www.diskant.net

When there were a couple of days of sunshine last weekend, in amongst the usual drizzle and cold, this was the perfect album to listen to. Summery pop music, oh yes! This is really good – ‘up’ sounding tunes, based around the classic combo of decent songwriting/nice melody, bolstered with some subtle electronica which helps to fill out the sound and add a slightly odd edge to things. Merchandise seem to have a cheerily frank outlook on things, in the same way that the Flaming Lips do, with melancholic lyrics on remarkably good-natured-sounding songs. This falls short of becoming irritatingly twee or cutesy, and as such it’s a perfectly-pitched collection of songs to play on a warm evening whilst not worrying about things.

http://www.tastyfanzine.org.uk/

After last month’s wondrous single, comes the first long player from Manchester’s Merchandise. And it’s flippin’ good too. Far from going straight for the pop highway, Merchandise seem to content to lead you down a dark path marked ‘jazz’ before you enter the wonderful garden of indie pop, much like The Real Tuesday Weld, and their ilk. So, whilst ‘Beautiful Morning for a Bad Day’ is a cracking little number it’s interspersed by some kind of free-form funky drummer boy, just to leave you guessing, like…

Onwards! And ’14:53’ could tug at even the most stale of hearts, with it’s simple, pleading guitar coda. Yes, even mine. And Pinkie meets perky in ‘Distil Disappointment’, which features, somewhere in the background, a – gulp – driving distorted guitar. But back to safety with ‘Echolalia’, a sort of latter day Sinatra number, but the best is saved for next. ‘For the Shore’ is simple as Sam Dingle, but builds and builds and goes around and around, leaving you quite giddy with excitement. Honest. I’m not making this up.

To say Merchandise are a band of some quality is to understate this hugely enjoyable album, which has been spinning round, right round, baby, right round in t’ cd player for some time now. I suggest you buy this little beauty and try and make a worse Dead or Alive pun than that. Off you go.

Sam Metcalf

www.vanityproject.co.uk

Skewed pop music marrying the gentleness of acoustic blues and beat-pop, with some spirited electronic action. A lot of invention is shown on this LP, and there’s a lot to like, and I’ve a feeling this could turn into love if you take the time to develop a meaningful relationship with Merchandise. While the electronica removes a shade of the normal warmness you might expect, in places, such as ‘Winter’, there is an intimacy in which you can comfortably wrap yourself up. Skif

www.blowback.co.uk

Merchandise is the kind of acoustic electronica that’d be the soundtrack to a summer picnic in Hyde Park , with cute animals frolicking in the sun. Two men’s reflections on everyday life has never been so glorious. Sunday Song steps up the pace a little with a touch of Badly Drawn Boy had he ever got out from underneath his hat and, in Distil Disappointment, joined the Thrills. Totally pure, grandiose pop music that along with the title makes you wonder why we make our lives so complicated. The sound of pastoral idylls and eternal sunshine.

Credits: friends making records, modern life being rubbish, having a whole album of beautiful music.

This is one perfectly named album. Merchandise (named after a Fugazi song, coo-ell) have married electronica and acoustica into a collection of gorgeous pop wistfulness.

Like The Clientele, Merchandise create pattering, caressing, daydreamy music that conjures up an England of rain-washed colours and pale sunlight. Cymbals snick, pianos tinkle meditatively, odd beats and samples give the sound a bit of a roughing up behind Brad’s gentle, reproachful vocals. According to the sleeve-notes, featured amongst the instruments is a ‘trazoo’. Qué??

The songs are divided into short trips into a pensive mind via narratives bathed in lyrical melancholia (perfect example, ‘Beautiful Morning For A Bad Day’) and curious, memory-triggering instrumentals. ‘Sunday Song’ is the sound of whisking along on a train (hey, it might happen), on a Spring morning, luxuriating in the feeling of being nowhere. Small but perfectly formed instrumental ‘The Last Stand of Pucho Vasquez’ sneaks in like an out-take from the Midnight Cowboy soundtrack. ‘Winter’ is layers of susurration floating down to build up like snowfall. The perfect music-box delicacy of final track ‘Morning After’ leaves you gazing into the middle distance, spaced out on your own introspection.

Always a good way to end.

I’ve written about Merchandise – the Bolton duo of Brad B Wood and Conrad Astley – before (#8) when I reviewed their ‘Swallowing Curses’ single. I liked it, but I mentioned that it took a while for me to get into and also mentioned ‘Drum and Bass’(!). I think I must have been having a strange day when I reviewed that, as this, their album, is truly a thing of beauty.

The title hints at their sound: gorgeous lo-fi pop acoustics melded perfectly with the hi-tech sounds from the gentler side of electronica (think Boards of Canada or something from the Morr Music label rather than Venetian Snares or Squarepusher).

On first listen, while working on my laptop on a Saturday afternoon, the sounds and the feel of the album as a whole got me, passing through and calming me. Afterwards I was able to appreciate the lyrics and the more intricate nature of the music, to see just how many genres and different beats and moods (pretentious I know, but that is the best way to describe it – uplifting, melancholy, comforting…) were in these twelve songs. I kept thinking of Hood, or a more consistent Stereolab.

DIY indie pop, back from when indie meant something, mixed with the best of the modern day electronica scene. Worth it for the great ‘Beautiful morning for a bad day’ alone, but every other song here can match that. A gem.