Date: Thu, 6 Aug 1998 23:08:06 -0400 From: Susan F Curran <warped@WORLD.STD.COM> Subject: arab strap (warning: not CDA-approved) i went to see arab strap live the other week and remembered that i'd written something about the album ages ago that i never posted, probably since there wasn't an obvious niche among the various lists that i'm on. they don't quite fit here, either, but i know they've come up before, so it'll have to do. they were good live, by the way - more rock than the album, which doesn't say much, aidan's scottish mutterings still taking center stage, but with guitar instead of a string section. ---- Arab Strap - Philophobia Arab Strap are the latest Scottish sensations to have the British press creaming themselves, whipping out bigger and bigger . thesauruses in order to have the last word on the "pisshead Poet Laureates" who set new highs for self-abasement by sinking to record lows. In case you were wondering, an Arab Strap is apparently a device from the days before Viagra, but Arab Strap the band are emotionally impotent more often than in the physical sense. That's not to say that Aidan Moffat, lead mutterer of the Scottish duo, never gets too drunk too fuck. In "My Favorite Muse" he gets back together with an ex-girlfriend only to find he's had, "too much to drink, too much to say", and it's the combination that keeps him from rising to the occasion, as it were. But more often his problems with women are a bit more subtle - "Soaps" is about a girlfriend who only makes him happy when she's not around though he can't stand for her to leave. Conflicted only begins to describe his emotional state; add to the list: miserable, distrustful, inadequate, misanthropic and self-loathing. Each song on Philophobia is a dreary tale of affection gone awry. We can almost see him crying into his beer as he ogles yet another potential victim. After all, just because he knows better doesn't mean he can keep his dick in his pants. And he'd be the first to admit that. There are more cocks and cunts than an Allen Ginsberg poem, and more messy sheets than a 13 year-old boy's bedroom. Contrary to a typical pop song which glorifies love at first sight, Arab Strap aren't afraid to deal with the messy aftermath of "love" in all its myriad forms - the mind games, stained sheets, and hungover regrets. In fact, Aidan seems to thrive on them, even as they fill him with loathing, both for himself and the women he's with. His candor is reminiscent of Liz Phair, though she at least claimed to write under the aegis of fiction. Aidan has no such pretensions and cannot claim to be speaking for anyone but himself. But like Phair, he seems to be exiled in a private "Guyville" where women are objects of lust, scorn and envy, rarely treated as equals, or even understood. However, beneath his apparent misogyny, Aidan is simply a hopeless romantic. For all his bluster and talk of "pulling birds", Philophobia is really a love letter to that enigmatic gender which causes him no end of grief, a good portion of which is self-inflicted. We know he knows better; he does too, but that doesn't keep him from continually making the same mistakes anyway. But in spite, or perhaps because of all the above, Philophobia is a beautiful album. I don't only mean the music, courtesy of partner-in-crime Malcolm Middleton, which is stark and eerie, with a mournful violin that entwines itself between and around Aidan's tales, a string section on loan from Belle & Sebastian, and a metronomic drum machine that belies their emotional complexity. Rather, the stories themselves are grim and stunning examples of music verite. Literary comparisons come to mind more often than musical ones - the album sleeve is printed like a novel, the lyrics running into one seamless and sordid tale of debauchery followed by regret in the morning. And the week after. And five years down the line, as well. The song "New Birds" rings true with particularly poignancy. Aidan bumps into an ex-girlfriend at a pub, feels all the twinges of his old lust and wants desperately to right all his wrongs, but can't put thoughts of his current girlfriend out of his head: "But you have to remember there's this other kiss. She's at home, wondering where you are and what you're doing. And you worked hard on this kiss and you know it inside out, it's as much yours as it is hers." And as their breath commingles in the frosty air, he has to decide whether they'll need one taxi home or two. Sorry, you'll have to buy the album to find out how it ends. Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1998 15:33:20 +0000 From: djt <djt@STATE51.CO.UK> Subject: Top pop records of 1998 ARAB STRAP <<Philophobia>> (Chemikal Underground/Matador) Depending on your attitude, this is an hateful album made by a bunch of foul-mouthed Glaswegians, or a fantastically inspired opus made by a bunch of foul-mouthed Glaswegians. I am in the latter camp; the ballads on this record are inspiring commentary on contemporary sexual attitudes in modern Britain. The music is pretty good too. I wouldn't like Arab Strap to keep digging their hole any further however.