Matador Records

Belle and Sebastian

Write About Love is the long awaited new album by Belle and Sebastian, comprised of 11 love songs to fall in love to and fall in love with; devoted to, enchanted by and imbued with the spirit of sweet, soulful pop music. Heavy-handed rockers dumbly equating love with anthemic grandeur Belle and Sebastian are not. In this collection, love translates as a deft, intricate, guileless, wide-eyed, faithful, vital, optimistic and hip-shaking signal from the heart.

Recorded in Los Angeles with producer Tony Hoffer and featuring vocal contributions from Norah Jones and Carey Mulligan, Write About Love asks true believers to get on board and go forth with passion. While its predecessor, The Life Pursuit (released in January 2006), omitted orchestration in favor of raw boogie, and Dear Catastrophe Waitress (2003) arrived festooned with orchestral bunting and producer Trevor Horn's trademark flourishes, Write About Love finds a middle ground that jettisons the redundant themes of past endeavors, filters and sharpens what remains and augments this with a clarity of literate pop vision as purifying as it is revitalizing. On Write About Love, Belle and Sebastian awake to a cloud-free sky and a warming sun that enlivens everything it shines upon.

PAST: 2006-2009
"Every word is a whisper without you" -- I Didn't See It Coming

It was five years ago that Belle and Sebastian decamped to LA to record The Life Pursuit with Hoffer for the first time. In the wake of its release, the group embarked on almost 100 shows around the world, notably selling out the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Philharmonic providing orchestral accompaniment. The Life Pursuit went on to sell more than a quarter of a million copies globally.

2003-2006
"Oooooo/Ooo/Ooo/Oooooo" -- I'm Not Living In The Real World

Similarly, 2003’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress, was a critical and commercial hit. A seven-piece at this point, having parted company with Isobel Campbell and recruited Bob Kildea on guitar, the band went to town on the record, working with Horn (Robbie Williams, Pet Shop Boys, Frankie Goes To Hollywood) at his SARM Studio in Notting Hill, London. The band set forth on a hectic touring schedule throughout late 2003 and 2004, the highlights of which were outdoor shows at the Greek Theatres in Los Angeles and San Francisco and a free concert at the Botanic Gardens in Glasgow which drew an audience of 10,000. October 2003 also saw the release of Fans Only, a lovingly assembled DVD.

1996-1997
"I've seen God in the sun/ I've seen God in the street/ God before bed and the promise of sleep" -- The Ghost of Rockschool

It all began with a record called Tigermilk. In 1996 Stuart Murdoch was a daydreamer with a head full of songs and a penchant for Glasgow's public transport system. His band had been chosen as the guinea pigs for students on a music business course at Glasgow's Stow College, the project being to release and promote an album, which they duly did in a run of 1000 vinyl records. A lo-fi collection of enduring pop (The State I Am In, She's Losing It) and experimentalism (Electronic Renaissance), Tigermilk was the spark that lit the fire, an articulate and singular statement of intent that drew the group its first wave of devoted fans.

"Make me dance/ I want to surrender" -- I Didn't See It Coming

In the wake of Tigermilk, which was impossible to get hold of due to the limited pressing, came If You're Feeling Sinister. Released in 1996 a few months after the group's debut, it stuck to its predecessor's template -- eclectic, literate pop with little regard for the music of the day -- and was the first to feature Sarah Martin. Belle and Sebastian remained a part-time pursuit at this point. Murdoch was still working as the caretaker of a church hall in Glasgow, and the band was keeping a low public profile, shunning interviews, photographs, and doing very little touring. In the meantime, the group's fanbase grew inexorably, fuelled by a triptych of EPs through 1997 -- Dog On Wheels, Lazy Line Painter Jane, 3, 6, 9 … Seconds Of Light.

1998-1999
"I get the midnight phone call/ I'm your captain for the long haul" -- Calculating Bimbo

The evidence for how deeply the group had penetrated the music business by this point came when the follow-up to Sinister, The Boy With The Arab Strap, reached number 12 in the UK album chart in its first week of release in September 1998. The record featured keyboard player Chris Geddes as its cover star, though the liner notes made it a point to make clear that he is/was in no way connected to the title of the record. It was trumpet player Mick Cooke’s first record as a member of the group (he now arranges orchestral parts for Belle and Sebastian recordings) and would be the last Belle and Sebastian outing for bass player Stuart David (who left to pursue his band Looper). Buoyed by the December 1998 release of an EP, This Is Just Another Modern Rock Song, The Boy With The Arab Strap also propelled them to win a Brit award for best newcomer in 1999.

The group supported The Boy With The Arab Strap with their first major forays into touring, visiting continental Europe, Scandinavia and North America, and in 1999 they curated the Bowlie Weekender at the Pontins resort at Camber Sands on the coast of East Sussex, an event that featured such groups as Mercury Rev, Godspeed You Black Emperor and Teenage Fanclub among many, many others, besides DJ sets from the late John Peel and Jarvis Cocker. The festival sold out and paved the way for the successful All Tomorrow's Parties festivals that continue to enrich the live music scene in the UK, and now the US and Australia. In one of the few instances of revisiting their past, eleven years later, the band is curating Bowlie 2

2000-2001
"Love is like a novel/ Read the blessed pages/ Did I do my best, dear?/ That is all you ask" -- Read The Blessed Pages

After a long gestation period preceded by a non-album single, Legal Man, Belle and Sebastian released their fourth album, Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant, in June 2000 to commercial success -- it was their first top 10 UK album and remains their highest selling US release. The group held off on touring to support the record until 2001, the latter half of which was spent on the road in the UK, US, South America and Japan after the release of the EPs Jonathan David and I'm Waking Up To Us.

2002
"Whisky from the year you were born tastes like kidnap and ransom" -- Sunday's Pretty Icons

Spring 2002 was another busy spell of touring, seeing Belle and Sebastian visit Scandinavia and central Europe before the US and Canada. Shortly after the tour ended, Jeepster released what would become the group's final studio album for the label, Storytelling. Originally conceived as the soundtrack for the Todd Solondz film of the same name, little more than six minutes of the group's music made the final cut. The group's pride in the songs, though, was all the momentum required to give them an official release in June 2002.

"Glueing an Airfix kit/Cigarettes at the gym/Had a pint of Special Brew/Won't do that again" -- I'm Not Living In The Real World

Belle And Sebastian's studio canon is augmented by Push Barman To Open Old Wounds, a 25-track collection of the group's Jeepster singles and EPs released in May 2005, and The BBC Sessions, a compilation of songs recorded for The John Peel Show, Steve Lamacq's Evening Session and The Mark Radcliffe Show, released in 2008. A digital-only release of the group playing If You're Feeling Sinister at the Barbican in London was also released through iTunes in December 2005.

Notable among the slew of collaborations and side projects featuring members of the band is God Help The Girl, a girl-group helmed by Stuart Murdoch, which released two singles, an EP and a self-titled album in 2009. A film of the same name whose screenplay was written by Murdoch is in the pipeline, as is The Celestial Cafe, a book that gathers together his online diaries.

Fast-forward to summer of 2010, which Belle and Sebastian spent gearing up to play fall shows in North and South America, rounding the year off with a UK tour.

FUTURE
Fucked or not, Belle And Sebastian are not giving up without a fight.