PARENTHETICAL GIRLS
THE SCOTTISH PLAY

TOM130LP | released: 13/11/2009
  10 " | 15.00 €

01 Sit Down
02 Whale Badge
03 Doughnut
04 A Nuance
05 Over You Go
06 Going In A Field
07 The Best Thing
08 Everybody Got

Packaged in a silk-screened sleeve designed by renowned illustrator (and fellow Glaswegian) David Shrigley, this extremely limited release (500 total copies!) features Parenthetical adaptations of four songs and four prose poems from across the dense Cutler discography. These sparse, meditative recordings are a far cry from the chamber pop bombast of Parenthetical Girls' recent output, as the group continues to skirt sonic expectations with yet another creative 180. Which means we're back to where we started. As good a place as any for this to end, I suppose.

"When I do die I shall be glad to get away from loud pop music." Ivor Cutler

Ivor Cutler was an author, humorist, poet, absurdist, public school teacher, and criminally marginalized figure in the field of popular music. He released ten albums of songs and not songs - all characterized by his droll, thick, Scottish brogue - between 1961 and 1997 on some of Britain's most influential labels (Virgin, Rough Trade, Creation), back when people still cared about such things. He recorded an album with George Martin, and appeared in The Magical Mystery Tour film. He was dry and humble and charming and we miss him dearly. Ivor Cutler passed away in 2006 at the tender age of 83.

Parenthetical Girls are a marginal pop group from Portland, Oregon. They have released a handful of records, most notably last year's celebrated and sprawling orchestral pop opus Entanglements - a concept record so lush and beautiful that most people neglected to notice that it was about pedophilia. Their songs have been described as lascivious, unseemly, and grotesque. But their songs are also called lovely.

Over the past several years, Parenthetical Girls have developed a collective obsession with the life and works of Mr. Cutler so much so that they decided to devote two full sides (an astonishing eleven-and-a-half minutes!) of a ten-inch LP to pay tribute to his gentle genius.


Recent Accolades for Parenthetical Girls' Entanglements:

" one of 2008's great misunderstood albums."
The Onion

"A grimly satisfying mix of perversion and symphonic decadence."
Spin

"There's a sickness threaded through the intricate gorgeousness of this curious album... A fucked-up fantasia."
NME

"... a perfect mess."
Slant Magazine