One Track Mind

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There is something magnificently ramshackle about the music recorded by Wymeswold, England’s The Wave Pictures, suffused as it is with an anachronistic, lo-fi glee that would make them at home on the flip side of a forgotten early 1980s 7″ with Aztec Camera or The Bluebells. Despite the band’s provenance, their sound is rooted in a firmly Scottish tradition, and the main influence in effect is that of the early recordings of Orange Juice, especially in vocalist David Tattersall’s Collinsian flights of fancy.

However, The Wave Pictures can’t trace their own history quite that far back; despite remaining a mystery to most trans-Atlantic ears, the trio’s story begins in 1998. Since their formation that year, the band has released or been a part of over thirty different releases. On April 27th, Moshi Moshi Records will give the band their introduction to North American audiences in the form of a two-disc re-release of The Wave Pictures’ last two albums: Instant Coffee Baby and If You Leave It All Alone.

Originally the second track off Instant Coffee Baby, “I Love You Like A Madman” is a quintessential example of what The Wave Pictures are all about. The production is direct and decidedly raw, the music is a blend of jangly indie-pop and punchy horn punctuations, and the song structure is tight, with things wrapping up in three minutes flat. Then there are Tattersall’s lyrics, poised somewhere between the heartfelt and the absurd as with the song’s opening lines: “If I made it through Christmas without smoking ’til your parents went to bed / If you made it through, too, without sticking your nail scissors in my neck…” What you get on the other side of the equals sign in this equation assuredly isn’t for everyone, but personally, I love this song (like a madman) more and more with each passing listen. The Wave Pictures do an amazing job of tapping into a certain legacy without succumbing to it, nimbly adorning the more straightforward facets of their sound with bits of outlandish spectacle. If their music is smartly constructed, it is so without ever feeling contrived; there is honesty in that melody.