TO MARK the fifth (!? that long already?) anniversary of their delish debut album, Say It All With A Kiss, Glasgow indiepop fizzbombers TeenCanteen have decided to unleash This Is How It Starts, the collection of recordings that should have been their debut album four years earlier (and we’re promised there’s a story there).
And the proper classy girliepop beauty of “How We Met (Cherry Pie)” leads off that dusted-down shoulda-coulda-been album, full of naivete and pop chops and sheer indiepop brilliance.
We looked at this original take only a week or so back, actually, but since a) it now comes fully garlanded with a video fashioned from cute footage of the foursome in early, bedroom days, kicking back writing, recording, and out on the road; and b) it’s just so bloody excellent, we felt it deserving of another trip around the block. And another. And yet, another. All complaints on a postcard, please. Sugar-coated, absolute fun, even possessed as any Glaswegian indiepop tune worth its salt should be, of a Bobby Gillespie ‘duh-duh-duh’ triple snare flourish.
This original would get some spit and polish and emerge in a slightly different form for their debut album as eventually was, but let’s swoon for the version that seduced a thousand hearts in the Karen Gillan romcom Not Another Happy Ending.
TeenCanteen singer and songwriter Carla Easton says: “‘Cherry Pie’ was that song that just fell out of thin air. I didn’t have to think about it too much, I was just at the beginning of a new romance and was all excited, it’s a total happy, fallen-for-someone song.
“I think of it as the first TeenCanteen song; it was the first one when writing it where I was like, ‘wait a minute, I’m onto something here’. It was just exciting, it was the first track that we went, ‘that’s us’.
“It’s a total slushy, innocent, indiepop love song, it’s not trying to be anything more than that, but I think that’s why so many people connected with it; it’s fun, it’s fresh, it’s raw, it’s exciting, it’s DIY, it’s indiepop and it’s long overdue release.
TeenCanteen’s “How We Met (Cherry Pie)” is out now on all digital streaming platforms; the album, This Is How It Starts, is due in August, with a vinyl release from Last Night From Glasgow/HIVE.
Connect with TeenCanteen at their website, on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, and on Spotify and YouTube.
