Tigermilk

1	The State I Am In 4:57
2	Expectations 3:34
3	She's Losing It 2:22
4	You're Just a Baby 3:41
5	Electronic Renaissance 4:50
6	I Could Be Dreaming 5:56
7	We Rule the School 3:27
8	My Wandering Days Are Over 5:25
9	I Don't Love Anyone 3:56
10	Mary Jo 3:29

Barnes & Noble

Originally released in 1996 as a music-business class project (in an edition of 1,000 -- vinyl! -- copies), Belle and Sebastian's debut album became the most sought-after indie-pop rarity ever, before this reissue. It deserves its reputation. Stuart Murdoch, it turns out, was a magnificent songwriter straight out of the gate, spinning wry narratives about misfit schoolkids and the other schoolkids who love them (or think they might, or are better off denying that they do). Murdoch has a short-story writer's sense for detail, roping his tales to heart-stopping melodies redolent of the Donovan, Smiths, and Velvet Underground records that inform his guitar playing. There's one path-not-taken track on Tigermilk -- the synth-pop oddity "Electronic Renaissance" -- but the rest of the album has the same fluid, strummy, bitterly funny vibe as the band's later records. The chamber-pop orchestrations and Murdoch's voice barely rise above a murmur, but his hook sense is cranked all the way up. Douglas Wolk

All Music Guide

Belle & Sebastian's first album, Tigermilk, was initially pressed in a quantity of 1,000 on their own label, Electric Honey Recordings. The record was intended to be the end result of Stuart Murdoch's music business school course, but it became an unexpected word-of-mouth sensation in England, and the LP quickly disappeared from shops. As a result, once the group's second album, If You're Feeling Sinister, became a hit, there were no copies of Tigermilk available for newly converted fans and it remained unheard by the majority of the group's audience. Those who have heard it say it is quite similar stylistically to If You're Feeling Sinister and the songs match that record's high standard. Tigermilk was re-released in 1999 to the delight of the often cultish fans of {|Belle & Sebastian|}. Stephen Thomas Erlewine