Ten Tune Truck A series of 10 seven inch records counting down the months to next year's Truck Festival. The all new Truck 7s club kicks off in excellent fashion with The Electric Soft Parade's Life In The Back Seat On the flip is Alex White's side project - Actress Hands with Why The Sale? Click the link to hear song clips Buy from Truck

myspace.com/actresshands on Ten Tune Truck:

Here’s the concept - a series of ten 7” singles, to be released periodically as a countdown to next years Truck Festival. Sounds like a well formed plan, and even more so considering the first release of the series is a Brighton double whammy of The Electric Soft Parade and Actress Hands. Splendid work - well played you people at Truck Records.

First up we have The Electric Soft Parades offering ‘Life In The Back Seat’ - and it proves to be everything you could have hoped for, highlighting perfectly their wonderfully bastardised vision of pop music that they’ve been busy honing on the live circuit. What we’re treated to is a splendidly driving song - propelled along by quick-fire drumming, progressively choppy guitar chords, coupled with some clever complimentary keyboard melodies and electronic effects. Tom Whites voice is also becoming more and more self assured - in this instance he handles the verses while letting brother Alex takes centre stage for the harmony loaded chorus.

Like a joyously upbeat clash between Guided By Voices and Magoo, it sounds nothing like anything the band have done or released so far, and is proof again if needed that by constantly evolving and exploring the musical landscape The Soft Parade aren’t happy to simply plod along into musical mediocrity like so many others. Life in the back seat? Not for this lot anymore.

Flip things over and the fun continues thanks to ‘Why The Sale’ by the ever amazing Actress Hands With a first record label backed album ‘Show Madelaine’ due for release early next year, it looks like 2007 is shaping up to be a big one in the world of the ‘hands. While you wait in anticipation, enjoy ‘Why The Sale’ – a lush slab of slightly jangly guitar pop, recalling a similar spirit to some of the C86 bands of the late 80’s. Starting off as a mid tempo guitar strum, as the song progresses, so do the guitars – getting louder and nicely distorted, before a Dinosaur Jr / My Bloody Valentine like rock-out-finale. Or perhaps the band put it better themselves? “Loud shoegazey pop coupled to jazzed out country rockisms”. Whatever it may be, it’s certainly impressive, and is what Actress Hands are all about.

The last ESP vinyl I played came with a BMG logo, this is adorned with the nice Truck Records. Tom's voice is very calming, self assured, determined... Like he IS finally captain of the ship, and it's not sinking! "It could all be over and you'd never have known" interjects Alex. The song is a joint vocal effort between them with Tom on the verses and Alex on the chorus, their vocal styles complementing each other well.

Of course you want to figure out the lyrical meaning, but I think the title says it all. Forced into the Back Seat of an uncaring music industry, with so much talent and a determination to get their songs heard. What else could they do but wait and hope that one day they might get another chance. You know that Truck logo slowly turning in the center of the record means so much more than what's gone before. "Hell I just want to be happy, but never thought I'd leave that life behind" sings Tom.

This record has an uplifting sense of melancholia (had to get that word in) resigned to the fact things will change one day. The song's also a message to us all, to keep going no matter what. Almost accepting defeat while in the next breath rejecting it.

The track is punctuated by a driving beat, very Strokes-like musically (one reviewer writing about them recently almost apologised for making this reference) and sounds like nothing else they've released so far.

When Tom & Alex were on The Album Chart Show recently with Brakes, you could almost have closed your eyes at one point when it was just drums and guitar and imagined it was ESP up there. Almost. I appreciate Brakes but I also appreciate ESP, as songwriters, lyricists, musicians. Brakes might have a higher profile but ask any ESP fan why they love this band. Better still, play this record. And if you can't, get hold of the new album early next year.

Buy the new 7" single from Truck Records