The Ladybug Transistor
The Ladybug Transistor
Merge
From the minimal exposure I’ve had to The Ladybug Transistor, I’ve come to think of them as Belle & Sebastian’s shadow band, moving their sound into the space vacated by B&S on the indie pop production value chart. 2003 saw the release of B&S’s studio-honed Dear Catastrophe Waitress, allowing Ladybug to slide into Fold Your Hands… territory. The band’s sound is richer and more breezily textured this time around, mainly thanks to the greater amount of dance floor time afforded to previously underused instruments (strings, pedal steel, etc).
The Ladybug Transistor’s sound doesn’t reach the somewhat overwhelming level of Dear Catastrophe Waitress though. There’s still an amateurish quality to the recording. But what the album lacks in professional veneer it makes up for in old-fashioned intimacy. “In December,” “Choking on Air” and “Hangin’ on the Line” all deserve to be blasted out of open car windows, not reined in by hoar frost and subzero temperatures. I may have to wait a handful of months before I can do this, but it’s very high on my “Looking Forward to Spring” list.
Merge Records: http://www.mergerecords.com/
