Years and years ago my great old pal Matt (who I unfortunately lost touch with and now haven’t seem for a long time) made me a brilliant mixtape, that I was listening to regularly until very recently. It was a combination of whacked-out drug music (including a ten-minute Timothy Leary trip and some very early Spiritualized), excellent oldtime classics (Bowie in particular) and a variety of indie-pop including The Loft and two tracks by Hurrah! The latter tracks – ‘Hip Hip’ and ‘Flowers’ – I particularly loved for their mix of ringing, clear guitar melody and sardonic-sounding lyrical style.
It was because of those tracks and that tape that I bought this album, hoping it would be a lot more of the same. The two tracks mentioned above aren’t on here, and in many ways it’s a blander set of songs than those. That leads me to wonder whether those tracks were a fluke, or were out of character for the band. Or perhaps it was a signifier of Hurrah!’s move from indie to major label? Whilst this record bears Kitchenware’s logo is does also that of Arista, suggesting some kind of second-album-sees-band-and-label-do-press-and-distribution-deal-with-major scenario. That’s pure conjecture; but I’d still like to seek out Hurrah!’s first album, which was released ‘purely’ on Kitchenware. What I’d like to hear are more songs in the vein of ‘Hip Hip’ and ‘Flowers’ – more reminders of that brilliant tape!