I’ve never been to California, but thanks to the ‘magic’ of modern television, it has nonetheless succeeded in permeating my imagination. What it has actually permeated me with would depend on the channel I was watching: E4’s love of imports brought me the saccharine rich kid pool-parties and spray tans of ‘90210’, with myriad excursions into ‘silicon valley’ through trashy documentaries; Quest on the other hand saw me revel in the native grasses and giant sequoias of Calaveras. A welcome schooling from Jack Kerouac merged these distant entities in ‘On the Road’, striding into a crowded café bar, taking a girl with no second name into the foothills and fooling around in the back of an old beaten sedan. Of late I have resigned such absolute, romantic visions to the fact that a seedy underbelly resides beneath postcards of the shimmering lakes of Tahoe or the rolling topography of Yosemite Park and Sierra, Nevada.
The only band from across the pond signed to the Sarah Records label, Aberdeen were able to capture the latter with an irresistible, naïve pop persuasion. Fronted by high-school sweethearts Beth Arzy (vocals/bass) and John Girgus (guitar), and a rotating cast of bid-part musicians and drum-machines, the group plied their glistening dream-pop across a handful of singles and one LP before disbanding in 2005. This CD, released following their demise, collects the band’s singles and EPs into something one could loosely call a ‘greatest hits’ package. Lumped in with the ‘twee-pop’ of Sarah – a ridiculous notion, given that only two releases exist with that label – Aberdeen, like the Field Mice, fell victim to cruel jabs from a vocal contingent of the press. Thankfully this did nothing to belittle their confidence, and their songs are still hummed in the shower by the receptive listeners of the original ‘indie’ generation. Compiled in chronological order, it is easy to chart the development both creatively and sonically from 'Byron' up to their final release, 'Florida', on Tremolo Arm Users Club, 2005.
Lyrically, the songs are not always brimming with the optimism one would imagine – like the Smiths, they favoured sardonic, playful one-liners wrapped in lush harmonies; a lethal combo to a paisley-clad English Lit student in their late teens. Their 1995 EP ‘Fireworks’ still stands out, sounding fresher than ever. The Byrds, a dashing of Supertramp and the occasional nod to the Cocteau Twins continues to set them apart from their contemporaries; slowly building to a swirling, psychedelic conclusion, the title track is a sonic document of corroding romance. ‘Super Sunny Summer’ is onomatopoeic to the highest degree – it swans along from one pithy escapist line to another, and I love it. Its vivacious backbeat and ringing guitars shimmer beneath Arzy’s breezy vocals. The nursery rhyme lyrics – ‘let’s catch a wave and say/the ocean’s blue, let’s sail away’ – are sweet to the tooth, sure, but are given a palpable vitality alongside the music. The halcyon groove of debut single 'Byron', with it's charming DIY cover art, is one of the weaker tracks here thanks to the spindly production, but still contains enough hooks to keep you coming back and back. Latter day tunes 'The Boy Has Gone Away' and 'Sink or Float' are more aligned with the likes of Belle & Sebastiane; not surprisingly, these remain the band's most commercially memorable, the latter receiving exposure on the soundtrack to 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer'.
The namesake ‘Florida’ is Robert Smith’s day at the beach, all echo and reverb with a chorused staccato bass line – like the Cure’s ‘To the Sky’ holding a bucket and spade; a polaroid of ‘that great day last summer, remember?’ Something about the musical undercurrent is telling, you can almost feel that they had reached the end of their creative and personal tethers. Reading the booklet along with music confirms that unlike a lot of groups who separate their lives from their art – pretending everything is merry before pulling each other’s hair out off-camera – Aberdeen made clear the strains that would ultimately be their undoing.
If this article has given you a headache, I would not blame you: Aberdeen are one of those bands where resorting to hackneyed cliché – ‘achingly beautiful’, etcetera - is almost unavoidable, so my apologies. This is record plays out like those seemingly never-ending school holidays, the weather was always perfect, and throwing stones on the shore distracted from inner-turmoils we were all wracked with in our youth. The good news is that as we listeners grow up, have 'serious' relationships and begin finding our way in the world, the songs themselves remain timeless. If you need more, the band's sole long-player 'Homesick and Happy to Be Here' comes highly recommended. One piece of advice: do not play whilst flicking through old photo albums, your make-up runs.
For that sickly-sweet taste, for your viewing pleasure :)
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