The Pastels Mobile Safari Domingo, 1995 amazon

It appears that the time between albums of the "week" (ha!) is increasing rather than decreasing, as evidenced by the three data points i've generated so far. I think the problem is that i seem to be waiting for an album to grab me by the ears and scream "I AM THE GREATEST THING YOU HAVE EVER HEARD AND WILL EVER HEAR!" I've got so much music flooding into my ears these days, it's near impossible to satisfy that criterion. Instead, I'm going to attempt to just point out musical things here and there that i find pleasant, hopefully with increased frequency. One thing that has made me perk up and take notice recently has been the Pastels. Through some convoluted path, i've meandered into the whole "C-86" genre (and if people thought shoegazing was a bad moniker, it has nothing on C-86). The lo-fi, DIY drone of Black Tambourine and Shop Assistants sparked my interest, but it wasn't until halfway through the 1995 Pastels album Mobile Safari, when "Classic Line-Up" came across my headphones at work, that i realized that this was a genre that i had truly missed. The home recording aesthetic belies yet oddly augments the quality of the songwriting, which comes to a head on the horn-laden closer "Worlds of Possibilities". There's something comfortingly unassuming and free of pretension about lo-fi indie pop. Maybe i'm imagining it all, but hey, it's my head.

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