judy let's go for a walk

More worldly followers (or ex-followers) of Belle and Sebastian would probably be unmoved but I still got a huge kick out of my first spin through The BBC Sessions, already well familiar with the songs of course (at the very least, the first nine tracks), though unarmed with a tracklist and therefore unaware of the song order (which is perhaps the best way for old fans to listen to this - with an element of surprise). I don't think these immaculately recorded radio sessions does much of a service to the band as a live document, which is why I didn't bother to listen to the companion live-in-Belfast disc at all; that's understandable. Instead it does something else altogether when you get sufficiently drawn into Stuart Murdoch's wide-eyed verbiage: like you're being welcomed back to when the Belle and Sebastian was first unearthed, back into the folds of schoolyard experiences, old loneliness and other strange encounters at the end of youthhood. The evocative arrangement and Steve Jackson's singing on "Seymour Stein" sound more elegaic with time, more defiant in its indietrack career declaration. The band also runs through a spooked, pulpy rendition of "Sleep The Clock Around", sounding not unlike a nascent Velvet Underground, unsullied.