Reviews - week 11

Dressy Bessy

Little Music (CD LP / vinyl LP)

(Track & Field)

Out on May 12th

I never knew that Dressy Bessy had released so many records in the States,especially on such a famous indie label as Kindercore records. Anyway, this album collects all their singles and EP's together on one easy to listen to CD, and offers you two demo's thrown into the bargain too. Dressy Bessy to me sound like the Aislers Set younger indie pop cousins, all sweet and innocent singing songs about Boys, dancing and sunny days in california, which is perfect for listening to on sunkissed days, dreaming about crushes and sipping an ice cold soda.

The songs on the CD are perfect indie pop songs, short and sweet, Tammy Ealoms vocals are perfect and her songwriting skills are great too; her harmonies sound wonderfull boucing off John Hills guitar. The other members of Dressy Bessy combine together to make this a fantastic pop gem. The bands last album 'Sound Go Round' was a big hit with John Peel and the Kids at Track and Field- they even asked them to come over and play in the UK for the 1st time.

The first song on the album 'Live To Tell All' is an indie pop classic,almost certain to get you dancing or at least tapping your toe, and if it doesn't then quite frankly you have no soul. The album continues like this all the way through- it just makes you want to smile, run, and dance outside in the sunshine. My favourite part of the album are the songs from the apparently much sought after 'California EP'. As I said earlier, Dressy Bessy sound like sunshine, and this is especially apparent in these songs; they drift in and out like the sunshine and a nice breeze. You could easily dismiss Dressy Bessy as throwaway bubblegum pop- nice but losing its flavour after a while- but in this critics honest opinion, you would be totally wrong to do so. Dressy Bessy are mature outfit, really. Indeed they have none other than John Hill who, in Apples In Stereo, was in one of the best loved indie bands ever. He brings a certain maturity to Dressy Bessy's sound. Look, put it this way- any band that makes me want to dance in the sunshine MUST be good!

Can we go there- this summer? Singin' ahh- ahh- la la la la Where's my sunshine all are free and friendly in California but the moonlight- it don't feel right Singin' ahh- ahh- la la la la tell me what they're doin' in California Can we go there- this summer I'll wear a flower in my hair.

David Strange

Aislers Set

How I Learned To Write Backwards (CD LP / vinyl LP)

(Slumberland Records)

Just like the previous two Aislers Set records, this one has the ability to create a universe of its own. This time it's a slightly darker, more adult universe.

Maybe it's the way the lyrics are written - you can't understand them completely even when you see them written down - or maybe it's the way they use difficult words without them sounding pretendious - or the way the imply situations instead of describing them, which makes you use your imagination to fill the gaps in. Or maybe it is the way they use music -its history and their influences but also instruments and the sounds they make- like they are toys in their playground. Maybe that's what people who say that the Aislers Set are a band with vision - or maybe as we all know I might have an overactive imagination.

In any case, How I Learned To Write Backwards seems rather sexy in a lonely way to me. Maybe I think about is as being more laid-back than it actually is, but it makes me think of slow, boring summer afternoons when you close the shutters in the vain hope it'll keep the heat out, but the light that comes through the cracks is blinding. And even though this isn't the ideal setting for dreaming you dream away - about what it would be like if you weren't there alone (Sara's song). Or maybe dark nights when you spy on the neighbours, hidden in the darkness of your room (Emotional Levy) and how the only thing this makes you think of is your own life and what's missing from it (Unfinished Paintings).

A record that would make a great soundtrack without that making it boring at all. It's made of sixties harmonies, indiepop flavourings, a fair bit of soul and a lot of style that makes all the above sound coherent. Oh - sixties harmonies, indiepop flavourings, a fair bit of soul and a post punk outbust.

When the noise that made me snap out of the above daydreaming -and which is called The Train #2- stopped, I noticed what Amy was singing, and it made me smile because I thought she's a bit like us: she doesn't forget her old loves (for example, the Television Personalities) and she loves the Smiths, too.

Because she says: If I'd never learned to drive the car I would never have been hit by the car. If I'd never learned to love I would never have been hit by the train. If I'd never learned to love the bomb... it would have never been the bomb that would bring us together... the bomb... that will bring us together.

Dimitra Daisy

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