City Giants - Provenance 1986-88 (2014, Firestation)

Sorry for another "drought" folks.  Haven't had much time to digitize lately, so I went with one of the dwindling out-of-print CDs left in my collection that isn't available from the usual sources. As was the situation with last weeks post of Quinn the Eskimo, City Giants were another UK cold case from a particularly golden era in the British isles indie pop scene. 

With a shelf-life spanning merely a year and a half, C/G were composed of four North Wales to London transplants whose discography prior to this anthology CD was a 1987 7" ep (represented here on tracks 3-5).  Seemingly inspired by early Aztec Camera, and to a lesser extent The Smiths, the Giants belied their larger than life moniker with a considerably modest sonic aptitude, not far removed from contemporaries The June Brides and Bodines.  Like the aforementioned there's a preciousness to their music, but these gents stopped just short of any overt twee transgressions.  Of the fourteen studio cuts here you'll find little that is brash or overpowering, and while Provenance isn't uniformly revelatory it is consistently satisfying.  Two selections in particular stick out as comparatively polished, "Stay Heartbroken" and "Forgiveness" recorded during the band's waning days in '88, and pointed to some serious commercial ambitions had they stuck it out a little longer.  Guitarist Paul Davies published  a a book in 2014, not so much about music, though there is a brief detour where he discusses the band.  Unfortunately, this reissue was almost as limited as the band's now collectible single, and it took some time before I came across a reasonably priced copy, but as usual, I digress.  Dig in.

01. The Wednesday Girl
02. Million Faces
03. Have You Got Any Idea
04. Little Next to Nothing
05. Where Love's Concerned
06. You're the Only Person
07. The Hardest Book to Read
08. The Paragon
09. She'll Twist Me Up
10. Stay Heartbroken
11. Forgiveness
12. Heat And Inspiration (live)
13. Jamming On A Sunday (live)
14. Let's Make Him Wanna Wanna (live)
15. My Soul Is Your Home (live)
16. The Athletic Affair
17. A Collection Of
18. I Ate My Lucky Star

Hear