Although shoegaze fans have had quite a bit of nostalgia (or… more accurately, “imagined nostalgia,” as most of them were unlikely there the first time around) to get excited about as of recently, between Slowdive reuniting last year, and Ride’s upcoming dates (their first in nearly two decades), but another major player in the early days of the sub-genre of alt rock has also been making waves for the first time in quite a while. Saint Marie Records recently remastered and re-released Tatooine, the sophomore and farewell LP from Blind Mr. Jones, an underrated outfit out of Marlow, England, that existed for roughly three years in the early ‘90s (and did mingle among the likes of Slowdive and Ride… and Radiohead, for that matter.). Their final effort turns legal drinking age this year… The album was re-released on CD late last year and last week saw its first ever release on vinyl.
The sounds found on Tatooine are not only still satisfying, but they ring of much of the greatest music to come in the years since its release. They often ring of the kind of groovy, psychedelic, hippie dream pop that The Dandy Warhols would go on to make a career off of. They also seemed capable of blending the appeal of the pompous swagger of most Brit Pop with experimentations that put them more in the field of admirably intellectual Rock’N’Roll. On the other hand, single “Disneyworld” is reminiscent of the best indie sounds of the generation previous to Blind Mr. Jones, something like experts of jangle pop, like R.E.M.-at-their-best, playing at a post-punk party, in-between spins of Factory Records releases. And while this reissue is unlikely to crack charts… and the band don’t seem to have plans of reuniting, if you’re fortunate enough to make it to one of Ride’s very few shows this summer (… I’ll certainly be in New York…), casually mentioning to the person next to you that you were really impressed by how great of a job Saint Marie Records did of remastering such a great and critically-under-acknowledged record as Tatooine is very likely to impress someone who, I’m guessing, is the kind of person very worth impressing…
