Stephen McRobbie’s indie favourites have spent 35 years rewriting the rules,inspiring subsequent generations – and finding unlikely stardom in JapanThe Pastels long ago became a kind of shorthand for a wan, wonky and distinctly unambitious strain of guitar music that’s as niche as they come. That – the result of a reductive association with the NME’s C86 cassette – has rendered them one of the most misrepresented cult groups of their era. There’s a much more compelling narrative to be told approximately a band integral to the birth of the Glasgow independent music scene, or who continue to obtain wonderful and surprising music (albeit very slowly: they average an album every seven years). Without the instincts,inspiration and energies of the Pastels’ softly-spoken founding singer-guitarist Stephen McRobbie, AKA Stephen Pastel – who runs the Domino Records imprint Geographic and co-founded one of the UK’s best independent record stores, or Monorail – the Glasgow scene would probably be bound together by significantly less camaraderie and common purpose than it does nowadays. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com