I’ve just finished reading Travis Eldborough’s rather enjoyable history of the vinyl LP, The Long-Player Goodbye and was rather taken by the ways in which new technologies such as the vinyl album, recording techniques, the compact disc and MP3’s – have affected the ways that music is recorded, produced and marketed but also the ways in which we supposedly listen to and consume music over the decades. Of course epic albums existed well before the CD with its 80 minutes of storage with the urge to produce double and even triple albums afflicting even those punk rockers The Clash on Sandinista which covered six sides of the black plastic stuff. However, these were the exceptions rather than the rule. Often with the CD album it seems we want more quantity rather than quality of sounds. 45 minutes is no longer enough, we want more, more, more. Yet how many albums keep your attention past the hour mark? How many gigs have you seen where you’ve wanted less not more? Or is it just me and my limited attention span? Ah well, I’m glad we’ve got that that sorted out.
For Gemma Garmeson less is certainly more. Much more. Stalking For Dummies manages to do and say a lot more in twelve songs and thirty-five minutes than a lot of other albums and she doesn’t outstay her welcome a moment too long. Stalking For Dummies is a sweet, charming confection that recalls the Marine Girls with its bare bones but nearly perfect instrumentation, wry lyrics, melodies and subtle observations on the need for honest communication.
Opening song, ‘Flip Flop’ is simplicity itself. Just bass guitar, flashes of acoustic guitar and Garmeson’s matter-of-fact voice telling a sweet tale of a chance encounter where ‘we met like in a film and I’m wondering what the end is’. ‘Who’s The Daddy’ is just acoustic guitar, voice and the most primitive of drum machines. It’s very effective and to the point with sharp, humorous lyrics and a sly melody. ‘I Don’t Want To Be Your Number Two’ is a lovely song, sparse and moving. Garmeson’s songs are all about everyday life in a media saturated society, not the clichéd, glib tales of lads ‘n’ lasses out in the town acting lairy but set in places like the ‘canteen where the food is always disappointing’. Like ‘Flip Flop’ the bass is the main instrument. Along with Garmesonss voice, it drives this neat, catchy song along interspersed with some delicate percussion and piano.
‘Shut Up And Kiss Me’ is a sweet, sweet song. A melancholy voice, ornate vocal harmonies, picked guitar and a great line in put-downs: ‘I’ll pretend you’re a man of mystery / If you’ll just shut up and kiss me’ being a favourite of mine. This is a classy paean to lust and being caught in the moment. ‘Stalking For Dummies’ is slightly more fleshed out with drums and harmonica accompanying the voice and guitar. It’s a cool, snappy number about the vagaries of dating in the modern, technological word with unsettling lines such as
Would you be thrilled if I texted you?
Saying I’m your new stalker, how do you do?
Stalking for dummies says it’s too soon to say
Anything that might give me away.
‘Happy Father’s Day’ is utterly desolate and almost unbearably heartbreaking with piano, cello and unobtrusive percussion. At first I thought Garmeson was addressing an absent, perhaps married lover as she sings about her potential to ‘turn up and rock your family’ but it soon becomes clear that the subject is an absentee father, one who remains better imagined and faraway than in the flesh.
‘Mavis’ is a lot lighter with its country-ish tune and witty lyric offering a feasible if flawed theory for dating people on the rebound. It’s a smart, sassy happy-sad song with a classy pay-off. ‘Skin’ is another clever song., this time a dig at the world of cosmetic surgery with a neat revenge fantasy tying it together. The burst of fuzzy guitar and prehistoric drum machine towards the end comes as a bit of a shock but a pleasant one. That, and the songs catchy hooks remind me a little of Helen Love as it briefly gives the album a different sense of momentum and trajectory without ever jarring or changing the mood.
On the delightful ‘Paper’, Garmeson sounds positively spooked. A haunting song about how opposites do attract and how on paper similarities ‘from the way we liked our tea / To the dad’s we never see’ can, ultimately, become a trap as two become one. With just an acoustic guitar and cello Garmeson conjures up a wonderful atmosphere and gives her most heartfelt vocal performance. “Paper’ isn’t in anyway self-pitying or maudlin, just honest and warm. ‘Amanda’ is a gentle song about a woman who makes a list of what she seeks in the perfect man but forgets about a vital ingredient, love. It’s got a really nice feel to it, particularly the tiny but perfectly formed chorus and some lovely little touches and flourishes. ‘Favourite Offender’ is full of hurt and pain wrapped in a remarkable performance and tune with Garmeson losing her ‘illusions’ as she ‘tried a thousand ways / To reconcile your gentle eyes with your dirty hands’. It has a dark, compelling folk tinted feel to it, delicate yet robust. ‘A to B’ is a lighter song, a relief after the darkness of ‘Favourite Offender’ as it uses that kids song about connecting bones to tell of the equally vital connections that bring songs into being, the varied ways we listen to and consume music and its life beyond the artist. With the final verse
So the songs go from me to you
All the way from A to B
And even if you download for free
I hope that they’ll survive the journey
Garmeson becomes a Desperate Bicycles for the iPOd / MP3 generation. The medium might be the tedium but these charming songs deserve to survive any journey.
Garmeson has produced a very special record that, while cute and clever in places, is never cloying or smug. It’s an unfussy, uncluttered album where the songs are allowed to breathe and flourish, observing and commenting on the minutiae of everyday life in words and music free from cliché or cynicism. A breath of fresh, cool air. You really ought to stalk this album down and prepared to be charmed, wooed and seduced by Stalking For Dummies and its simple pleasures.
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