Belle and Sebastian

Tue 5th Apr, 2011 in Features

The latest chapter in the tale of Glasgow’s bookish anti-stars, Belle and Sebastian is titled simply enough, Write About Love. It’s as though a light-bulb went off in their collective heads at some ‘new album ideas’ meeting and it read ‘go do what you always do’. They did and the results were unmistakably Belle & Sebastian; in other words another enchanting and rewarding listen, devoid of any ‘Mills & Boon’ sentiments.

Although no such light-bulb moment took place, the band did take their longest between-album break so far in their 15 year career. Suggesting Write About Love was an aural face-palm and a reminder of what they did best as a collective seems like a good place to start an interview with keyboardist Chris Geddes.

With his incredibly soft speaking voice, Geddes says little to re-enforce my thoughts on their new album’s title, but instead suggests that “We just didn’t ever want to get to the point where we are going through the motions and that’s partly what lead to us taking a break for a while. Plus Stuart [Murdoch, leadsinger] wanted to work on another project, which ended up taking a couple of years. I don’t think there was any doubt we would get back together though. Without really discussing it, we were all I think under the assumption that there would be future Belle and Sebastian activity.”

That ‘other project’ Murdoch was working on during Belle & Sebastian’s hiatus, God Help The Girl, in turn lead to surprising guest vocalists appearing on Write About Love’s. “Norah Jones [who guests on Little Lou, Ugly Jack and Prophet John ] I think came on board because a good friend of Stuart’s from years ago turned out to be an ex-housemate of hers…” Chris laughs, possibly at the sound of himself name-dropping, “And Carey Mulligan, well Stuart just saw her in a film and was quite keen to get her into the studio because he was working on the script for his film, God Help The Girl and he thought she’d be good for a role in that.”

The script and score for the musical film is entirely Stuart Murdoch’s work outside of his commitment to Belle and Sebastian. He had written stories exclusively about women and for women to sing and went about auditioning artists, mostly unknowns, to play the parts. Carey Mulligan was an exception in that she had an already developed career as an actress, mostly in bonnet dramas, however, she makes a rather impressive singing debut on the title track to Write About Love.

“I think she was amazing really,” Chris continues, “but I read in an interview she did after that she was extremely nervous about the whole thing.” He laughs, “You would never have known at the time though, but I guess that’s the actor in her.”
Geddes an enthusiastic fan of Belle and Sebastian’s work, as though his contribution to Write About Love is far from his mind. “I think it has some very strong tracks on it,” he dutifully states, “Sarah [Martin]’s writing is probably my favourite thing about the whole record… [and] I think Stuart and Stevie [Jackson]’s songs are among the best they have ever written in Belle and Sebastian.”