Back in the spring of 2020, The Declining Winterwas scheduled to play at Glasgow's The Old Hairdresser's. Stuart Braithwaite of the mighty Mogwai had agreed to play, too. Unfortunately, it was one of the first shows to be cancelled due to the C***-19 pandemic. Roll forward to November, 2023 and The Declining Winter is finally hitting the road (full tour dates, below!) and, happily, they're stopping-off in Glasgow on Friday, 24th. The bill has been put together with great care with like-minded souls GNAC and Epic45also due to play:
Hood was unquestionably one of the great British groups of the 1990s/early 2000s which released essential records on seminal labels such as Slumberlandand Domino. The Declining Winter is the most recent creative outlet for that group's Richard Adams so it's no surprise that their catalogue is a formidable one. 2023's "Really Early, Really Late" (Home Assembly/Rusted Rail), in particular, is a stunning piece of work from start to end and stands up there with the best records Not Unloved has heard in 2023 or, ever, really. In "How To Be Disiullusioned", Adams has crafted one of the most moving, beautiful pieces of music in years that somehow, despite being 10 minutes long, manages to leave you wanting more. If they play it on the 24th, Not Unloved will most likely expire then and there!
Over the last couple of decades, Epic45 has amassed a sizable catalogue of gentle, elegant music, sometimes with hushed vocals and sometimes instrumental, informed by minimalism, ambient music and the quieter ends of indiepop and postrock. If most recent album, "Spring"(Wayside & Woodland Recordings), is any guide, their set will be a balm for the soul in these turbulent times:
GNAC (pronounced like the second half of the word 'cognac', I hear) is the pseudonym of Mark Tranmer formerly of The Montgolfier Brothers (the best band Alan McGee signed after Creation Records, according to the venerable Not Unloved) and Sarah Records group St. Christopher.GNAC's lambent instrumental music and sumptuous visuals are always a treat to experience up close.
I've written before about how much Sarah Records meant and continues to mean to me so it's with a heart swollen with pride that I can announce that Not Unloved will be helping make the Glasgow leg of the Sarah Records alumni tour a reality. At one stage it looked likely that the tour wouldn't be stopping-off in Glasgow which was a real shame as there were so many strong connections between Glasgow and Sarah Records (The Wake! The Orchids! The Golden Dawn! Tramway!). The tour has been timed to coincide with Emotional Response's invaluable and admirably lavish Sarah Records vinyl reissues and the line-up is top-drawer:
Advance tickets can be purchased via Brown Paper Tickets here
N.B. The Old Hairdressers has a capacity of ~100 so the number of tickets is pretty limited.
Even As We Speak: A rare chance to catch Sydney, Australia's pop geniuses. Not content to fit in with any janglepop orthodoxy, they've incorporated influences as diverse as country and Philly soul. 2017's 'The Black Forest' e.p. was a real joy. It's great to have them back.
Action Painting!: By marrying frenetic guitars with heartfelt lyrics sung with real feeling and a few nods to The Jasmine Minks and Buzzcocks along the way, AP! crafted some of the most vital music released on Sarah. Sure to be a blast live!
Boyracer: Boyracer took any perceived notion of a single 'Sarah sound' and exploded it in a mess of passion and joyful guitar noise. Their post-Sarah output is a vast thing of wonder!
Secret Shine: With lashings of guitars through banks of effects pedals, Secret Shine always whipped up a considerable sonic squall. But there were lovely melodies, too. Again, their impressive post-Sarah records should be sought out immediately.
In addition to the live music we're chuffed to have DJ selections from The Wake. The Wake's wondrous records grace the catalogues of some of the finest independent labels ever: Factory, Captured Tracks, LTM and, of course, Sarah. Expect to hear The Fall!
Please tell your pop-loving friends and, if you can, come along. After all, there's very little likelihood of most of these bands playing in Glasgow ever again!
Next Sunday the Monorail Film Club is presenting a special screening of Lucy Dawkins' "My Secret World: The Story of Sarah Records" at the Glasgow Film Theatre. Following the screening I (!) will be chairing a Q&A with Clare Wadd who co-ran Sarah Records with Matt Haynes. I've written before of my love for Sarah Records, so it's a great honour to be asked to do it. Last May, I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Sarah Records themed weekender at Bristol's Arnolfini Centre at which the film was premiered. It was a blissful weekend from the film itself, to the exhibition of Sarah Records memorabilia, to the walking tour of Bristol ("Look!...there's There And Back Again Lane!") to the live performances from The Orchids, Secret Shine, The Catenary Wires (Amelia from Heavenly's new group - debut single out NOW on Elefant of Madrid) and the living breathing art exhibit, Julian Henry. It really was, to quote The Sweetest Ache, a heaven scented world for a couple of days.
What a majestic record! Unbelievably, only a b-side, too. Incredible.
There's a Facebook event page here. Here's what I wrote for it:
I was ripe for Clare Wadd and Matt Haynes’s Sarah Records. At the turn of the 90s I was a pretty timid teenager looking for things to help sand-off the rough edges of life. When Sarah released one heart-meltingly beautiful single after another by the likes of The Sea Urchins, The Field Mice, The Orchids, The Wake etc., I was in. Sarah stood out because it proudly celebrated beauty and unashamedly celebrated sensitivity; things which irritated the more laddish element writing for the rock press at the time. They got some savage reviews and were dismissed as “limp-wristed wimp pop”. Professing to a love of Sarah Records was more often than not met with a disparaging sneer. It only made me love them more. Sarah was about more than just music, too. I looked forward to reading Matt and Clare’s writing on the record inserts, fanzines and newsletters almost as much as I did to hearing their new releases; it was so passionate, erudite and slyly funny. Sarah didn’t shy away from the political - check The Wake’s “Major John” and wasn’t ‘Fuck the poll tax!’ etched into the run-out groove on the a-side The Orchids’ “Underneath The Window, Underneath The Sink”? - and it was inclusive: female, male, gay, straight, all were welcomed by Matt and Clare. Like Postcard before it, Sarah produced some wonderful ephemera. There were 5” flexidiscs, the aforementioned newsletters, gorgeous cut and paste fanzines, balloons, the butterfly design Heavenly carrier bag which, inexplicably, got up the noses of the more dunderheaded heavy metal tee wearing types on my university course and so much more. The records consistently looked fabulous, too. When Matt and Clare called it a day in 1995, I was genuinely a bit heartbroken. Happily, however, time has been kind to their uncompromising vision and impeccable taste, what with Lucy’s documentary and a soon to be published book. Even former foe the NME recently proclaimed Sarah to be second best indie label ever. Something which rivals Canadian punks Fucked Up covering Another Sunny Day’s rollicking “Anorak City” in terms of sheer unexpectedness.
2013 started in fine style with the excitement generated by the release of the trailer for the new Pastels lp. A year on and it's the release of the trailer for the Sarah Records documentary that has got Not Unloved in a ferment:
This posting is tinged with guilt. Guilt, because it should have been written 4 months ago when the cd was actually released. That it has taken so long to for me to write about The Wake's latest album should in no way be taken as evidence of any lack of excitement about it - I did rush to Glasgow's Monorail Music to buy it on the day of release, after all! I guess life just got in the way. "A Light Far Out"(LTM) is wonderful; the best record to feature extensive use of synthesizers I've heard in a long time. So many of the songs are given an extra touch of feeling by using the synth not as a carrier of melody but as a provider of emotional depth. The cherished elements from previous releases are still present: Caesar's youthful vocals, some Peter Hook-inspired bass and lots of perky guitar-lines that warm the heart. We're not talking about some facsimilie of past glories here, mind. At times there is the pitter pat of laptop beats and on "Starry Days" a tender piano that locates the song somewhere on the Rive Gauche in the rain in 1968. It features Carolyn Allen's sole lead vocal. And what a vocal; so intimate, every word beautifully enunciated. It's a real highpoint of the record as is the title track whose intro approaches The Field Mice's luminous "Quicksilver" for tender wonder (it's those synths - so pretty, so loaded). At 9 minutes 10 seconds and with seaside sounds, it's not your standard pop song but every single second of it is necessary and welcome. I'd assumedThe Wake to be defunct a good decade ago, Caesar and Carolyn devoting their time to their theatre company 12 Stars and to intermittently making sublime records with The Field Mice's Bobby Wratten as The Occasional Keepers(one of that group's songs, "If The Ravens Leave", is present here). I'm so glad I assumed wrongly.
Recently, The Wake have been sharing demos, alternate versions and live tracks on their Soundcloud page. It's an object lesson in how to use that site and well worth bookmarking.
Call the cops...Bobby Wratten's been robbed! Actually, call the Garda, too - Ken Sweeney's been burgled an' all! Of course, I'm only joking but just one listen to Earth First's "To The Night" (Cloudberry) and you could be forgiven for thinking that Bobby's or Ken's songbook had been pinched and that Ian Catt had been held hostage and made to lend his lightness of sonic touch to recording its contents*. Still, that doesn't stop me from loving it. I know it probably should, that I should be demanding more innovation from my music but it's such a beautfiul, welcome sound that its lack of newness isn't an issue. Also, it's not as if Earth First try to conceal their admiration for the aforementioned Wratten and Sweeney; they even declare:
Earth First is a bedroom pop project of Brian Castriota, inspired by the music of Keris Howard, Bobby Wratten, Ken Sweeney and other classic indie pop acts of the late 80s and early 90s.
Evidence of good taste and to be encouraged, I'd say! "To The Night" may be an almost exact synthesis of Castriota's heroes' work but it's done with love and definitely not for financial gain as nobody every got rich copying The Field Mice did they? I may not still be the soft-centred soul who fell in love with The Field Mice 20 odd years ago but I'll never not love that sound so I'll definitely buy a copy when it reaches the UK mail-order companies.
* - It was, in fact, Drew Driver of fellow Sarah Records enthusiasts Horse Shoes (and fellow Shelflife act Soda Shop) who fulfilled the Ian Catt role on "To The Night".
Did Not Chart recently wrote an excellent piece on his relationship with Sarah Records. It was an object lesson in blogging: it was personal, well thought-out and insightful. What follows is my version of the story mixed with a few pointed counter opinions on some of the bands who came in for criticism in his piece. Since I didn't read the music press (save for sneaking a peak at the Singles of the Week in the NME and Melody Maker in WH Smith each week), wasn't immersed in the fanzine culture of the time and, for most of the time, didn't know anyone else into Sarah, it won't have the same cultural context but it will be my story.
I came to Sarah Records comparatively late. Their catalogue was already more than 50 releases deep when Blueboy's fragile"Clearer" became my first purchase on the label. My personal folklore would have it that I rescued it rather than bought it as it came from the Rock department of Glasgow's dingy 23rd Precinct where I suspect it had been, by a fair distance, the softest record in their racks. I don't recall what attracted me to it but I can guess that it was the sleeve and the (wrong) assumption that the group was named after Orange Juice's incredible song. When I got home and put the stylus down on my dad's Pye Black Box - I didn't own a record player at the time - I immediately fell in love with its sparse, gentle but not folky sound. It was unlike anything I'd bought before. At that stage I was still flipping over the up-tempo jangling of The Trashcan Sinatras and The Wedding Present and R.E.M.'s enjoyably inscrutable first few records. At that time, as money was tight (some of the aforementioned R.E.M. lps were paid for using record tokens obtained through a Robinsons juice promotion) I would keep a note of the records I loved most that John Peel played on his radio show with a view to buying them when I finally had some spare money. Sometimes, though by no means always, I also noted the label and I started noticing the name Sarah Records' name cropping up semi-regularly. I went back to 23rd Precinct a while later to see if they had any more Sarah records. They did. They had Brighter's "Half Hearted" but not being financially reckless it was few weeks before I actually stumped up the pennies for it. I loved it, too. It sounded extra-jangly on the Pye Black Box on which I would purposefully turn the bass knob down as far as it would go whilst doing the opposite to the treble knob.
In retrospect, I was possibly a bit dim. It didn't occur to me to go back and attempt to hoover up Sarah's earlier releases when they may still have been relatively cheap. This was partly because around the same time I'd bought Pavement's "Demolition Plot J-7" from Missing Records and had my head turned by American college rock and partly because buying records wasn't about accumulation, it was about brilliance. I only wanted to own amazing music. I remember being utterly bemused that friends would buy an lp because they liked just one song on it. That just didn't seem worthwhile to me. No, I only wanted incredible records, singles preferably. With their emphasis on the 7" single, I was ripe for Sarah. It didn't occur to me, either, that anyone would or could afford to buy everything on a given label. I really don't remember people doing that. Mind you, I only really knew 2 people who bought records in any great numbers and neither particularly liked Sarah.
In the run up to my 21st birthday I must've been wittering on about Sarah Records incessantly so my sister ordered me a bunch of back catalogue releases. Nearly 20 years on it's still one of the best birthday presents I have ever received. When I heard The Field Mice's "Missing The Moon" it seemed like the most incredible piece of music I'd ever heard. It still sounds that way:
That bit at 5min 36secs where the new guitar comes in and the pace quickens never fails to set my pulse racing. I'll still take "Missing The Moon" over all the Factory Records releases that no doubt inspired it.
By the time I was becoming devoted to Sarah Records Did Not Chart was moving on, discovering the myriad treats to be found in the output of The Bus Stop Label, Slumberland Records and Summershine Records. I had no room or money for them at that time, though. That came later. Listening back to the mid-period Sarah records, they stack up very well against the incredible early, more widely regarded releases (The Sea Urchins, 14 Iced Bears,The Orchids, The Springfields etc.). Over the years I've read lots of carping about Brighter, The Sweetest Ache and especially Secret Shine. I can only say that I loved all three. I never saw The Sweetest Ache as anaemic Field Mice imitators. Their "Heaven-Scented World" remains one of my favourite songs ever and one of the few b-sides I've come close to wearing out. The way the jumbled, disorientating intro gives way to the softest, prettiest male voice you ever heard still makes my heart soar. When it plays I can almost reconnect with the unsure, intimidated-by-life youngster I once was.
As for the oft-maligned Secret Shine, songs like "Loveblind", "Temporal" (from their debut album "Untouched") and "Liquid Indigo" still sound like vital, thrilling slices of pop whenever they grace my turntable. I say turntable but in reality I bought a lot of Sarah's records on cd-single. They always did them incredibly well. The two which I loved most were Northern Picture Library's "Paris/Last September's Farewell Kiss e.p." and Blueboy's "Johnny Rave". "Paris" was and is a potent - there's nothing remotely twee about those surging guitars - and profoundly moving song that ranks amongst Bob Wratten's finest and, in my opinion, features Annemari Davies's most heartbreaking vocal. Its opening few lines are still remarkably affecting:
What you want is a girlfriend That's what I don't want to be I've never really enjoyed it Never been much good at it
When Sarah Records announced it was shutting up shop I was genuinely sad. Sure they hadn't changed the world, hadn't stormed the charts or made Bob Wratten a millionaire but they had been a huge part of my life. At the time I didn't feel that it had run its course. Did I like Shelley's"Reproduction Is Pollution"? You bet I did. I always thought that the beat poetry of The Blue Aeroplanes was its direct antecedent and I dug that. The final single, Blueboy's "Dirty Mags",was brilliant - like a better version of the Britpop that had been ubiquitous at the time. I found it infinitely more enjoyable than Suede and Oasis and their ilk. That it was urgent and not nearly as breakable as their early records didn't matter a jot. I had just graduated from University and had precisely no money but I still made the trip to Bristol on August Bank Holiday Monday 1995 for a day for destroying thingson board The Thekla. I'd never done anything remotely impulsive like that before. Being skint, I couldn't afford a hotel so from when the bands finished until the time of the first bus to London I walked the streets of Bristol, snatching a few minutes of sleep here and there whenever I happened upon a bench. I wasn't the only one. At various points in the night I'd spy a floppy fringe and a cherry red cherries t-shirt and we'd exchange a bashful, knowing glance (but no words). Sadly, I remember so little of the evening itself even though I reviewed it for a fanzine. If I can find the zine and it's not too embarrassing, I'll post what I wrote here as much to remind myself of what went on. Ironically, it's the moment of bliss I spent in the sunshine, after showering and eating in the YMCA, listening to Secret Shine run through Take That covers during their soundcheck as a balloon race soared slowly overhead that is the strongest musical memory I have of that day.
Looking back on it, one of the things that set Sarah apart was that it produced some great ephemera: all those wonderfully funny/furious typewritten newsletters and inserts, the 5" flexis, the absurdly yellow Le Jardin de Heavenly carrier bag with the bright red butterfly on it (which inexplicably used to wind up the Rock chaps at Uni) and, of course, the board game Saropoly. Then there were the letters from co-owner of Sarah Matt Haynes. I didn't get all that many of them but the ones I did receive were fabulous. There was one particularly hilarious one - I hope I still have it somewhere - which he wrote on the back of a glossy photo that he'd been sent by a light-entertainment hopeful who had hoped to get a slot on a Sarah Records bill. The chap claimed to be a "Singer and Entertainer" which, in typically skewed fashion, prompted Matt to wonder if that meant his singing wasn't entertaining. When I briefly flirted with releasing records, Wurlitzer Jukebox and Sarah were my primary influences.
In the final analysis, I'm glad I discovered Sarah when I did and I'm glad I stuck with them to the end. As a sensitive, easily-intimidated late teenager the fact there was something as intelligent, non-aggressive and committed to beauty as Sarah Records to cling onto was very welcome. One Bob Wratten-penned lyric in particular summed-up how I felt about life and it was a genuine comfort that someone felt similarly:
If the sun going down can make me cry why should I
why should I
why should I not like the way I am?
Huge thanks to Clare Wadd and Matt Haynes for their vision, hard work and impeccable taste. I just hope that the film and book that are currently in production are of a sufficiently high standard to do their contribution to culture justice for it's a story that deserves to be told well.
