Belle and Sebastian Play If You’re Feeling Sinister, in Full

Description

Thirty years ago, the seven members of Belle and Sebastian went into a modest Glasgow studio and emerged, five days later, having recorded 10 songs that would change their lives forevermore. The resulting album, If You’re Feeling Sinister, enjoys a silly amount of acclaim for a work so seemingly unambitious — which is another way of saying, these songs were keepers.

The Scottish sextet may have released another 10 albums since, but none have quite touched the critical kryptonite of this one-off classic, their second, which has been compared to everyone from Nick Drake to the Boomtown Rats. Some have even complained the album’s twee introspective nature was too influential — its wallflower lyrics and mellow strummed guitars the template for a generation of transatlantic inheritors, from Death Cab for Cutie to Sufjan Stevens.

Whatever, expect these songs to be sung loud when the band returns to Hong Kong for the first time in 11 years to present this 41-minute masterpiece in full — plus a second set of singalongs from the rest of their feted back catalogue, with at least three tracks from 1998 follow-up The Boy with the Arab Strap regularly heard on recent setlists.