Belle & Sebastian’s principle singer and songwriter Stuart Murdoch is set to release the forthcoming album titled God Help The Girl, as details have slowly begun to appear as to what exactly this latest venture is all about. According to Murdoch, he has been intermittently working on the project for the last five years, as it was conceived as an original film with the notion of it also being planned as a musical at some point.
The soundtrack album, which is being described as “a story set to music,” will contain 12 songs that were recorded in Glasgow and feature many reworkings of many songs from Belle & Sebastian’s last album, The Life Pursuit. Each of these songs will feature guest vocalists, many of which were winners of a singing competition who were flown into Glasgow to take part in rehearsing and recording in early 2008. Also joining these vocalists are the Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon and Asya from Smoosh, which rounds out the total number of singers to nine.
As for the reason to bring in different vocalists, Murdoch goes into detail as to why he decided to go this route, “I was out for a run and I got this tune in my head and it occurred to me that it wasn’t a Belle & Sebastian song. I could hear female voices and strings, I could hear the whole thing, but I just couldn’t envisage myself singing it with the group.” He continues, “All the time I was touring with Belle and Sebastian, I was putting aside songs for certain characters,” he says, “and at one point I realized, that it would make sense to string them together to form the backbone of a musical narrative.”
The album is set to be released on June 22nd (23rd in the US) with the single “Come Monday Night” due out on May 11th. You can hear that single below, which features the vocals of Catherine Ireton (the female on the cover of the “White Collar Boy” single), who also serves as one of the primary vocalists on the record. From what I’ve heard so far, this is essentially Belle & Sebastian at it’s purest. It’s heavenly indie pop, that would almost be impossible not to like. The different vocalists add an interesting dynamic to many of these familiar songs; along with them being completely reworked, which happens to still sound very fresh. I’m sure many will just groan and would rather have a new album, but I would suggest to give this one a listen.
MP3: God Help The Girl :: “Come Monday Night”
MP3: God Help The Girl :: “Funny Little Frog”
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