by Hollie Fernando
Can it really be thirty years since Belle and Sebastian released their record If You’re Feeling Sinister? With its quiet peaceful feeling one can imagine it always existing or at least being a byproduct of the folky 1960’s.
But it was in fact 1996 when the Glasgow, Scotland band unleashed their second record into the world (or at least in the UK as it didn’t come out in the US until 1997). To celebrate Belle and Sebastian will perform the entire album along with a second set of songs from the rest of their career on May 17 at the Arsht Center. It’ll be the troupe’s first South Florida concert since a 2014 gig at The Fillmore.
The ten tracks on If You’re Feeling Sinister? have the exact opposite vibe that its titular question asks. If anything it embodies a childlike innocence starting with the opening track “The Stars of Track and Field” letting you know the musical proceedings will go at its own laid back pace reminiscent of Nick Drake or Donovan or some other lost troubadour of the British Isles. Things get a bit more rambunctious with “Me and the Major” where the tempo might not speed up enough for a mosh pit, but could certainly encourage some jigs at a hootenanny. Throughout its running time songs seem to alternate between dreamy lullabies like “The Fox in the Snow” or “The Boy Done Wrong” with selections that could start a lowkey living room dance party like “Get Me Away from Here, I’m Dying” and “Like Dylan in the Movies”.
It makes too much sense that the songs were worked on in a church hall where frontman Stuart Murdoch was the caretaker that the then seven piece band used as a practice space. Perhaps the most remarkable tidbit about the creation of the record is it only took five days to record and only three more days to master the recordings. But apparently in the 1990’s that was an example of Belle and Sebastian taking their time as their debut Tigermilk was recorded in only three days. Maybe there was something sinister going on with this band? How else to explain the ease of composing such sonic twee perfection?
Belle and Sebastian 7 pm Sunday, May 17 at the Adrienne Arsht Center’s Knight Concert Hall in Miami. arshtcenter.org ~ David Rolland
