UNREST
“Isabel”
aka our belov’d site editor’s least favorite Isabel song ever, I seem to recall, and he has reason to take the matter with due seriousness. But for some reason I had only known the version that ended up rerecorded on 4AD — I remember a bit of hype and attention way back when Imperial ffrr came out but I only actually finally got that album used fairly recently, finally more or less completing my collection of that group’s work, at least in terms of albums. So I was surprised when instead of a full band arrangement I heard only acoustic guitar and Mark Robinson singing the plaintive melody. And quite lovely it was — in retrospect now, Robinson’s particular rushed-indie-pop Factory/Postcard/etc. fetish has moved from tribute to being equally mistily dated somewhere in a not-grunge past. Tom still won’t think anything of it, though.