Song(s) of the Day # 462 Papernut Cambridge

A great weekend with a good friend coming up from Cambridge and staying for a couple of days. Beer, talk of the past, football, music. Co-incidentally Papernut Cambridge is my discovery of the week, particularly their album from last year There's No Underground, (strangely a line from a Go-Betweens song, You've Never Lived, is that deliberate?). A peculiarly English album though. Haunted by the ghosts of Syd Barrett, Luke Haines, Robyn Hitchcock, Lawrence, Tajinder Singh, Ray Davies, Steve Marriott, Marc Bolan and Jesus and Mary Chain (Scottish I know but there's definitely some of that resigned lilt in the vocal delivery).

It's a very specific record and struck an immediate chord as soon as I heard its first notes . It's now on repeat play. Deeply evocative of suburban avenues and England's dreaming. Here's a paragraph from The Quietus review;

 'This is a great rock & roll record. Ian Button may be "haunted by the insects in his dark imaginings", as he intones on opener 'The Ghost Of Something Small', but outside that buzzing hook-laden head of his, it's a leisurely ride through glittering neon, the fluorescence that illuminates rock's shadowy nighttime world. The lights that feel like they're never gonna end whilst terminating all too quickly – there's 12 songs in 30 minutes here. But no matter, press play again and we're back amidst the exiled warriors on Electric Main Street. Just as one would never fault T. Rex for being derivative, so here the nods to rock's past – The Stones, Bolan himself, The Replacements, Kinks, and Mary Chain – are simply the lineage continuing itself. All sung in that sweet sinister voice a la Jim Reid, with just as sharp an ear for melody.'

Ian Button was previously in Death In Vegas and Eighties under achievers Thrashing Doves. The record sounds like someone who's done a long, studious apprenticeship and is now coming into his own. He knows his stuff, and has a small, beautifully formed vision.  He's listened to a few records in his time. The album is drenched in influences but nothing is slavishly aped and he makes something quite his own of it.

The record contains more golden moments then many feted Creation bands achieved over the course of entire careers. Each song is beautifully and lovingly crafted. The lyrics are wry, observant and consistently witty. A memory of a childhood world that is gone now but still there in the streets, the sounds and smells that remain. Anybody who loves guitar music, has a certain record collection and a few years in the tank will respond to what the album is saying. The band is still a small, independent, cottage industry concern on the wonderfully named Gare du Nord label. They deserve to outsell the increasingly ludicrous Noel Gallagher but of course will not. The world is wrong. Do yourself a favour and track it down.