Repeat Until Funny

A year ago I posted Planet Sunflower’s The Escarpment EP here. It gathered the songs we had put together at odd times over the previous few years, whenever there was a family meet-up with a guitar handy. We weren’t really trying to make an EP, it was a continuation of what we’d always done, since the point in the mid ’90s when we found that chucking together an Elastica drum beat with some Barry Adamson bass and topping the whole thing off with Catriona’s voice drenched in reverb made Kylie Minogue’s ‘Turn It Into Love’ into this whole other thing. Was that really the first song we did? Or just the first worth remembering? The Elastica connection always makes me think of her coming back from a gig of theirs in Stoke, mega excited that their new bassist had spoken to her, and that David Bowie had stood next to her in the crowd. ‘Are you sure? In Stoke?’ ‘It was!’ Absolutely no way.

The more recent songs were supposed to be us continuing work on the Planet Sunflower album, which when it reached the mythical length of 40 minutes would be finished, and that would be that. The reason it had to be 40 minutes was that any shorter and it would look ridiculous on a C90 cassette. By 2008 this wasn’t really a concern any more, and the five songs which made up the EP made sense as a set. So here is the rest: everything else by Planet Sunflower that is any good at all (including, incidentally, three songs which also appear on Long Vacation albums).

Planet Sunflower – Repeat Until Funny

1. Turn It Into Love
2. Welcome In
3. The Black Hole
4. An Affair
5. No Frills
6. You Say You Don’t Love Me
7. Self
8. In My Eyes
9. Wind Sand And Stars

Recorded 1996 – 1999. Songs by Catriona and Chris except for ‘Turn It Into Love’ (Stock, Aitken & Waterman), ‘You Say You Don’t Love Me’ (Pete Shelley) and ‘Self’ (Fuzzbox). Thanks to Dad for having a home PC so ridiculously in advance of everyone else, and for very kindly equipping it with a sound card.

Listen below, or download it here (go for the vbr zip).