There's Rain on the Roof, It's Been Going On For Days...Jean-Paul Sartre Experience Love Songs

Where the Wild Things Were

Love Songs is an assuming little gem from the Flying Nun label by the band formerly known as The Jean-Paul Sartre Experience. Unfortunately for them, the rough and tumble world of the existential philosopher can often be a vindictive one, and the Estate of Sartre made them change their name to the boring sounding JPS Experience. If I were them I would have gone with Camus, or perhaps Spinoza and completely cut ties with those ingrates. I'm sure they didn't thank the band for the new found attention to Mr Sartre's works that the band's moniker no doubt drew.

I think I first heard this band on a Flying Nun comp, probably In Love With These Times, the song being Flex. I wanted to hear some more so I managed to grab this little album. It's kind of strange. If you were to look at the album cover without knowing anything about the band, you would never guess what kind of music they played. Turns out, Love Songs is a nice bucolic, mostly mellow sensitive pop album. Some of the songs are bluesy numbers, but my favorites are the quieter tunes. In fact Flex is probably the loudest track here. In some way they remind me a little of the Paisley Underground group Rain Parade.

Personnel:
Dave Yetton:Vocals, Bass
Gary Sullivan: Drums
Dave Mulcahy: Guitar
Jim Laing: Guitar


I would say the album starts out strongly, and then sputters a bit. The first five songs are great tunes. Certainly they are prime examples of the lo-fi jangly pop that Flying Nun was known for in their 80's heyday. But I don't think these guys got the notice that bands like Tall Dwarfs, Bats, Chills, Clean got. But I really like this album, definitely worth some consideration.

Love Songs begins with the dour psychedelic bucolia of Fish in The Sea, some really lovely guitar passages that remind me of Echo and The Bunnymen in their Moody Blues mode. Probably my favorite track on this disc is the mesmerizing Own Two Feet.

There's rain on the roof
It's been going on for days
It's cosy inside
I wish you hadn't gone away....

Equally impressive is the mellow ballad Walking Wild in Your Firetime which notably includes xylophone and brass. Grey Parade is another lovely tune, sort of a woozy dirge in the vein of the Velvet Underground. With cello. One of their best songs. Gone, stone cold, gone. Loving Grapevine is a great and more uptempo jangle tune that probably should have been a hit song. Other worthy tunes are the happy oboe and keyboard fest I Like Rain, and the aforementioned Flex.





I actually saw the JPS Exp. in later form when a slew of Nun bands came over on the Noisyland Tour. I think that must have been at the time of their third album, Bleeding Star. I saw The Bats, Bailter Space (bass amp blew up), and late era Straitjacket Fits also. I can't say I remember that much about the performance of JPS, but I think they were good, albeit a much noisier animal than the band found on Love Songs. At that time, I think that Flying Nun was believing the critical hype and thought that a lot of these bands could break over here in the US. They even temporarily opened up a Flying Nun USA in North Carolina.



I guess it didn't exactly work out. And the sad thing is that there is such a slew of excellent releases from New Zealand from that period. And the nice thing is of course that Jean-Paul Sartre Experience Love Songs happens to be available from Flying Nun Records now, both in Cd and Mp3 formats. Maybe not the first band to get if you are curious about Flying Nun bands, but if you like the Chills, Clean, and the Bats, this would not be a bad album to pick up.