A DIFFERENT LIFETIME

Following on from yesterday's interview with Shirley Lee and my Spearmint top 10 list, I wanted to draw particular attention to the albums Spearmint recorded on opposite sides of the millennium, 1999's A Week Away and 2001's A Different Lifetime.

When I first proposed doing a graphic novel project based on Spearmint tracks to Shirley, my original thought was to do a book based on the A Different Lifetime. Tracing a relationship from beginning to end, that was my first introduction to the band and an instant favorite of mine. Suitably impressed, A Week Away was the next one I tracked down, and I love that as well.

"I think they are still our best two albums," Shirley told me when I bought the two albums up to him recently. "We revisited A Week Away to celebrate its 10th anniversary and to play it live in full, which we never did at the time. In fact, bands never do at the time, do they? Years of writing went into that one, and it was our best shot at our vision of a perfect Pop album. I do love it. I like the energy and the amount of ideas that are in there."

"A Different Lifetime will be 10 years old this autumn," he added. "This is my favourite album of ours - I think it is closest to realising what was intended in the writing. I am not talking about production here; I am talking about the final selection of songs and their levels of ambition. To me, A Week Away is a finished piece of work, but with A Different Lifetime, I feel there is some unfinished business.

"I slightly regret not making it a full-on double album at the time, as I think that some of the narrative sections are rushed through. Some of the songs I started writing for this album ended up on other records, like 'Start Again' and 'I Went Away.' I have toyed with the idea of presenting a 'director's cut' live, in which we would flesh it out a bit by including those songs and some that ended up as b-sides, maybe even a new song or two if needed. I would like to present it with live strings, and if it could also be accompanied by graphics for each song that would make it perfect!"

And that's saying something considering how excellent A Different Lifetime already is. So strange to think that it's a decade old at this point. Hearing it for the first time seems like such a recent experience, but the title is fairly apt: virtually nothing in my life is the same now as it was then. And adding a bit of prophecy to album opener "It Will End," the girlfriend who gave me the album as a birthday gift is no longer my girlfriend. A different lifetime, indeed!

Anyway, both albums are well worth seeking out if you don't own them already, but here's a taste from A Different Lifetime: