The new record from The Pastels is not a Pastels record. Well, it's got Stephen Pastel on it, and there are bits that cover some of the same territory, albeit briefly, but it's a much more expansive project. This Is Memorial Device: Music from the Stage Play is a work by Stephen Pastel and Gavin Thomson that offers up something like a soundtrack album. It's on Domino now.
The best way to review something like this is to share some of the background press about the project:
"This is Memorial Device is the expanded soundtrack to Graham Eatough's Fringe First award-winning stage adaptation of David Keenan's 2017 cult novel of the same name. Coming across as a third iteration of the book, it establishes a whole new angle on the myth of Memorial Device through reworked home recordings from the era and expanded versions of music originally scored for the theatre production.Following recent performances in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, the award-winning production, starring Paul Higgins (The Thick of It, Slow Horses), also had a successful run of shows at London's Riverside Studios last month."
The material here is dense, somewhat playful, and percussive and synth-oriented in spots. It's nearly impossible to try to objectively review, given that it's a stage-play soundtrack, and any criticism is likely to be lobbed in ignorance of what the sounds are meant to accompany. However, it is worth your time, particularly Pastels fans. And there's a risk-taking here that is infectious.
This Is Memorial Device: Music from the Stage Play by Stephen Pastel and Gavin Thomson is out now via Domino.
[Photo: Steven Gribbin]