The Pastels / Tenniscoats – Two Sunsets

The Pastels have been keeping an even lower profile of late than they have since their mid-eighties heyday as indiepop icons ”“ Britain’s answer to the endearing ineptitude of Beat Happening. Aside from surfacing for the occasional gig, only a remix album and a soundtrack to a film that nobody saw have actually seen the light of day in the last twelve years, leaving frontman Stephen Pastel (né McRobbie) free to keep up his day job as a record store clerk. Two Sunsets brings us that bit closer to a true follow-up to 1997’s pretty-but-patchy Illumination; borne partly from their recent theatrical soundtrack work, the album is a collaboration with Japanese experimentalists Tenniscoats, and covers similar musical ground to their recent musical endeavors. In other words, anyone looking for ‘Baby Honey 2’ is not going to get it here.What they are going to find, however, is the most consistent, enchanting Pastels release to date; aside from ‘Vivid Youth’’s inferior take on the ersatz soul of their classic 1995 single ‘Worlds of Possibility’, the band’s contributions are absolutely breathtaking. A faithful cover of Jesus and Mary Chain album track ‘About You’ is an unexpected highlight; where Jim Reid once sneered, as if he was too good for a straightforward love song like this, Stephen Pastel simply sings it the only way he ever could ”” straight, swoonful and sincere, like a kid trying to impress his first crush. Likewise, the pastoral shimmer of ‘Boats’, practically whispered by drummer Katrina Mitchell, is built on the kind of dreamy chord progression that most bands would kill for ”“ and by the time the closing flute solo rolls around, it’s hard not to imagine yourself sitting on the dock of Oban Bay, watching the tide roll away.Even with such a hushed atmosphere pervading the album, there’s a real sense of excitement to Two Sunsets ”“ the sound of two veteran bands, who are still able to admit they have a lot to learn from each other. It’s a collaboration in the truest sense of the word; although The Pastels are the first band listed on the artwork, the presence of Tenniscoats is equally important. Vocalist Saya Ueno takes centre stage for most of the album, and her haunting, childlike vocals (like Deerhoof’s Satomi Matsuzaki on sedatives) on tracks such as the Belle and Sebastian-esque ‘Sodane’ and the stunning, Velvetsy sprawl of ‘Mou Mou Rainbow’ are the thread which holds Two Sunsets together.Ueno sings the majority of the record in Japanese, so the fleeting moments during which she lapses into English (like the adorable “Over the rainbow” refrain in ‘Mou Mou Rainbow’) are both endearing and disarming. Nowhere is this more apparent than the heartbreaking ‘Song for a Friend’, a tribute for a regular Tenniscoats collaborator, DJ Klock, who committed suicide in 2007; over sparse keyboards and melodica, (and, for the first time on the album, Stephen Pastel’s distinctive slur), Ueno bares her soul for her departed friend in her native tongue, before delivering the album’s most genuinely affecting lyric ”“ “Your guitar’s still where you left/Over by the willow tree/Sometimes when the wind is kind/It plays your song for me.”Unlike much of the Pastels’ early output, Two Sunsets isn’t a record that will change lives. It is, however, a record of rare, unassuming beauty; a quiet, gentle phenomenon ”“ like the sight of two sunsets, gently making their way back towards the horizon ”“ that you can’t quite put your finger on to begin with, but one that burns its way into your consciousness the more attention you pay to it.The Pastels on MySpace Tenniscoats