The joys of the road. Having been on a ten day diet of mp3s, my appetite for music had been well and truly suppressed. It was fortunate therefore that in the midst of the contrived blandness that is Aberdeen, there was a vendor of real physical music by the name of One Up and from their basement this vinyl single - in a gatefold sleeve no less – by the extremely nice Rachel Sermanni was purchased in a desperate search of musical rejuvenation.
Rachel Sermanni has done well for herself of late and clearly knows her audience well. “Eggshells” is, unsurprisingly therefore, folk flavoured, eloquent and just sort of nice. A nice song nicely performed but just a little bit anonymous. This is my song and there are many like it kind of thing. Likewise, the flipside of the vinyl single features another nice and thoroughly anodyne song called “Breathe Easy”
So, even with some nice packaging, we are still stuck at the nice level but there is a CD slipped into the gatefold sleeve. Indeed, “Eggshells” is on that too but another song has taken up a subversive residence on that little silver disc. “I’ve Got A Girl” is an altogether darker song that hints the mind can be a better inspiration for a song than the heart. The lyrics suggest all sorts of dangerous internal torment and Ms Sermanni’s nice – there’s that word again – voice provides a highly effective stylistic counterpoint this time around. I like that. You start off with “very nice but&” and you finish with “&where did that come from?”
The gatefold sleeve was rather nice and the pressing quality was not. However, “I’ve Got A Girl” was on the CD so it all worked out well in the end.