Matador/Jeepster

The Scottish octet Belle and Sebastian rates as my most pleasant musical discovery of the year to date. Coyly channeling the spirits of folkies like Donovan and Don MacLean, and coupling them with a wry sense of humor that lands somewhere on the other side of sardonic, the publicity-shy folksters’ second and third records, If You’re Feeling Sinister and The Boy With The Arab Strap, were near-divine episodes of alienation and sexuality and religion and all of those suffixes that follow self-.

Fortunately, the good folks at Matador had the good sense to reissue Tigermilk, which was birthed as part of a class project at university. Their previously import-only debut, having only 1,000 copies pressed originally and a hybrid of their latter two full-lengths, Tigermilk is a bit more angular than those two no-less-than-excellent releases.

Start with “The State I Am In,” a quiet, droll tale of immature marriage, utter confusion and unrequited love on the part of the narrator. It sounds closest to Arab Strap’s “It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career.” Then move to “Expectations,” which seemed to have spawned the title track to Sinister until the minor-key, penetrating vocals of Stuart Murdoch are unveiled. “Electronic Renaissance” is as the title suggests, a piercing, dancey tune heavy on fakey, frilly 4/4 percussion and electronically enhanced vocals. “I Don’t Love Anyone” is a big two-chord soft-rock number that sounds a whole lot like “I Only Wanna Be With You” by Hootie & The Blowfish (really), but not as hokey.

The draws here, though, are the back-to-back tunes “She’s Losing It” and “You’re Just A Baby.” The former is blessed with a hook that refuses to quit – try not singing along when Murdoch sings, “Who needs boys when there’s Lisa ‘round?” – while the latter is a garage-rocker blessed with a nifty power-chord structure, something you wouldn’t expect from B&S. Consider Tigermilk an addition to the ever-growing Belle & Sebastian legend.