I'm always shocked, frankly, when something this good sneaks up on me. I guess that's the wrong choice of words since all this Lightships stuff came out in 2012 so it hardly snuck up on time more than it finally fell into my orbit. A project from Gerard Love of Teenage Fanclub, the album and various singles are just superb. And, I suppose, it's never too late to catch up on releases this good. Back then, while I was writing about other TFC-affiliated releases, I wasn't yet in touch with any press folks at Domino, the label of Lightships, so maybe that's why this didn't reach my radar. If not for a recent Facebook post by Archie Moore (of Velocity Girl), I'd never have heard of this band, and that would have been dreadful as all of this is elegant chamber pop of the very highest order.
Electric Cables, the lone full-length from Lightships, dropped on Stephen Pastel's Geographic imprint in 2012 and yet it's a timeless record. While some of this, like languid opener "Two Lines" sounds very much like material Love might have brought to the Fannies, some of this veers into more complicated directions. "Muddy Rivers" and "Every Blossom" are easy chamber pop masterpieces, revealing the influence of The Left Banke and bands like that filtered through Gerard's distinctive approach as a band-leader. "Silver and Gold" is swoon-worthy indie-pop, a riff on late period Byrds mixed with hints of the kind of material the late Chris Bell was near to making in his short solo career. And so much of this is familiar, yes, because of Love's vocals, but it's more concise and fully-realized than some Teenage Fanclub releases.
I think the secret to the success of the Lightships stuff is that Gerard Love seems as interested in the arrangements as he is in the hooks. And if "Stretching Out" features a modest guitar solo, for the most part Gerard Love is a craftsman of the pop song here, putting his attention there first. Nowhere are things more lovely than on the simple closer "Sunlight to the Dawn", a number that has the blissful charm of a High Llamas number with the directness of the best Fannies singles. The most obvious single from Electric Cables, "Sweetness in Her Spark", was paired with a Moondog cover on its flip, while "Silver and Gold" anchored the Fear and Doubt EP, also in 2012. The title cut of that EP is a masterpiece, a faint cousin to "Mellow Doubt" and other numbers from that era of the Fannies' past. It is, like nearly everything Lightships have offered up to date, an example of exactly how indie can be both catchy and perfectly-composed. Nothing's wasted in any of these cuts, with Love revealing further gifts as a songwriter and singer, while making sure that there's no filler on any of these releases, no indulgent diversions, no Neil Young approximations -- just pop bliss over and over again.
You can find out more about Lightships via Domino Records.
More details are on the old Lightships website.
[Photo: Domino]