Cityscape Records

The boys’ first album, from 2000, had an eclectic sound encapsulating trashy punk, oddball electronica and 70s Miles Davis style instrumentals anticipating electroclash by some way.

The album blends live instruments with analogue and digital technology to create tracks such as the offbeat funk of Shooting Jenny, the whimsical lo-fi pop beauty of Unmapped Streets and the punky electro of album opener, New Resurrection.

Elsewhere tracks such as, Books, Black Russian and Zebedee suggest influences from the likes of Stereolab, Aphex Twin and New Order.

The album gained critical acclaim from Manchester cultural bible CITYlife (review left) and also received attention from national glossy Q who opined: ‘if an early incarnation of the Human League had fired Phil Oakey, replaced him with Mark E. Smith and steered clear of the dancing girls, they may well have ended up sounding like Merchandise.’ What can we say?

Lovers of invention and idiosyncrasy could do far worse than explore this lost gem.

Merchandise take their name from a track by American punk band Fugazi who also inspired Cityscape’s do-it-yourself ethic.

From Manchester’s CITYlife:

Under their adopted moniker of Merchandise, Bolton duo Brad B. Wood and Conrad Astley compose some of the most enchanting and eclectic lo-fi noodlings outside the Twisted Nerve stable.

As you’d expect of a duo who appropriated their name from a Fugazi song, the mood of their debut album is both restless and beguiling – sometimes frustratingly so. Veering between quirky lo-fi pop to hazy electronica and visceral punk, the duo’s sonic adventurism is a hypnotic blend of Air’s kitsch pop and Stereolab’s left field dilettantism. Sure, they occasionally wander into self indulgent, sub – Aphex Twin territory, but the quirky playfulness in tracks like ‘Other Thrills’ tends to endear rather than annoy the listener. In fact, the album’s finest tracks are the gentler, near ambient offerings like the melancholic, mesmerising instrumental ‘Hi Honey, I’m Home’ or the Spacemen 3-esque ‘Books’, when the duo’s cogent pop impact proves irresistible.

An inconsistent album sure, but there’s a refreshing charm and deftness of tough here nonetheless.

David Sue