AR Kane, i (1989)

Where bought? Definitely a second-hand in-person purchase because I can remember the thrill of finding it in amongst a large raft of total crap. That says to me that I possibly found it in X Records in Bolton, which just accumulates so much stuff that you can barely flip through the records anymore.

Thesis: AR Kane could have become one of the biggest bands in the world. They clearly didn't, and I doubt they troubled the UK top 30 except for the time they took part in a one-off collaboration called M/A/R/R/S, they of 'Pump Up Tha Volume'. Apparently they mainly wrote the lesser-heralded B-side, so don't even look to that song for a potential signpost.

The debut record 69 has more in common with My Bloody Valentine's attempt to graft noise onto sex songs. They don't sound entirely alike - AR Kane were more intimate and bedroomy - but they could fit nicely on a bill together.

i takes a sharp turn toward more commercial realms of pop-pop (not even rock-pop). There's still a bit of a playful and self-consciously 'artistic' edge to what they do (look at the tracklist on the image below) that they refer to as 'dreampop'. 

I'd be lying if I said it was the most under-heralded record of all time, or even the late 80s, but it is an ambitious and mostly successful attempt to transcend any label journalists might want to apply to the group. i is hard to pin down and it is almost unbelievable that they could credibly nail New Order style electropop on 'Snow Joke', R&B on 'Honeysuckleswallow', gorgeous clear-eyed chamber pop on 'In A Circle', house-inflected pop on 'Miles Apart' and 'Crack Up'. 

There are 26 songs over 67 minutes. Though some are interludes of a few seconds long, not everything needs to be here, and someone should have intervened as an editor. From my research they were two headstrong boys with a real point to prove and maybe bravura won out over discretion. Nothing here is a howler though, and maybe more patient listeners will be okay with tracks like 'Sugarwings'.

I bought it for one track only: 'A Love from Outer Space'. If somebody put a gun to my head and asked me to list the 100 greatest pop songs of all time, this would surely be amongst them. Pop can be overthought, particularly in recent times. What this does with repetition, timing, and essentially one line is the exact formula that John Maus has been chasing all of his career; a philosophy inside a mantra, a world inside a harmonic progression. Go and listen to this song.

This blog is trying to, where possible, conjure up Proustian rushes of old music. It is a song that attempts to convey its own moment of headlong joy. I first heard it on an excellent cover mount CD given away with Uncut magazine. Nearly every song on that record has led me to make purchases elsewhere. Really, ever since I've heard it, my love for it hasn't waned an ounce. It is pretty much a perfect pop song, if such a thing exists.

I'd never want to be parted from 'A Love From Outer Space' so this stays forever.