Harking back to those cheery Cherry Red days before Tracey Thorn met Ben
Watt, and openly taking her cues from the Zen-like
guitar/bass/drum-machine mantras of Young Marble Giants, Glasgow lass
Katie Stewart — the sole force behind Tibi Lubin, her one-man band that
has gone on to blossom into a belovedly lovely girl-group trio — stages
a stagey séance that ditches mordant shadows of modern gothickry to
frolic in the garden-sunshine of that post-punk kitchen-sink pop sound.
Whilst she doesn't quite get the sing-song spirit in high enough spirits
to really recall Marine Girls, what Stewart shares with those combos is
a desire to reduce pop-song to its basic elements, to use the
tearing-down rebellion of punk-rock as artistic impetus to play simple
songs unfettered by flounce and flourish. I Don't See You as a Dead
Girl, Stewart's debut disc as Tibi Lubin, finds her working with a
pretty simple musical palette, with, basically, the pre-set rhythms of a
Korg thunking away whilst she picks nimble guitar-jangle over the top,
and sings in a voice whose breathy, half-spoken exhalations are more
than a little reminiscent of Alison Statton's work out front of Young
Marble Giants. She does get some help on the set, with Simon Shaw
playing the basslines that often serve as a tonal anchor, and Jenny
Reeve's violin crying winsome tears in the very-minimal "Oh Botticelli,"
then later layered in multi-track'd string-section-ish shades over the
closer "Clay to Fire." But, for the most part, it's Stewart fashioning
the sound herself, her lyrics often referring back to long stretches
spent inside one's own head. Like on that last number, where the simple
chorus of duties — "I have a form to fill out/ I have a novel to write/ I
have some clay to fire" — speaks of the day-to-day days of artists.
Which seems like great evidence that Stewart's heart dwells far away
from rock 'n' roll romanticism. She's spoken of psychedelicate girl-group
Slumber Party as being an inspiration for Tibi Lubin, but, where that
Motor City crew evoke the whole VU mythology every time they dangle
those delay-draped guitar lines out into the narcotized night, in her
own reduced world of simple, slumberous pop-song, Stewart uses no sound
that can stir up associations with the collective rock-mythology. Hers
is hand-made, home-made, home-fired music made for rainy days and
Mondays.
|
