★★★
Tall Stories & New Religions
TAPETE. CD/DL/LP
Almost resprayed: Loft man fixes his back catalogue.
Marking 40 years since the release of Peter Astor’s first record – The Loft’s Why Does The Rain? single – this collection gives an autumnyears overhaul to some of the bookish auteur’s old songs with his array of former bands: The Weather Prophets, Wisdom Of Harry, Ellis Island Sound et al. The charity shop cardigan feel of She Comes From The Rain is traded in for Bryan Ferry-esque tailoring on a revised version, neglected Emblem gets a new twinkle, while third-age Bob Dylan winks through Astor’s retakes of one-chord wonder Chinese Cadillac and faux-Appalachian doodle Nancy True Knot. Astor never had the cachet of fellow travellers The Go-Betweens or Lloyd Cole, but Model Village underlines his continued craftiness. Still one of the coolest boys in the lending library.