Trackback | The Verlaines
The Verlaines made their recorded debut on Side 2, EP 2 of New Zealand’s seminal Dunedin Double EP in 1982. The compilation featured three other Dunedin, NZ groups including The Chills, The Stones, and Sneaky Feelings, each getting their own side of a 12”. Dunedin Double marked the first compilation released by the burgeoning Flying Nun, the record label that championed “The Dunedin Sound,” a phrase coined by The Clean’s David Kilgour. Since Flying Nun had minimal funds and many of the musicians were unemployed, the EP was recorded on a portable four-track, lending it a lo-fi sound quality.
Originally forming as a five-piece in 1980 and later stripping down to a trio, The Verlaines took their name after French poet Paul Verlaine (as did Television’s Tom Verlaine). Fronted by classical music student Graeme Downes, the band combined jangly guitars, stark basslines, and a pop mentality with precise classical compositions and instrumental arrangements. Like early Bunnymen, The Verlaines music was manic, angular, and energetic – cleverly shifting, twisting and turning in an unconventional shell of classical structure. Frantic up-tempo playing offset Downes’ mournful, sometimes downbeat vocals, while tracks like the epic “Slow Sad Love Song” from the group’s sophomore effort, Bird Dog, capture melancholy in the most beautiful, moving, and personal ways.
On the heels of Dunedin Double, an EP and a couple of singles, the band dropped their debut LP, Hallelujah All the Way Home, in 1985 on Flying Nun (and later on Homestead). Downes submitted the album as a part of a composition paper for his Honors Degree in Music, which garnered him an “A.” Hallelujah built upon the scholarly sound of The Verlaines early singles and brought Downes’ disturbed stories of isolation, betrayal, and disillusionment to life with lilting melodies tinged with classical strings and horns. Bird Dog followed in 1987 and it’s probably the record I listen to the most from the group, with two of my personal favorites of all The Verlaine’s songs being “Cd Jimmy Jazz and Me” and the aforementioned “Slow Sad Love Song.” Downes croon sounds eerily similar to Ian McCulloch’s, while the composition and swirling orchestration stacks up to anything on Ocean Rain.
The Verlaines released two more records on Flying Nun/Homestead, Juvenilia (an early singles and EP comp) and Some Disenchanted Evening in 1987 and 1989, respectively. The 90s saw the band jumping to Slash and Sony for three releases, until they went on hiatus 1996, reappearing last year with Potboiler.
[MP3]: The Verlaines ”Cd Jimmy Jazz and Me”
Bird Dog, Flying Nun; 1987
Video for “Bird Dog” (1987):
[...] – bookmarked by 1 members originally found by edupalet on 2008-11-13 Trackback | The Verlaines http://frictionnyc.com/blog/index.php/2008/07/01/trackback-the-verlaines/ – bookmarked by 3 [...]