Twenty-five years after its original release, Belle and Sebastian have produced their most popular album in limited pale blue artwork with matching coloured vinyl. This 25th Anniversary edition also includes an exclusive art print of behind-the-scenes photos from the promotional video for the album, taken by band member Sarah Martin.

This limited pale blue colour artwork is reproduced in the original colour used in 1998 on the album’s promotional poster and T-shirt.

The album was recorded in Glasgow at CaVa Studios during 1998. Videos were made at that time for Is It Wicked Not To Care, which inspired the 25th Anniversary art print, and Dirty Dream #2 (directed by Lance Bangs) which did not feature any band members.

Belle and Sebastian were awarded Best Newcomer at the 1999 Brit Awards following the release of The Boy With The Arab Strap.

Joining Stuart Murdoch on song writing duties on this album for the first time were band members Stevie Jackson, Isobel Campbell and Stuart David.

The eponymous title track has become one of the most popular Belle and Sebastian songs and an iconic symbol of the live shows, when the band are ritually joined by their fans onstage as they dance to ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap’.

TRACK LISTING

A1. It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career
A2. Sleep The Clock Around
A3. Is It Wicked Not To Care?
A4. Ease Your Feet In The Sea
A5. A Summer Wasting
A6. Seymour Stein
B1. A Spaceboy Dream
B2. Dirty Dream Number Two
B3. The Boy With The Arab Strap
B4. Chickfactor
B5. Simple Things
B6. The Rollercoaster Ride

Days of the Bagnold Summer began life as a 2012 award-winning graphic novel by Joff Winterhart, was turned into a feature film and the directorial debut of Simon Bird (The Inbetweeners, Friday Night Dinner), and is now a wonderful, rich, bittersweet, and warmly welcoming original soundtrack album by Belle and Sebastian on Matador Records.

The album features eleven brand new Belle and Sebastian songs, as well as re-recorded versions of classics 'Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying', originally appearing on 1996's If You’re Feeling Sinister, and ‘I Know Where The Summer Goes’, from 1998's This Is Just a Modern Rock Song EP.

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: Whether they're writing stand-alone albums, performing live or soundtracking, Belle And Sebastian have a pedigree that can't be denied. 'Days Of The Bagnold Summer' is in the latter camp, but works perfectly as a standalone album too, showcasing exactly why they're one of the most beloved bands on the indie circuit and have been for a great many years.

TRACK LISTING

Sister Buddha (Intro)
I Know Where The Summer Goes
Did The Day Go Just Like You Wanted?
Jill Pole
I'll Keep It Inside
Safety Valve
The Colour's Gonna Run
Another Day, Another Night
Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying
Wait And See What The Day Holds
Sister Buddha
This Letter
We Were Never Glorious

Recently, The Quietus published an interview with Stuart Murdoch and Richard Colburn which gives a hint of what to expect from "Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance". The album opens with “Nobody’s Empire,” which Stuart said “is absolutely the most personal [song] I’ve ever written.” About the beginnings of his lifelong struggle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which led to his first forays into songwriting, it is easily one of his most musically and emotionally epic songs.

What it doesn’t indicate is how fun the album is. Produced and mixed at Maze Studios in Atlanta by Ben H. Allen III, best known for his work with Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective, and Raury, among others, the band – who have been listening to things like vintage Detroit techno and Giogio Moroder – have brought a dance-party element (and a disco song about Sylvia Plath) into their gorgeous tales of sensitive souls navigating a world gone awry. It is perhaps the most inspired and wide-reaching album Belle and Sebastian have ever made.

TRACK LISTING

1. Nobody's Empire
2. Allie
3. The Party Line
4. The Power Of Three
5. The Cat With The Cream
6. Enter Sylvia Plath
7. The Everlasting Muse
8. Perfect Couples
9. Ever Had A Little Faith?
10. Play For Today
11. The Book Of You
12. Today (This Army's For Peace)

Recently, The Quietus published an interview with Stuart Murdoch and Richard Colburn which gives a hint of what to expect from "Girls In Peacetime Want To Dance". The album opens with “Nobody’s Empire,” which Stuart said “is absolutely the most personal [song] I’ve ever written.” About the beginnings of his lifelong struggle with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome which led to his first forays into songwriting, it is easily one of his most musically and emotionally epic songs.

What it doesn’t indicate is how fun the album is. Produced and mixed at Maze Studios in Atlanta by Ben H. Allen III, best known for his work with Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective, and Raury, among others, the band – who have been listening to things like vintage Detroit techno and Giogio Moroder – have brought a dance-party element (and a disco song about Sylvia Plath) into their gorgeous tales of sensitive souls navigating a world gone awry. It is perhaps the most inspired and wide-reaching album Belle and Sebastian have ever made.

TRACK LISTING

Side 1
1. The Party Line

Side 2
1. The Everlasting Muse
2. The Power Of Three
3. Today (This Army's For Peace)

Side 3
1. Enter Sylvia Plath

Side 4
1. Born To Act
2. Two Birds
3. Ever Had A Little Faith? (Extended Version)

Side 5
1. Play For Today

Side 6
1. Nobody's Empire
2. Piggy In The Middle
3. The Book Of You

Side 7
1. Perfect Couples (Extended Version)

Side 8
1. Allie
2. A Politician's Silence
3. The Cat With The Cream

Unlike its predecessors, "Write About Love" is an album which has come together in a relatively short period of time. After reconvening in February 2010, a period of writing and pre-production in Glasgow was followed by a trip to Los Angeles for recording with Tony Hoffer (who also produced ‘The Life Pursuit’) at the renowned Sound Factory Studio B.

Adopting a more fluid approach than on the previous record, fourteen songs were recorded and mixed by the start of June, of which eleven feature on the CD and vinyl releases. Two further tracks from these sessions appear on a bonus 7” with the vinyl edition of the album.

As ever, the record draws the band’s internal songwriting strengths, but this time includes some guest performances. Stuart Murdoch wrote the majority of the songs on the album, while Sarah Martin takes lead vocals on her two contributions, "I Didn’t See It Coming" and "I Can See Your Future" and Stevie Jackson on his ("I’m Not Living In The Real World"). In addition, Norah Jones contributes lead vocals to "Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John" (which also appears on her forthcoming album of duets and collaborations called "Featuring") and actress Carey Mulligan sings on "Write About Love". Strings were added by LA residents The Section Quartet.

STAFF COMMENTS

Millie says: I’m spoilt for choice with Belle and Sebastian albums; they’re a favourite band of mine, their juxtaposition of melancholic lyrics with upbeat and cheery melodies are just brilliant. It’s bold and rosy; their story-like style is prominent in their ever on-going array of music.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Didn't See It Coming
2. Come On Sister
3. Calculating Bimbo
4. I Want The World To Stop
5. Little Lou, Ugly Jack, Prophet John (Feat. Norah Jones)
6. Write About Love (Feat. Carey Mulligan)
7. I'm Not Living In The Real World
8. Ghost Of Rockschool
9. Read The Blessed Pages
10. I Can See Your Future
11. Sunday's Pretty Icons

Seven albums in and Belle and Sebastian have just made the best record of their career. Produced by Tony Hoffer this album feels both familiar and strange at the same time. There is a powerful aesthetic at the heart of the "The Life Pursuit" that places it at some time in the early-to-middle Seventies without ever specifically sounding like anything you can put your finger on. Belle And Sebastian pull in stuff from all over the place, so that Sly & the Family Stone/Funkadelic inflections ("Song For Sunshine") sits side by side with the classic Bubblegum riffs and call-and-response vocals of "White Collar Boy" (another sure-fire stomping single); the "Queen Bitch"-era Bowie stylings of "Sukie In the Graveyard"; the glammy T-Rex of "The Blues Are Still Blue"; the prime-time miserablism of a Terry Hall "Mornington Crescent" and the irrepressible rousing piano drive of "The Price Of A Cup Of Tea". All formats come beautifully packaged.

After 1997's "If You're Feeling Sinister" made them critics' darlings, Scottish octet Belle And Sebastian ran straight into a series of label woes, and into the inevitable feeding frenzy that surrounds a free agent with their prodigious talents. Their experience with one label exec is detailed in "Seymour Stein" on "The Boy With The Arab Strap", which finds theband building on the pastoral pop charms of "Sinister...", adding a palpable layer of anger and an increasingly rich sonic palette to their painfully shy tales of despair.

Near-overnight success taught the band a lot. This album moves from their trademark confessional diary sketches (still in abundance, as on the disarmingly naive "Is It Wicked Not To Care", and the tender "Rollercoaster Ride") to genuine social criticism, as on the title track, a narrative meditation on Britain's pretensions and societal ills. "Chickfactor" pulls apart the banality the band encountered on arrival in New York, an experience which only served to deepen the bashful anger that makes Belle and Sebastian so endearing.

TRACK LISTING

1. It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career
2. Sleep The Clock Around
3. Is It Wicked Not To Care
4. Ease Your Feet In The Sea
5. A Summer Wasting
6. Seymour Stein
7. A Space Boy Dream
8. Dirty Dream Number Two
9. The Boy With The Arab Strap
10. Chickfactor
11. Simple Things
12. The Rollercoaster Ride

Their first 'official' release, after the limited edition "Tiger Milk" album. Includes "The Stars Of Track And Field" and "If You're Feeling Sinister". Clever, witty songs - a true indie classic.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Stars Of Track And Field
2. Seeing Other People
3. Me And The Major
4. Like Dylan In The Movies
5. The Fox In The Snow
6. Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying
7. If You're Feeling Sinister
8. Mayfly
9. The Boy Done Wrong Again
10. Judy And The Dream Of Horses

For their fourth and most cleverly titled album, Glasgow's fey folk-popsters Belle & Sebastian have constructed another11 songs that at times reach into new musical and lyrical areas. Following secondary composer Stuart David's departure, de facto leader Stuart Murdoch divides the songwriting chores among the other members; yet what's apparent is the single-mindedness of Belle & Sebastian's song focus.

The overall mood is even softer and more precious (if that can be believed) than their previous efforts. Murdoch and Chris Geddes' "Don't Leave The Light On Baby" is the band's attempt at a '70s soul ballad, a Wurlitzer adding a Music-of-My-Mind vibe to a lovers' dissertation. Isobel Campbell's "Beyond The Sunrise" is biblical Celtic-prog-folk, all flutes and acoustic guitar, while Jackson's own "The Wrong Girl" is an upbeat, country-ish lament with typically soulful Belle & Sebastian strings and trumpet giving the song an understated melodic kick. Of course, Murdoch contributes a classic or two - "I Fought a War" is a gentle away-at-the-battlefield tale imbued with the greatest sense of dread Murdoch's ever given a song. And "Woman's Realm" is the kind of pop stomper "Arab Strap" was packed to the gills with, highlighted here by its increasingly quiet surroundings.

TRACK LISTING

1. I Fought In A War
2. The Model
3. Beyond The Sunrise
4. Waiting For The Moon To Rise
5. Don't Leave The Light On Baby
6. The Wrong Girl
7. The Chalet Lines
8. Nice Day For A Sulk
9. Women's Realm
10. Family Tree
11. There's Too Much Love