I’m currently listening to this all the way through for what must be the first time in 15+ years. I think the remastering really makes the tracks hold up better than I imagine the original album does, but since I gave all my Mogwai CDs to my dad when I left the UK, I don’t know when I’ll hear that version again.
Ridiculous how even before their debut album came out, they were already this good.
This is the ony Mogwai album that I bought out of sequence (like many people, I bought this after Young Team came out, and before Come On Die Young - every album since then I’ve bought on the day of release). I bought it around November / December 1998 when I was 15, in year 11 at secondary school in Winchster. Funny, given what it sounds like, this album is a Christmas album for me. I remember recording it onto two sides of a C90 cassette (with Young Team stuff filling up the gaps on each side) and listening to it while buying Christmas presents for my family. I had a 5-hour-a-week £4-an-hour cleaning job at a Montessori nursery school, hence why I had enough money to buy this album (from MVC in Winchester, I believe). Especially ‘Summer’ reminds me of Christmas, walking up and down the high street desperately trying to find inspiration for my parents presents.
Here’s my top 5
1 Helicon 1 (or is it ‘New Paths to Helicon part 1’?) I’ve never known exactly how to name these two tracks
2 Summer
3 Angels vs Aliens
4 Helicon 2 / New Paths to Helicon 2 or whatever)
5 Angels vs Aliens.
Hilarious to think that Angels vs Aliens was released as a split single with Dweeb