Product Description

Debut full length album for the Perth-formed act whose sound takes in psychedelia, country and folk music. Fronted by Luke Steele, their music has been compared to that of The Beatles, Neil Young and The Flying Burrito Brothers. The single, 'Vampire Racecourse', is included.

Track Listing

1. Good Dancers
2. Vampire Racecourse
3. Rain Falls For Wind
4. This Day
5. Acid In My Heart
6. Fill Me With Apples
7. Tell The Girls I'm Not Hangin' Out
8. Come To This
9. Miniskirt
10. Morning Bird
11. Don't You Know
12. Old Dirt Farmer
13. Mourning Rain

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #54280 in Music
• Released on: 2003-07-14
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
Lovers, the debut album from Perth's the Sleepy Jackson, is another fine example of a bright modern pop album that steals liberally from the past, yet presents its thefts with such skill and charm that ultimately, it feels churlish to cry foul. Besides, frontman Luke Steel clearly boasts such a broad musical knowledge that just as you've sussed out the particular ghost he's channelling, he's cast it out and hopped to the next willing spirit. The spectre of George Harrison stalks the swooning, string-laden "Good Dancers", but it's not until right at the end that the debt becomes explicit in a swirl of backward sitars. The sleepy "Acid in My Heart" is Gram Parsons with a poisonous case of indigestion, Steel musing over the vulture-picked bones of a long-dead love affair as pedal-steel notes curl in the heat of the midday sun. And "Vampire Racecourse" borrows the thudding repetition as perfected by The Velvet Underground's "Waiting for the Man", but fuses it to the glammy, sew-on sequins strut of David Bowie's "Suffragette City". So, does Lovers display an impressive talent? Unquestionably, but sometimes you're left wondering if the Sleepy Jackson have a voice of their own. Still, they're breezily successful at breathing new life into tired old chords, and that's a fine place to start. --Louis Pattison

Customer Reviews

Lovely
Think of a mixture of George Harrison, Brian Wilson, The Velvet Underground, The Byrds and the Flaming Lips and you have The Sleepy Jackson.

Hailing from Australia its basically a one man show with front man Luke Steele, when not sacking band members, showcasing his incredible musical scope.

It kicks off with "Good Dancers" a superb summer pop anthem sounding as though George Harrison never left us, all falsetto vocals and jangly guitars. It then moves through a collection of songs that will brighten up anyones day.

The gloriously countryfied twang of "Miniskirt" and "Come To This" To the pounding darkness of The Velvet Underground esque "Vampire Racecourse" this album will have something for everyone.

Trippy, psychadelic country/electro with bits of Yoko Ono?
On waking from a beautiful dream on a cold winter afternoon, my ears were caressed by what sounded like George Harrison being joined by a choir of children singing some kind of wierd christmas carol come country ballad. I opened my eyes to find that I was watching the video for 'Good Dancers', an amazing video by the way, and instantly fell madly in love with the Sleepy Jackson.

To be fair to Luke Steele, he's not the new anything. He's a genius in his own right. Taking whatever he likes from other people's music and mashing it with his Brian Wilson like ear for harmony. The results are eclectic, moving and often confusing.

Unfortunatley for you, you're gonna end up with a lot of rubbish country albums as you search for something close to 'Miniskirt'. And so alarmingly good are tracks like 'Come To This' and 'This Day' that there's a good chance that you'll listen to the album twice straight away just to hear them again.

Gradually the other songs seep into your subconscious like the touching 'Acid In My Heart' and the utterly confounding and beautiful Flaming Lips meet Yoko Ono and a Christmas choir (again) epic 'Don't you Know'.

The real trick that Steele has pulled off here is picking odd bits from an artist's back catalogue that you may not listen to (excluding the Flaming Lips). 'Pop' era U2 is given a look in for instance on 'Tell The Girls...' and is far more interesting than most of the stuff U2 were doing during this era.

What you end up with is a schizophrenic Greatest Hits of an artist that never existed, until now ofcourse. The Sleepy Jackson's Scatterbrained genius may not knock you off your feet right away like it did me but eventually, you'll come around.

Maybe it'll grow on me...
I bought this on the back of a glowing review in 'Q', and hoping torecapture some of the magic of those classic Aussie albums by TheGo-Betweens and The Triffids.
Well, I'm going to give it some more time to grow on me (it's already hadabout 8 months), but this doesn't seem to have quite the depth and musicalor lyrical invention of its illustrious antipodean forebears. OK, RobertForster of the Go-Betweens didn't always sing "in tune", but that band hadMorrisey-Marr-standard songs to compensate. The Triffids had DavidMcComb's cavernous, acidic voice and songs as wide, open and scary as theAustralian desert. The Sleepy Jackson seem to have a lot of influences,some occasional nice ideas for orchestration, but not especially strongsongs in either the lyrics or music departments.
I've put in on the shelf to mature, like a good whisky, and maybe in 2, 5,12 or 18 years it'll taste like a classic. When it does, I'll be back towrite another review! For now, though, it's back to Born Sandy Devotionalfor that Aussie fix...