Souvenir Stand - Days (Beautiful Strange)
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| Souvenir Stand - Days |
Stephanie Cupo is a New Jersey
native with a penchant for the 60s and an aversion to looking directly at
cameras. She is also the sole driving force behind the sublime Souvenir Stand,
the latest offering from the absurdly talented Beautiful Strange label. Souvenir
Stand's latest offering is a four track EP limited to 100 copies on an orange
cassette tape, natch. From the opening lazy bass notes and subsequent perky
guitar flicks of 'Wherever You Go', you know that Cupo is all about the
authentic and that sunny 60s vibe just floats effortlessly through my speakers.
'All I Want To Know' could have been lifted straight from the Phil Spector
stable and is adorable with its delightful mix of puppydog-eyed sadness and
childlike melodies played out on the xylophone and Beach Boys-esque organs. Indeed,
throw in the thundering timpani drum percussion and a fade out ending and,
well, I'm pretty much hooked on this girl already. Cupo is part Dusty, part
Sandie and is cute as a button but would be able to hold her own in a fight -
she's a Jersey girl after all.
What with this coming out on
cassette tape and all, I'm assuming that track three, 'Days I've Spent With
You', is the start of side 2 and what a huge tune to start with. Motown pianos
with punctuating tambourines underpin Cupo's sultry voice as she sings of the
seasons passing in a song that, for some reason, reminds me of Michelle
Pfeiffer singing 'A Girl For All Seasons' in Grease 2 - not necessarily a bad
thing. The EP finishes up with 'We Will Have Our Day', perhaps the darkest song
in this collection, suggesting that Souvenir Stand have a future as a
songwriting operation with the breathy, Beatlesy organs adding a wistful tone
to the layers of honky-tonk piano before the song ends up like a closing number
from Annie or a really sad episode of Sesame Street. I'm genuinely dumfounded
by this collection as the music, references and sentiment are so pure that it
seems impossible to imagine that someone who has grown up in the modern era
could have created it. The childlike qualities juxtaposed with the maturity of
the songwriting make this an enthralling listen that, I fear, may go down as
one of those underground hits that nobody ever hears about. Still, from New
Jersey to Devon via London is not bad for reaching out to the world and that
would've taken weeks and a year's wages in the 60s so I guess the modern world
isn't all bad, eh?
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