Belle and Sebastian: If You're Feeling Sinister

I wonder when I went longest without buying a vinyl LP. I'd guess it was the mid-90s. But I know I bought New Adventures in Hi-Fi on LP in 1996 and Pop in 1998. I got If You're Feeling Sinister on vinyl in 1997, so that's at least one a year during that period.

Why did I get it on vinyl? Because it was on display on the wall of the Warp record shop on Division Street in Sheffield — the shop that they sold to Fopp (the first Fopp south of the border, I think) when they decided to concentrate solely on the record label. It looked good on the wall, and I was probably nostalgic for the days of gatefold sleeve.

I recorded it onto tape, and M and I listened to it a lot in the old Astra when we drove up to Mull, Iona and Mallaig that summer. I knew nothing of Belle and Sebastian as a band. I'd heard them on John Peel a few times, but never read anything more than what was on the album sleeve. I remember thinking the songs sounded like a splicing of Nick Drake's airy melodies with Morrissey's lyrical sensibility (particularly that line about terrys underwear).

I thought at the time I was coming in on the coattails of a fairly well-established band. I didn't realise they'd only done one limited-edition album and a few EPs at this point.

A couple of years ago Belle and Sebastian played the whole of If You're Feeling Sinister at the Barbican (and released a recording of this performance digitally). Despite being a Barbican member and able to get to the box office in five minutes from our front door, Lucy and I were too late to get tickets. Things had changed by then.

MusicBrainz entry for this album