The Nectarine No. 9: Saint Jack

This reissue is a refreshing revisit of their 1995 LP Saint Jack and the ’90s art-pop scene in general.

A music critic/Nostradamus-type figure writing in 1999 said of Nectarine that although they had lost out on a chance at major success at the beginning of the ’90s, by the turn of the decade they were carrying themselves “with a secret knowledge that their timeless music will one day be plucked from obscurity by a more assiduous generation”. That critic was right on the money: this is the second reissue of their work this year after My Personal Culloden, a collaborative work with Scottish poet Jock Scot.

Tracks like the bass-driven ‘Tape Your Head On’ are effortlessly cool; ‘Couldn’t Phone Potatoes’ and ‘My Trapped Lightning’ are products of their time – proper ’90s jams, the former with an appropriately ridiculous title.

This reissue works as an exhumation of Saint Jack, but also as a careful melding of some of their most seminal work, including tidy little sweeteners like the acoustic cover of Nico’s ‘These Days’.