Shirley Lee

Do you miss Spearmint? Or perhaps more importantly, do you remember Spearmint? You should. They had a fair bit of airplay in the mid 1990's, in particular with the song 'Sweeping The Nation', album 'A Week Away' was critically acclaimed all over the place, and then they seemed to drop out of the public conciousness. Which is a terrible shame because they followed it up with more cracking records, not least 2006's 'Paris In A Bottle' a concept album of sorts, packed to bursting with hooks and singalongs. If you've never heard them or forgotten how great they can be, you might want to listen to 'A Week Away' on Spotify - Spearmint – A Week Away (Special Edition). Why? Because towards the end of the year, the band release a new album and I expect it to be great; the reason for this is that lead Spearmint Shirley Lee (or Mr. Shirley Lee) as the press sometimes dub him, has just released his eponymous debut album with backing from the rest of Spearmint, so obstensibly a Spearmint record. It's good too, or as much as I've heard of it. It sounds like Spearmint, which is a great thing. Songs tinged with melancholy and nostalgia that occasionally sound a bit like the Lightning Seeds or at times a lighter touched Belle and Sebastian. It's definitely worth a listen, and it's quiet brilliance is quite likely to suck you in, plus rather brilliantly there's a fair number of tracks to listen to HERE, so you've really got no excuse.

Elsewhere I've been keeping an eye out for news of 'The Bundles'. The band lineup is a certain kind of indie-kids wet dream featuring as it does, Kimya Dawson, Jeffrey Lewis and Jack Lewis. Plus Anders Griffin who has played with Regina Spektor amongst others. With a line-up like that there's a chance that they could produce something brilliant. The album itself is due in March, I think, but I managed to find a song called 'Pirates Declare War' which promises some good stuff. It sounds like most of the songs from Jeffrey Lewis' '12 Crass Songs' album or some of 'City and Eastern Songs', which is of course a great thing. You can hear it by following the upcoming link.

Pirates Declare War

Finally, simply because I've got the urge to listen to more Jeffrey Lewis now, here's a short film for Lewis' song 'Champion Jim'. Like many of his short film songs I don't think that this has been officially released, but it's brilliant.