Belle and Sebastian
If You’re Feeling Sinister

THE REVIEW

So I thought about which album I could give her, far beyond the occasion; an album for everything. The question became clearer: which album could I gift her? Then the light came. And it was, by the skin of my teeth, pitch-dark night. The world, over time, wants to be this, divided into songs and people. Nothing else matters (than what is sung). The most "elementary" thing is to bring together the right people and songs. When the time is right. Because, clearly, songs grow faster than people. And they never betray. It's much easier to make room in oneself for a song than for a person. When you do it with people, you take a risk that is Everest, for which we are almost always unprepared and rarely reach the top. It seems to have happened, reaching there, with a small handful of friendships. And with a costume designer, barely known. But the songs were pointed out to me by them. I only had to make room for them to enter. With the grace of the reciprocal!

The endeavor now is another. A foolish venture that wants to become shocking. The communicative clarity of an album is an indispensable taste. The thirst that distills the days. It's everything of everything. It's the summer night when children run to catch dragonflies between marshes.

Which Spotify bands brush the soul? They can be heard but don't hear us. And I would like to be heard. They are, indeed, formative needs. As is "If You're Feeling Sinister". A dance of rain and torments, trembling in ten names. An extravagant dream in a forgotten book. The crude discovery of sensitivity. Intricate arrangements like the swirling of pollen in the air. A humor that touches only the proper and true strings; the song of the cricket and fairies settled out of time, faintly. Acoustic watercolors as an ancient way of painting the world and wild invention; pigments based on water, gum arabic, and ox bile, opaque to capture the soul in the details.

If it has so much beauty, it will share it with anyone who wants to resemble it, even in contrast, or just for the (intangible) exchange of dreams.

PS

Echoes of Nick Drake, Simon & Garfunkel, Felt, Smiths, Housemartins, Left Banke, Kinks, in an album that turned 25 last November. Tracks: Me And The Major, Dylan At The Movies; a grain of salt and a drop of honey. 10/10.