Starlet - Stay
On My Side
more Starlet releases
Starlet
Anders Baeck-Drums
Jonas Färm-Voices and Guitars
Henrik Mårtensson-Bass and voices
Joakim Ödlund-Guitars
"Songs about loss and love," was
how Sweden's Starlet described their debut album From the
One You Left Behind. And here they go again. Still in their
respective twenties, still not married, and still not legally
divorced. But hey, who said those are the necessary criteria
for severe heartache in the blue, cold, post-nighttime hours?
Stay
On My Side is a slight step away from the naivete that set
the pace for their previous
album. If you'll listen really hard you might even find mature
sounding songs. Yet, when the naivete slips through, as on
the wide-eyed "Silver Sportscar," the charm is
arresting. How can anyone resist the image of a 20-something
Scandinavian, California dreamin' about driver's licenses
and the open road?
Recognized
as part of the "Åhus
Scene" that was designated by the Swedish pop press
as "the Mecca of Swedish wimp pop," Starlet comes
from the same region as Club 8, Acid House Kings, Pop Race,
and the Leslies. And, lead vocalist Jonas Farm's hometown,
Malmoe, has been chosen as the "pop-town of year 2000" by
the nation's Swedish Radio. While some may say wimp pop,
and others will go for the all encompassing indie-pop, Starlet
comes across on Stay On My Side as a four headed Nick Drake
channeled through the Smiths. Sadness and longing yes, but
there IS a light here that never goes out.
Jonas Farm describes his contribution
to the
album's songwriting this way:
"When I learned to play the guitar,
about 1992, I tried really hard to make songs that sounded like Popsicles' "Laquer," but
it didn't work at all, and I found out that it was a stupid idea trying to
sound like another band. Then I got every Beatles-album and made the same
mistake. Now I just follow a feeling when I write a song, and subconsciously
fragments of my influences of the time trickles through, mixing with me and
the sound of me."
In the end, Stay On My Side is about friends,
cold waters, black books, disappointments, past times, scents that stay emblazoned
on ones' mind, closure and the necessity of moving on. Most lyricists are
unable to express such sentiments so perfectly. The fact that Starlet does
so in a second language is noteworthy. The songs contain no irony whatsoever,
and are suitable for domestic use, radio use, soirees and car driving, alone
or together with friends. We hope you'll like Stay On My Side. Have a listen!
"As fixated (or recently removed) from the
neatly groomed carpets of their parents’ houses as one would imagine
from the titles of the first two tracks here (“I’m Home,” “Homewater”),
the four aryan Swedes of Starlet sing about the joys and perils of University
life with voices borne of high-school ambivalence, replete with supple drumming,
warmly plucked guitars and even a touch of melodica (!). Stay on My Side
is the sound of long train rides through snow-covered fields and towns, the
sound of missing people you’ve only just left and leaving people you’ve
just begun to miss. Of course, brokenheartedness always translates well into
broken English and the presence of Universal Health Care and government subsidized
education loom large throughout the 10 tracks (ie, not much to complain about
in Scandanavia, outside of being small, picked-on and unloved), but the kids
in creative writing classes can make good music too, darn it. Especially
when they’ve clearly listened to groups like The Bats & Belle & Sebastian. “I
don’t know right no / but I knew that I once knew you,” sings one
of them, before painting nostalgia like Bob Ross painted trees: “Sunday
trips in the countryside . . . my skin got stuck to the backseat.” When
things get too maudlin, Starlet makes indie-pop yeh-yeh tracks about being “In
the Disco” - only problem is disco is still in Sweden, and, ergo, they
play things like “The Power of Love” - and pining for a “Silver
Sportscar.” Of course, all it can think to do with its new macho wheels
is peel out for, um, “Los Angeles.” Which is to say, a soup-fed
fantasy land as racy and impossible as that tacky Swedish disco.
Its these wonderfully-indulgent dream-lands that Stay on My Side inhabits
so well. Pages of a diary (“Diary and Herself”). Girlfriends’ perfume
on left-behind t-shirts (“Scene Of You”). Nights in bedrooms “almost” falling
in love (Moving On”). Tiny voices, tiny songs, tiny worries; giant hearts,
yellow moons, green fields. And fjords. Great stuff." Andy Greenwald (agreenwald@spinmag.com) SPIN.com
"Starlet sports an angsty groove that sticks
in the brain long after the disc has finished playing…There are a number
of interesting elements…from Nick Drake as the Smiths' frontman ("Homewater")
to a mid-'70s Todd Rundgren demo ("Internal Affairs") to a sentimental
and melancholy John Cale vibe ("Scent of You")" ---Brian
Baker (Amplifier, Issue #18 2000)
"The Foursome have the requisite indie attributes:
glorious guitar-pop feyness, strummy melodies, and lovelorn lyrics." ---Beth
Wawerna (Spin 15)
"Echoes of Nick Drake, the Smiths and, especially,
the anorak-clad mid-'80s British indie scene of Felt and the Pastels waft
through the act's second album…For Fans For: Belle and Sebastian, Felt,
Lucksmiths, Smiths" ---Jem Aswad (CMJ New Music Report, March 6,
2000 Issue 656 Vol 61. No. 10)
"Credit a deft deployment of minor chords
and a lingering sense of rainy-day ennui with supplying the necessary Trans-Atlantic
musical translation….subdued, spacious chamber-pop approach…to
nostalgia, disappointing time and long-distance longing….along this
seamless continuum to often heartbreaking, always keenly observed, material.
For Fans of: Belle & Sebastian, BMX Bandits, Wedding Present, The Smiths." ---Jonathan
Perry (CMJ New Music Monthly)
"Stay On My Side is a seamless album that
has lots of loneliness, no lies, and the warmest melody you could hope for
from the land of Roxette, Abba, and aquavit." ---Kristy Ojala (Seattle
Weekly)
"Starlet play just the sort of silky, blithe
pop with lovely lilting English lyrics you'd expect from a pack of Swedes….With
the raw intimacy of the Smiths, the smoothness of fellow Swedes, The Acid
House Kings, and arrangements reminiscent of the Go-Betweens, Stay On My
Side will charm your sentimental soul as only Scandinavians can." ET
(Faster Than Sheep)
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