Tellison & Tubelord - split 7"

It's now been almost 18 months since Tubelord split up, and I'm definitely still not over it. One of my coping mechanisms has been to slowly try to acquire every piece of vinyl they release. There are a few bits that will be tough to get, but I managed to get this from Banquet with little fuss. Moreover, it's a split release with Tellison, who I adore but have never written about here. Bonus!

This artwork is incredible and despite having had the release digitally for a few years now, I never fully realised until I had the 7" in my hands. For one, the various elements of the artwork are clearly handmade, which is a nice touch. Then there's the fact that nearly everything about it is a reference to a line from one of the two songs. It's a tremendous effort, all told. Apart from the obvious wasp and pencils to reference the two song titles, there are references to at least all of the following lyrics:

• "I hate the river"
• "My imagination was the first apple tree"
• "You wore a sign around your neck and it read not for sale today"
• "We're bigger than Memphis"

That level of attention to detail is something I can completely get behind.

Plain black vinyl this time, limited to 500 copies apparently. The back cover not only has track info, but dates from when the two bands toured together way back in 2008. I wish I'd gone to that Birmingham Academy gig. Oh well.

I don't think I really need to talk about how much I love Night Of The Pencils any more than I previously have done. I spoke fairly recently about it, the short version of which is "it's one of my favourite songs ever". I hope that will suffice. What I'll do instead is spend a little while talking about how great Tellison are. Musically this split makes a lot of sense, as the band are not a million miles from Tubelord in terms of sound. A little less yelpy, a little more traditionally "indie", Tellison excel in writing gloriously catchy poppy indie. Wasp's Nest is a prime example of this - a "ba da ba ba-da" refrain, a danceable chorus and some memorable (but slightly nonsensical) lyrics. It's surprising that this never made it onto an album proper, but fortunately it still seems to find its way into the band's setlists. This I am very happy with.

Good split all told, and another one knocked off the list of Tubelord to find.