If you've got "Nightsongs", then you've got the first two tracks already. The next three are different versions of songs from that album. But it's the last song, "Theme From the Stars" that really makes this thing worthwhile. It's still the best song they've written, and unavailable elsewhere.
Every indie fan knows about Stars by now. But in 2001, the Canadian band put out a little EP of jumbled stuff from their then-forthcoming full-length debut. Two live tracks, a demo, and a B-side -- it's a solid little sampling of their music, and a little gem for the collector of all things Stars.
It opens with "My Radio," which opens with what sounds like a sitar, but quickly swallows itself into a sparkly little drum-synth pop song. "It's hard to remember days/Mornings lost in a chronic haze/Breath is fast and the trains are slow/I barely feel it though," Torquil Campbell murmurs. "That crimson dress too thin/All winter up her woods/I touched it, it felt good..."
It follows up with a mellow electropoppy cover of the Smiths' "This Charming Man," demo of "When" -- very funk-techno, with a dancey beat. It's a very basic song: the guy wants the girl back, and doesn't have the strength to stay broken up because of his love for her. "Tried to do the friend thing/And ended up sending/My last goodbye/Through Wednesdays mail/But my heart's so frail/That by Thursday, I wrote again..."
Then comes the two live tracks, which are well produced enough that only a slight echo betrays them: the mellow "On Peak Hill" and vaguely ominous "Going Going Gone," apparently with Emily Haines crooning, "Love's just another rhyme." And the EP ends with the beautiful "Theme From the Stars," a delicate piano ballad shrouded in synth.
The Stars don't really sound like this anymore -- they're more acoustic in recent albums, as opposed to the electropoppy sound of this EP and the following "Nightsongs." But though they were only starting out in this EP, they turned out some pretty good music, with solid lyrics and instrumentation.
The instrumentation was pretty bare-bones at the time, since there were only two regular band members at the time-- mostly it's swirling poppy synth and some drum machines, but they weave in some delicate piano and acoustic guitar in the last song. In fact, that last song is what really elevates the EP from "good" to "excellent" -- it's a truly exquisite little song.
And Torquil Campbell writes unashamedly sensual lyrics -- the colour of a dress, the starlight during a kiss, desolate hills, and the devastating pain of finding out that your love has found someone else. "He speaks in a voice I know/Sounds like sound when the tide is low/We kiss to the voice each night/Bathed in pale reactor light..."
"A Lot of Little Lies For the Sake Of One Big Truth" is a big name for a little EP, bu a solid one that shows the Stars' skills at the very start of their careers.
great little e.p. from these labelmates of Momus !
Smoldering confidence and savvy pervade !!!!!
this band enjoys making music for honest listeners.
brilliant stars
music to live by - happy or sad - it's poetry set to music with beautiful melodies
they just get better and better but it's nice to wander back down melody lane
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