See also: Linda Smith - Nothing Else Matters
Bone colour vinyl
Captured Tracks continues its rework of the Linda Smith catalogue with these first time vinyl pressings of two crucial works from her mid 90s period. Smith has never really stopped, and equally, she's never really been anything other than charmingly great, but there's probably a reason why CT has turned to these two albums first. I So Liked Spring shares a title with what has become Smith's most celebrated song, first coming to wider attention having been featured on the much-loved Sky Girl compilation over half a decade ago. Surrounded by multiple highlights, that song nonetheless stood out as particularly special, a uniquely poetic rendering of loss and longing drawn along by a quietly affecting vocal and submerged recording quality that implied a half memory painfully recalled. It's an inviting introduction to both these records, though doesn't fully capture Smith's wider songwriting prowess, which is as whip smart, humourous and exploratory as it is emotionally affecting. Home recording is central to her sound, not simply for obvious reasons of fidelity/intimacy, but more so as it allows for an off-the-clock exploration of ideas and impulses - things have a tendency to take unexpected turns when you're not so worried about time. Though recorded at her home in Baltimore, both Nothing Else Matters and I So Liked Spring (of which the lyrics for the latter are taken from the work of poet Charlotte Mew) sound like New York composites, variously folding in influences from the Velvets, east village folk, new wave and the proto-indie jangle of the Feelies and the Necessaries. And as melodic as these songs are, they're also unpredictable, flecked with mysterious and vaguely gothic undertones that float around the same darkened margins as someone like Peter Jefferies - in fact, there's more than a little shared spirit with her NZ contemporaries. A margin-dwelling, home recording pioneer channeling the energy of New York bohemia and the NZ underground? When you put it like that, it's hard to view these two records (and Smith herself for that matter) as anything other than borderline essential.
