-recording of an ancient Wave Pictures song. I really love this song. I think it ought to be really famous and popular, but I suspect it won’t happen.
'I Thought Of You Again'
A true, long song about a far away friend, which I wrote when we were on tour in Spain and then Sweden London
'Tiny Creatures In The Sand'
The idea of this song is that it is impossible to be in a long-term monogamous relationship without going insane, no matter how much love you start out with. Now, I don’t necessarily agree with that idea… It’s a kind of a marriage proposal song. It’s quite romantic! Let’s go crazy together!
'Bumble Bee'
A song about depression or about not wanting to get out of bed. It is a re-write of an old folk song called ‘’Froggy Went A Courtin’’. It is deceptively happy sounding. It has some friendly animals in it who offer advice and criticism.
'Come On Daniel'
I have no idea what is going on here, I can’t remember writing this. When I hear it, I quite like it, but it’s more like listening to some other band…
'Too Many Questions'
One of two songs on the album that are written in the first person as someone else... They probably don’t know about this song… Anyway, I’m singing this song as a girl to tell you the truth. When my parents saw me sing this in concert, they thought that I had come out of the closet live on stage.
'Bye Bye Bubble Belly'
The chorus and title come from an advert for a type of yoghurt which is meant to relieve middle-aged women of their constipation. The rest of it is completely made up.
'Softly You, Softly Me'
This song is very sad to me. I was trying to write an early 60s type Bob Dylan song, but found it quite hard to do. I ended up with this though, so it wasn’t a wasted afternoon. I love the sound Clemence Freschard got on this one, all the little picky, percussive things. This album owes everything to her.
'Strawberry Cables'
This is also very sad. Nice horns by Stanley Brinks. One of the key influences on the horn arrangements for this album was a Lou Reed song called ’New York City Man’. It’s from one of my favourite Lou Reed albums, ’Set The Twilight Reeling’.
'Nothing Can Change This Love'
It’s nice to do a cover every now and then. Sam Cooke songs are very satisfying to play. So simple and elegant. It’s a nice little goodbye for the album.
The second album, and to date the only one Moshi Moshi has released on vinyl. I love the feel and sound of this lp but I also understand the slightly muted response it seems have garnered. The cover gives away what lies within - the plain format (artist name and album title above and below a seemingly photocopied black and white photo) being familiar to anyone who had been keeping up to date with Andre Herman Dune and the artists who orbit around him. One of these is Clemence Freshard who recorded this album in Berlin. The story seems to go that the WP's recorded these songs while visiting and then Freschard and Andre (now re-christened Stanley Brinks) ornamented the basic recordings with horns, backing vocals, general overdubs. The band and label liked the results and lo, the second Wave Pictures album was done. In a recent interview Tattersall, with hindsight, suggested it may have been a better idea to have made this a limited release and have Susan Rode The Cyclone as the second album proper - the opposite of how things turned out. In many ways I can understand this. If You Leave It Alone is a low-key record, acoustic and completely at odds with Instant Coffee Baby. Fair-weather fans who got onboard with the first album and wanted to shout along to songs about scenes and drummers and marmalade probably found this a sobering proposition. I can quite imagine in this digital age that this record got played once or twice and then abandoned into iTunes libraries. I also doubt it helped their long term commercial prospects. An up and coming band needs momentum and in its own way the subdued nature of this record may have taken the wind out of their sails a bit.
ReplyDeleteThis is all very interesting but such a discussion ignores one key thing - the ART. The fact of the matter is this is a wonderful record. I'm a sucker for albums which sustain a mood, feel or sound throughout and this manages that harder-than-you'd-think trick in spades. While it is different from Instant Coffee Baby, don't we want our artists to branch out, to try new things, to grow? Of course we do, which is why this record should be applauded. The playing is great and Freschard really captures a gentle but nuanced sound (I heartily recommend her Click Click lp to anyone interested). Stanley Brinks' horns decorate the tracks and their left-right split gives a nice feeling of space in the songs. The songs themselves are mostly terrific - Come On Daniel gets me everytime, the backing vocals on Strawberry Cables lift it above any previous versions and Bye Bye Bubble Belly could have been a hit with the sort of cutesy video Herman Dune manage to do so well. "Half this town call me Caroline!" is probably my favourite 5 seconds of Wave Pictures recording. Don't let If You Leave It Alone become the ugly ducking in the WP's catalogue.