Pitchfork

The many lads and lasses of Belle and Sebastian put quite a bit of time in on BBC Radio over the years, laying down well-loved (and well-bootlegged) versions of some of their biggest smashes for broadcast over the airwaves. Several choice selections from their time on the Beeb in the years 1996-2001 have been collected on The BBC Sessions, due from Matador November 18. Though not comprehensive-- among the missing is the "slow" version of "Seeing Other People", which features Stuart Murdoch, Stevie Jackon, and Isobel Campbell trading vocals, and an incredible reading of "We Rule the School", both from December 1996-- Sessions covers a wide swath of the band's formative period, from recordings laid down shortly after the release of their brilliant debut Tigermilk to the year after the release of their fourth LP Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like a Peasant.

The disc is comprised of a complete Mark Radcliffe session from July 1996, an abbreviated take of the version of Tigermilk's "I Could Be Dreaming" performed at a December 96 Radcliffe session, and five tunes from a July 97 Steve Lamacq Evening Session show. Of particular note, though, are the last four tracks, all from a 2001 John Peel session: the Go-Betweens shout-out "Shoot the Sexual Athlete", "The Magic of a Kind Word", "Nothing in the Silence", and "(My Girl's Got) Miraculous Technique". The tunes are beloved by many Belle and Sebastian geeks not only for their quality and rarity, but also their historical importance-- those sessions were the final recordings the band made with founding member Campbell. A second disc, which will accompany initial copies of the set, is made up of a cover-laden December 21, 2001 recording of a Belfast Christmas show.

Alas, with the good news, comes a reminder of the bad: Belle and Sebastian are presently on hiatus, and have no immediate plans to record a follow-up to 2006's exquisite The Life Pursuit.


Disc One - Radio Sessions:

01 The State I Am In (Mark Radcliffe Session; 07/96)
02 Like Dylan in the Movies (Mark Radcliffe Session; 07/96)
03 Judy and the Dream of Horses (Mark Radcliffe Session; 07/96)
04 The Stars of Track and Field (Mark Radcliffe Session; 07/96)
05 I Could Be Dreaming (Mark Radcliffe session; 12/96; abbreviated version)
06 Seymour Stein (Evening Session; 07/97)
07 Lazy Line Painter Jane (Evening Session; 07/97)
08 Sleep the Clock Around (Evening Session; 07/97)
09 Slow Graffiti (Evening Session; 07/97)
10 Wrong Love (later recorded as "The Wrong Girl") (Evening Session; 07/97)
11 Shoot the Sexual Athlete (John Peel session; 05/01)
12 The Magic of a Kind Word (John Peel session; 05/01)
13 Nothing in the Silence (John Peel session; 05/01)
14 (My Girl's Got) Miraculous Technique (John Peel session; 05/01)

Disc Two - Live in Belfast (12/21/01):

01 Here Comes the Sun
02 There's Too Much Love
03 The Magic of a Kind Word
04 Me and the Major
05 Wandering Alone
06 The Model
07 I'm Waiting for the Man
08 The Boy With the Arab Strap
09 The Wrong Girl
10 Dirty Dream #2
11 The Boys Are Back in Town
12 Legal Man