Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - This Is Memorial Device (2024) [Hi-Res]
![Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - This Is Memorial Device (2024) [Hi-Res]](https://www.dibpic.com/uploads/posts/2024-06/1719562290_887831005660_t12_image.jpg)
BAND/ARTIST: Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson
- Title: This Is Memorial Device
- Year Of Release: 2024
- Label: Geographic
- Genre: soundtrack, indie, post-punk, pop
- Quality: 16-bit/44.1kHz FLAC; 24-bit/48kHz FLAC
- Total Time: 33 min
- Total Size: 159; 358 MB
- WebSite: Album Preview
The Pastels’ Stephen McRobbie and Gavin Thomson present their expanded soundtrack to an acclaimed theatrical adaptation of David Keenan’s cult, award-winning novel ‘This is Memorial Device’ - a masterstroke of hyperstition and sonic hauntology, developing early sketches for The Pastels’ jangling Glaswegian indie post-punk pop into rose-tinted, nostalgic backdrops voiced by actor Paul Higgins (The Thick of It), who also fronts the stage play.
“Geographic are proud to present the expanded soundtrack to Graham Eatough’s award-winning stage adaptation of David Keenan’s cult novel, This is Memorial Device. Subtitled “an hallucinated oral history of the post-punk scene in Airdrie, Coatbridge and environs 1978-1986”, This is Memorial Device tracked the joys and sorrows, triumphs and defeats, of a clutch of musicians and hangers-on centred around the band Memorial Device, as the small town of Airdrie, Scotland, is transformed into a place of endless opportunity and impossible magic by their collective belief in the power of art.
This is Memorial Device: Music from the Stage Play comes across as a third iteration of the book, establishing a whole new angle on the myth of Memorial Device through reworked home recordings from the era and expanded versions of music originally scored for the theatre production that won a prestigious Fringe First award when it was staged in Edinburgh in 2023. Additionally, it features original readings from the book by Paul Higgins (The Thick of It/Line of Duty et al), who played the lead character Ross Raymond, alongside the rest of the cast of the original production.
Stephen Pastel and Gavin Thomson, working with a group of collaborators including Pastels alumni Katrina Mitchell, Tom Crossley and John Hogarty, returned to teenage recordings Pastel had made with his old pal Corky and came up with gold, uncovering amazing ‘lost’ original compositions like “We Have Sex”, which perfectly capture the affirmative joy and madman energy of two kids crazed on the possibilities of art, sex and music. These are set alongside contemporary recordings that are thick with small town romance and melancholy. Crucially, the album works as a standalone listen, telling the story of the group in episodic flashbacks that run from single-note Industrial scale drone works through caveman punk, lush, cinematic instrumentals, bare spoken word, and a final expanded reckoning of the last recording of Memorial Device vocalist Lucas Black that would end the theatre performance on a life-affirming high. The album comes with all-new artwork from Annabel Wright, who traces a map of Airdrie and summons the ghost of place through hazy renderings of the phantom topography of the book, while the book’s author, David Keenan, provides a track-by-track commentary on the music that expands the mythos of the group while providing new perspectives.
This is Memorial Device has become a huge cult since the book was first published in 2017 and won the London Magazine Prize for Debut Novels. There have been t-shirts, badges, beers, fan-fiction and audiobooks, as well as an unofficial Memorial Device twitter account that currently has nearly 50k followers and that has established a vibrant on-line community of Memorial Device Alternative National Treasures. But Stephen Pastel and Gavin Thomson’s LP represents the first attempt to capture what the world of the book actually sounds like. Fans of The Pastels will pick up on the classic Pastels romantic/DIY approach but there is so much else here, so many aspects of the world of possibility that the book unlocks, with a narrative thrust that comes on like an emotional rollercoaster, at points hilarious, at others heart-breakingly sad. This is the lost sound of Airdrie, which is the lost sound of small working class towns and villages all across the UK – and the world – at the moment when post-punk turned the streets into avant garde performance spaces. It captures the bold spirit of tribal musical communities in these small towns, and the daring it took to believe. Because after all, as the book says, “it’s not easy being Iggy Pop in Airdrie.”
In This is Memorial Device, the group’s guitarist, Big Patty, said that from now on, in the wake of punk rock, music had to sound like a building coming down, or forget it. In the hands of Stephen Pastel and Gavin Thomson it sounds like a whole town, a whole era, shaken to its foundations by a vision of new musical possibilities. - David Keenan, 2024”
Tracklist:
1.01 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - Introduction To Why I Did It (3:53)
1.02 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson, John McCorkindale, Unexpensive Superstars - We Have Sex (2:58)
1.03 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - Occluded By Chemistry (0:39)
1.04 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - The Most Beautiful House in Airdrie (3:39)
1.05 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson, Unexpensive Superstars - Square Peg In A Black Hole (2:23)
1.06 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - I Started Painting Landscapes (4:21)
1.07 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - What Is A Memorial Device? (0:29)
1.08 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - Chinese Moon (3:47)
1.09 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - Footsteps In The Snow (5:02)
1.10 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - Light Out For Forever (1:17)
1.11 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - The Morning Of The Executioners (4:47)
“Geographic are proud to present the expanded soundtrack to Graham Eatough’s award-winning stage adaptation of David Keenan’s cult novel, This is Memorial Device. Subtitled “an hallucinated oral history of the post-punk scene in Airdrie, Coatbridge and environs 1978-1986”, This is Memorial Device tracked the joys and sorrows, triumphs and defeats, of a clutch of musicians and hangers-on centred around the band Memorial Device, as the small town of Airdrie, Scotland, is transformed into a place of endless opportunity and impossible magic by their collective belief in the power of art.
This is Memorial Device: Music from the Stage Play comes across as a third iteration of the book, establishing a whole new angle on the myth of Memorial Device through reworked home recordings from the era and expanded versions of music originally scored for the theatre production that won a prestigious Fringe First award when it was staged in Edinburgh in 2023. Additionally, it features original readings from the book by Paul Higgins (The Thick of It/Line of Duty et al), who played the lead character Ross Raymond, alongside the rest of the cast of the original production.
Stephen Pastel and Gavin Thomson, working with a group of collaborators including Pastels alumni Katrina Mitchell, Tom Crossley and John Hogarty, returned to teenage recordings Pastel had made with his old pal Corky and came up with gold, uncovering amazing ‘lost’ original compositions like “We Have Sex”, which perfectly capture the affirmative joy and madman energy of two kids crazed on the possibilities of art, sex and music. These are set alongside contemporary recordings that are thick with small town romance and melancholy. Crucially, the album works as a standalone listen, telling the story of the group in episodic flashbacks that run from single-note Industrial scale drone works through caveman punk, lush, cinematic instrumentals, bare spoken word, and a final expanded reckoning of the last recording of Memorial Device vocalist Lucas Black that would end the theatre performance on a life-affirming high. The album comes with all-new artwork from Annabel Wright, who traces a map of Airdrie and summons the ghost of place through hazy renderings of the phantom topography of the book, while the book’s author, David Keenan, provides a track-by-track commentary on the music that expands the mythos of the group while providing new perspectives.
This is Memorial Device has become a huge cult since the book was first published in 2017 and won the London Magazine Prize for Debut Novels. There have been t-shirts, badges, beers, fan-fiction and audiobooks, as well as an unofficial Memorial Device twitter account that currently has nearly 50k followers and that has established a vibrant on-line community of Memorial Device Alternative National Treasures. But Stephen Pastel and Gavin Thomson’s LP represents the first attempt to capture what the world of the book actually sounds like. Fans of The Pastels will pick up on the classic Pastels romantic/DIY approach but there is so much else here, so many aspects of the world of possibility that the book unlocks, with a narrative thrust that comes on like an emotional rollercoaster, at points hilarious, at others heart-breakingly sad. This is the lost sound of Airdrie, which is the lost sound of small working class towns and villages all across the UK – and the world – at the moment when post-punk turned the streets into avant garde performance spaces. It captures the bold spirit of tribal musical communities in these small towns, and the daring it took to believe. Because after all, as the book says, “it’s not easy being Iggy Pop in Airdrie.”
In This is Memorial Device, the group’s guitarist, Big Patty, said that from now on, in the wake of punk rock, music had to sound like a building coming down, or forget it. In the hands of Stephen Pastel and Gavin Thomson it sounds like a whole town, a whole era, shaken to its foundations by a vision of new musical possibilities. - David Keenan, 2024”
Tracklist:
1.01 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - Introduction To Why I Did It (3:53)
1.02 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson, John McCorkindale, Unexpensive Superstars - We Have Sex (2:58)
1.03 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - Occluded By Chemistry (0:39)
1.04 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - The Most Beautiful House in Airdrie (3:39)
1.05 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson, Unexpensive Superstars - Square Peg In A Black Hole (2:23)
1.06 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - I Started Painting Landscapes (4:21)
1.07 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - What Is A Memorial Device? (0:29)
1.08 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - Chinese Moon (3:47)
1.09 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - Footsteps In The Snow (5:02)
1.10 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - Light Out For Forever (1:17)
1.11 - Stephen Pastel, The Pastels, Gavin Thomson - The Morning Of The Executioners (4:47)
Year 2024 | Soundtracks | Pop | Alternative | Punk | FLAC / APE | HD & Vinyl
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