Parsley Sound : Ease Yourself & Glide

Single of the week - 15th September 2001

Parsley Sound? All sounds a bit Olde English Folke, doesn’t it? A bit Mary Jane and kaftans-all-round. If, that is, you’re not already thinking of the lion from notoriously off-it kids’ TV programme, The Herbs. For all their retro stylings, however, Preston Meads and Danny Sargassa’s ‘Ease Yourself And Glide’ is a thing of aching, immediate beauty. Hovering somewhere between Crosby, Stills & Nash and BDB at his most country-rock, it struggles into life before settling into this melancholy, surging state; all cracking falsetto, big, fat, bobbling bass and blunt lead guitar. By the time it turns into the home straight, and the strings are ushered in, you’re rushing to the shore on a wave of good feeling.

The truly genius bit, however, is the production. All tape hiss, uneven levels and distorted drums, it has the warmth of something recorded in a shack in the backwoods of California in 1969. It sounds like Super-8 footage of The Byrds mucking about. But, at the same time, there’s something about the technology they’ve used that gives it a tinge of Mo Wax modernity too. It’s vintage, but a strange vintage. The b-sides, for their part, are intriguing sketches, dubby experiments. Who knows where it will all lead. For now though, ‘Ease Yourself And Glide’ is enough: a killer debut.

Tony Naylor

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