at a glance...

Hometown: Glasgow, Scotland
Year Formed: early 80s

Members:
Stephen McRobbie -songs, vocals, guitars, other stuff
Aggi Wright -songs, bass, vocals, other stuff
Katrina Mitchell -songs, vocals, drums, other stuff
Jonathan Kilgour -guitar
Tom -keyboards, flute, melodica, guitar

Bands In The Family:
Some Velvet Sidewalk, Luna, Galaxie 500, My Bloody Valentine, Teenage Fanclub, Eugenius, Half Japanese

Notes:
The Pastels were formed by Beat Happening votaries Stephen McRobbie and Aggi Wright in the early 80s. Joined by ardent fan Katrina Mitchell in 1990, the band released a slew of singles with such notable collaborators as Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine and Gerard Love of Teenage Fanclub.

The Pastels' off-key vocals and apparently amateurish musicianship have earned them heaps of derision and an unjust epithet -"shambling." But like nature, their musics' beauty is born of its imperfection, and Illumination is one of their loveliest creations.

If "shambling" only refers to their ramshackle playing, then color The Pastels guilty. Slurred strumming and stumbling drumming only make gems like "Unfair Kind of Fame" and the watery "Viaduct" glow the more. The frayed guitar solo appended to "Fragile Gang" and the undecided notes of "Rough Riders" add to the album's sleepy charm. McRobbie's oft-ridiculed singing comes off as wonderfully winsome on "The Hits Hurt" and "Remote Climbs," refuting the sloppy affectation "shambling" really connotes. The band seem to dream and breathe these songs which, delivered with disarming sincerity, capture fleeting moods and moments and articulate vague, evanescent impressions.

Loll back into the hammock McRobbie's guitar weaves and bask in the warmth of Mitchell's calypso-tinged "Leaving This Island," or watch the vapors of "Cycle" and "Thomson Colour" unfurl. Whether absorbed attentively in one sitting, or given a cursory listen, Illumination can be as pleasingly emphemeral an experience as watching the ebb and flow of the tide.

If you like The Pastels, check out:
Belle and Sebastian The Boy With The Arab Strap
The Velvet Underground
Nightmares on Wax Carboot Soul
Esquivel See It In Sound
Air Premiers Symptomes
Half Japanese Band Who Would Be King
Beat Happening Beat Happening

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