The last thing anyone would have expected from Belle and Sebastian after the languid poetics, soft-focus instrumentation, and tasteful trumpet refrains of If You’re Feeling Sinister — the 1997 album that introduced the Scottish band to US audiences — was producer Trevor Horn. But once strange Stuart David and shy cellist Isobel Campbell drifted away from the group, it was Horn who came to the rescue, teaching singer-songwriter Stuart Murdoch, guitarist Stevie Jackson, and latecomer Bob Kildea about things like arrangements for three-part harmonies, a rhythm section with a bit of a kick, and even the occasional heroic guitar solo. Perhaps he led them too far astray on 2003’s Dear Catastrophe Waitress (Matador), but with The Life Pursuit (Matador), it seems, B&S have stumbled on the perfect balance of Sinister’s preciousness and Waitress’s production and gained fans in the process.
Before the first of two sold-out shows at Avalon a week ago Monday, tickets on the street were going only for face value. But there wasn’t an inch of wiggle room inside the club once the New Pornographers packed up their gear and the equipment for first seven and then eight Belle and Sebastians was littered about the stage. It was like a trip back through time. As Murdoch opened with Sinister’s sinister first cut, “Stars of Track and Field,” the rest of the band kept so low, you could have heard a tear drop from the eyes of any number of the indie faithful who’d gathered in front as they looked up to their dressed-down hero. And then Mick Cooke’s trumpet moved into the spotlight and injected the melancholy air with its plaintive wail. Indeed, the band remained curiously quiet throughout the set, even when a spiffy, suit-and-tied Jackson took his turn at the mike for the upbeat “Be Myself Completely,” with its soulful Motown groove. Hard to call anything this low-key a triumph. Just as hard not to.
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Found sounds, Mythtruster, Guest lists, More 
- Found sounds
It may be a relief for long-time fans of Belle and Sebastian to hear nothing but the subtle click of rimshot snare, light piano chordings, and strummy guitar at the start of the band’s new The Life Pursuit (Matador).
- Mythtruster
When it comes to getting an honest answer, there may be no better member of Belle and Sebastian than guitarist Stevie Jackson.
- Guest lists
What small, private lists like this remind us is that big, honking institutional lists are largely fictions, mirages of a consensus that no longer exists, if it ever really did in the first place.
- Post-punk prophet
With a narrative arc that begins in the London dub dungeon of Public Image Limited and ends in the worldbeating semen storm of Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the whole grand experiment of post-punk is tracked and given coherence.
- Belle and Sebastian | The BBC Sessions
Call ’em twee or call ’em bookish (after all, they did take their name from a French children’s book), but don’t call Belle & Sebastian anemic.
- Arab Strap
Even after 10 years, Arab Strap are probably better known for the Belle and Sebastian album title The Boy with the Arab Strap than for any of their own recordings here in the US.
- The Pet Shop Boys
Coming off a soundtrack for Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin and a UK-only hits collection (PopArt), Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe put out their first full album of new songs since 2002’s unfocused Release .
- Stars of Track and Field
Stars of Track and Field make a sound much bigger than Belle and Sebastian's tidy twee-pop shuffle.
- High and low culture from Japan
Attention, admirers of quirky kitsch and over-the-top aesthetics: hit PAUSE on that Belle and Sebastian record for a second.
- Get it while you can
A couple of months ago, a man with the screen name x-amount logged on to Recidivism.org , the blog he maintains with a few of his friends, and made a pronouncement.
- Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan
Isobel Campbell got her start playing cello and singing in the Glasgow indie collective Belle and Sebastian.
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Topics:
Live Reviews
, Media, Belle and Sebastian, Poetry, More
, Media, Belle and Sebastian, Poetry, The New Pornographers, Stars of Track and Field, Trevor Horn, Stuart Murdoch, Isobel Campbell, Stevie Jackson, Bob Kildea, Less
