One of those brief encounters in the early 90's shoegaze scene, Chapterhouse released 2 brilliant albums, and a best of package, then faded away into oblivion.. Many of these type of bands had the same fate in the short-lived shoegaze shelflife, but much of their material remains a classic influence to modern day resurrection bands. 'Mesmerise' is hardly a 'shoegaze' song persay, but a dabble into an electronic music. A lot of the gazer bands did this, Slowdive for example, had the 'In Mind' and remix release, which saw light on the US version of Souvlaki. Not to detract anything from any fan of Whirlpool, but the second album, Blood Music, was a great listen, but hardly hold the same breath as Whirlpool. This track, 'Mesmerise' is a gem, and will get many a play on your turntable. The other 3 songs are back to the sonic shoegaze sound that you most certainly will recognize if you are familiar with the Whirlpool album. I get a chance to actually tell a story here, as I do have a few chance encounters in my brief stay as a record store owner. One Sunday, I had my shop open for an upcoming record show, and was 'getting things into shape' in hopes of a financially 'thrilling' day. My small shop was on the main street of our town (in Ontario, Canada), and we had a speaker outside playing all the music that we played in the shop in an attempt to attract customers. This did work quite well for me, as I had a lot of people wander in and query the music I was playing, and often bought something that they might not have in a larger chain shop. This particular Sunday, I did have a group of people wander in due, due to the music that was playing, but to my surprise this was no ordinary group! It turns out that Stephen Patman was in the area for a wedding, and members of the band Cuba in tote. Stephen was literally blown away by the 'shrine' of shoegaze I had in my shop, not to mention the large selection of Chapterhouse cds/ep/s and vinyl I had for sale. I even had gotten my hands on a few Chapterhouse shirts, and had one hanging in the window! He said that 'most shops in the UK don't have this type of stock', and even bought a Chapterhouse vs Global Communication ep I had in my display case. Needless to say I was a bit hero worship inside, as I had one of my favorite artists in MY shop, buying HIS OWN stuff of me! Anyway, that was possibly one of the coolest things to happen in my small 5 years of having a record shop. It was lucky I had a copy of Whirlpool on my wall for sale, and got a nice autograph for being open on what was my day off! I guess the moral of the story is: Play your music loud, you never know who's listening!
oh, p.s, I will not sell my autographed LP, so don't even ask! ;)
Track 1, Mesmerise
Track 2, Precious One
Track 3, Summer Chill
Track 4, Then We'll Rise
Grab the tracks here, password-pwemb.blogspot.com
UK Dedicated records 1991, HOUSE 001T
Personal rating 4.5/5
See what Chapterhouse items we have for sale in our online shop!
4 comments:
Another Brilliant choice, I have this on a promotional CD5, which lacks the dolphin artwork!
Great story too, must have been a blast to see your "fav" singer/band in your own shop!
I have a request, and I completely understand the time and real life factors that may make it impossible, but no harm in asking huh? You mentioned the Chapterhouses "best of" I believe its called "rownderbout" a 2 CD set consisting of a best of disk and a demo set of their next album, any chance of getting that uploaded?
I am a member of a forum where we have already gone over all the Chapterhouse EP's but no one had this particular release!
Oh yeah, I mentioned your blog at the forum so you may be getting extra traffic! Hope you dont mind!
Keep the great posts coming!
Hi
I do have the release, Rounderbout, though I myself lack the artwork. If that's ok for you, then I can send it up for you. Thanks for the mention, every bit will help :)
just curious if your forum did the Global Comm. EP? If so I can do that on a later date.
Hey there!
Thanks in advance for the Rounderbout album, if I remember correctly the album artwork was basically a white cover so no loss there! There wasnt much info on the cover, thats probably why I didnt buy it at the time. Oh well!
About the Global Comm EP, I have not even heard of it!!!! (and I must have skipped over its mention when I read your post) I was too excited! The other forum is clueless as to this release too! So get busy dude! Ha ha!
PS. You have any requests or wants? Please make it part of your blog, you never know who has what.
Back in the early 90's, I bought tons of import singles - I got the We Are The Beautiful single and in the jewelbox was one of those reply cards that gets sent to the label, Dedicated in this case. I thought, what the hell - filled it in and posted it to Dedicated in the UK. I did write a small note on it asking about this track Mesmerise. I had purchased a copy of Whirlpool, but one of the early versions that did not have Mesmerise tacked onto it. I asked how I could get this single - a few weeks later, I received this 12" vinyl in the mail from Dedicated - there was a short note inside saying that they had just received some returns and wanted to pass it along to a fan in the States. I LOVED it and loved them for taking the time to send it to me.
If I haven't said so, I really love your blog - we could have been music brothers in another life.
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