cocteau twins segment on WBNS - columbus, OH - 09/19/1985
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Cassette Monday: The Pale Saints - Slow Buildings
The third album by the Pale Saints, Slow Buildings, was released by 4AD in 1994. At the time of its release, I thought of it as ersatz, and refused to get a copy. On their debut album, The Comforts Of Madness, the Pale Saints had been a three-piece, with Ian Masters singing and playing bass, Graeme Naysmith playing guitar, and Chris Cooper playing drums. This was the first Pale Saints album I heard, and I loved it unreservedly. Their follow-up was In Ribbons, on which original Lush vocalist Meriel Barham joined as a second vocalist and guitarist. I liked the songs she sang on pretty well, and her guitar was certainly a welcome addition, but Ian was the original vocalist, and so I felt loyal to him. When he quit in 1993, I figured the Pale Saints were over, but instead they made Meriel the full time singer and replaced Ian on bass with Colleen Browne. That’s the lineup that recorded Slow Buildings, and without Ian in the band, I didn’t think it really counted as the same Pale Saints. I may have loved their first two albums, but as a matter of sheer principle, I ignored their third.
I might never have bought it either, if I hadn’t come across the above-pictured cassette in a dollar bin at a local record store. This happened during a month-long period three or so years ago when it seemed like every couple of days, the dollar bin in this particular record store was getting replenished with still-shrinkwrapped cassettes from the early 90s alternative era. Had some vaguely alternative record store been keeping all of these in a back room and liquidated them at dirt cheap prices to the store where I found them? That’s my best guess. Either way, I had a dollar bin bonanza for a while. That’s where I picked up the Hazel cassette I ripped for a post last week, among many others.
So anyway, I found Slow Buildings for a buck, how bad would it have to be for that purchase to be ill-advised? I decided to go for it. Lo and behold, I found an album that fit quite well with previous Pale Saints work. I didn’t really miss Ian Masters, and found Slow Buildings to be a damn sight better than Ian Masters’s post-Pale Saints group, Spoonfed Hybrid. That record was all minimalism and digital experimentation; the emotional warmth of the first two Pale Saints albums was absent from Spoonfed Hybrid’s work. In Slow Buildings, I had found it.
[P.S. I’m kinda joking about Cassette Monday. Then again, I’m also curious as to how long I can keep the joke going.]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ks5b64TOYa1qa8snwo1_500.jpg)
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Cassette Monday: The Pale Saints - Slow Buildings
The third album by the Pale Saints, Slow Buildings, was released by 4AD in 1994. At the time of its release, I thought of it as ersatz, and refused to get a copy. On their debut album, The Comforts Of Madness, the Pale Saints had been a three-piece, with Ian Masters singing and playing bass, Graeme Naysmith playing guitar, and Chris Cooper playing drums. This was the first Pale Saints album I heard, and I loved it unreservedly. Their follow-up was In Ribbons, on which original Lush vocalist Meriel Barham joined as a second vocalist and guitarist. I liked the songs she sang on pretty well, and her guitar was certainly a welcome addition, but Ian was the original vocalist, and so I felt loyal to him. When he quit in 1993, I figured the Pale Saints were over, but instead they made Meriel the full time singer and replaced Ian on bass with Colleen Browne. That’s the lineup that recorded Slow Buildings, and without Ian in the band, I didn’t think it really counted as the same Pale Saints. I may have loved their first two albums, but as a matter of sheer principle, I ignored their third.
I might never have bought it either, if I hadn’t come across the above-pictured cassette in a dollar bin at a local record store. This happened during a month-long period three or so years ago when it seemed like every couple of days, the dollar bin in this particular record store was getting replenished with still-shrinkwrapped cassettes from the early 90s alternative era. Had some vaguely alternative record store been keeping all of these in a back room and liquidated them at dirt cheap prices to the store where I found them? That’s my best guess. Either way, I had a dollar bin bonanza for a while. That’s where I picked up the Hazel cassette I ripped for a post last week, among many others.
So anyway, I found Slow Buildings for a buck, how bad would it have to be for that purchase to be ill-advised? I decided to go for it. Lo and behold, I found an album that fit quite well with previous Pale Saints work. I didn’t really miss Ian Masters, and found Slow Buildings to be a damn sight better than Ian Masters’s post-Pale Saints group, Spoonfed Hybrid. That record was all minimalism and digital experimentation; the emotional warmth of the first two Pale Saints albums was absent from Spoonfed Hybrid’s work. In Slow Buildings, I had found it.
[P.S. I’m kinda joking about Cassette Monday. Then again, I’m also curious as to how long I can keep the joke going.]
Simon Larbalestier, Surfer Rosa contact sheet
Buy prints of Simon Larbalestier’s work for the Pixies and others straight from the source.
