Uh, should have posted this a while ago perhaps but there is some more Pete Um vinyl in the world, and although significant chunks of it are here in this flat it is also available for online purchase from the good people at Norman Records.
Clive Bell from The Wire gave it a nice review which went:
It takes a while to enter Pete Um's world: his songs are brief, dense and ramshackle; he revels in a reviewer's dismissal of his live act as "grindingly awkward shithop", and wears his self-doubt on his sleeve. Can't Get Started is an ironic title, for Um is prolific across videos, blogs and music. But this 10", a condensed Best Of, is a remarkable, coherent document, an excellent introduction to Um's misfit creativity. Whoever compiled this, possibly associate Nochexxx, interviewed alongside Um for an article mapping the Alternative Cambridge music scene (The Wire 325) - has selected melancholy gems rather than eccentric freakouts. These 17 songs don't waste your time, and repeated listenings underscore Um's talent for crafting poetic vehicles carrying memories of Holger Czukay and Syd Barrett.
One of Barrett's last songs was "Wolfpack", and here is Um's "Wolves", in which the pursuing pack seems to be music itself. In spite of its howling and chanting, the song is delicate, a study of vulnerability. The subject recurs in "Built To Spill", and "You Will Never Let Me Fall" has Syd-alike vocals, bathed in reverb and quivering guitar: "I'm a slow bomb, I'm a sad boy, but I will cure myself before you cure me." Once you accept Um's ad hoc working methods, realisation dawns that there isn't a weak track here, and if there's a fault, it's that everything is too short. Um has an answer for that too: the sexual innuendo of "That's Too Close", in which a girl with sparkly lipstick chides him for not making his songs longer.
Clive Bell.
Clive Bell from The Wire gave it a nice review which went:
It takes a while to enter Pete Um's world: his songs are brief, dense and ramshackle; he revels in a reviewer's dismissal of his live act as "grindingly awkward shithop", and wears his self-doubt on his sleeve. Can't Get Started is an ironic title, for Um is prolific across videos, blogs and music. But this 10", a condensed Best Of, is a remarkable, coherent document, an excellent introduction to Um's misfit creativity. Whoever compiled this, possibly associate Nochexxx, interviewed alongside Um for an article mapping the Alternative Cambridge music scene (The Wire 325) - has selected melancholy gems rather than eccentric freakouts. These 17 songs don't waste your time, and repeated listenings underscore Um's talent for crafting poetic vehicles carrying memories of Holger Czukay and Syd Barrett.
One of Barrett's last songs was "Wolfpack", and here is Um's "Wolves", in which the pursuing pack seems to be music itself. In spite of its howling and chanting, the song is delicate, a study of vulnerability. The subject recurs in "Built To Spill", and "You Will Never Let Me Fall" has Syd-alike vocals, bathed in reverb and quivering guitar: "I'm a slow bomb, I'm a sad boy, but I will cure myself before you cure me." Once you accept Um's ad hoc working methods, realisation dawns that there isn't a weak track here, and if there's a fault, it's that everything is too short. Um has an answer for that too: the sexual innuendo of "That's Too Close", in which a girl with sparkly lipstick chides him for not making his songs longer.
Clive Bell.
