The Primitives, one of this writers favourite bands it should be said, are celebrating 40 years since the release of Thru the Flowers and C86 will be doing the same next year, Glas-Goes Pop will be into its 5th year in 2026 and every second email I get these days is from Skep Wax telling me about the return of or new album from another indie band or other. It’s like 1986 never happened.
But of course it did, and in honour of such an important phase in my musical education, what better way to celebrate the jangle pop revival than listening to m the debut album from Inverkip teenage duo The Cords, over, and over, and over again. Considering the pair of Eva and Grace Tedeschi on guitar and drums respectively weren’t even a sparkle in their parents eyes 40 years ago, it’s even more satisfying that they are keeping the flame alive for a whole new generation. The Tedeschi sisters have their parent’s record collection to thank for their musical influences, with the aforementioned The Primitives being a key influence on their sound. I hope in forty years time when I’m pushing up the daisies, someone else will be writing about the fortieth anniversary of The Cords debut album and taking as much joy and satisfaction from it as all the listeners in 2025.
Having made one huge splash! (pun well and truly intended) in the Glasgow music scene since their inception and release of their debut double a-side single Bo’s New Haircut & Rather Not Stay in the last couple of years, including a host of Glasgow gigs and supports, with such luminaries as Glasgow legends The Vaselines and most recently with Pains of Being Pure at Heart, the ripples from that splash have turned into a tidal wave with plaudits flooding in from far and wide.
I’m not sure The Cords is just an album, or a time machine… You know that challenge from back in the day “I bet you can’t put a fruit pastille in tote mouth without chewing it”? Well if you remember The Primitives et al from the first time around you’re lying if you don’t… anyway, I bet you can’t listen past one song on The Cords without a huge smile spreading across your face. Try it. I double dare you. I can’t last past the opening bars of the first track in the album in the shape of the fabulous driving rhythm of The Fabulist a Walter Mitty, or should that be Billy Liar, tale put to a soundtrack that has me straight back to my bedroom in the 80s, listening to John Peel, fingers at the ready to hit play/record simultaneously to capture the latest song from The Flatmates/The Shop Assistants/The Darling Buds/The Pastels (delete/add as appropriate) for posterity and repeat plays on my cheap imitation Walkman.
I’m not going to add any more nods to/musical references as I’m sure as you listen to these songs, that grin in your face will widen to a smile as wide as the Clyde as a riff on the guitar, a melody in the vocals or a beat on the drum…, get in line, beat in time… reminds you of one of those bands of your youth and has you yearning for the 80s again – remembering the music, not the fucked-up Thatcher years, rose-tinted memories and all that… Take nothing away from the music Eva and Grace play. Theirs isn’t copyist stuff, the songs are raw passionate original songs that happen to pay tribute to a sound and era of music that it just so happens many of us loved, and still love to this day (he says having missed early bird tickets for Glas-Goes Pop once again – more effort required Mr H). I also love the fact that there will be listeners out there that are only now discovering all these old bands as a result of listening to The Cords, a little jealousy creeps in as I realise a whole generation will be hearing all these songs for the first time and feeling the joy we all did back then.
As The Fabulist comes to its abrupt halt and and the opening bars of Just Don’t Know (How To Be You) kicks in the joy courses through my veins, as the duo continue to spread the musical sunshine with their perfectly synchronous guitar and drums combo continuing to delight and in doing so, answering their own dilemma of the song title, just be you, it’s more than we can ask for. October is injected with some rocket fuel as the pair take things up several notches in pace, and increasing the heart rate in doing so… just as you think they’ve peaked, each song brings something else to make your face ache with the Cheshire Cat-esque size grins now, the “ba-ba-ba ba ba’s in Vera, simple things like handclaps in Doubt It’s Gonna Change. I’ve been listening to a lot of music that layers sound with effects pedals and the like recently, and I’m not dissing any of that as it’s remarkable how these songs reveal themselves, picking up something new with each listen, but there is something that really hits home about the straightforward guitar and drums with minimal, if any effects. Something raw and passionate that pulls you in and wins you over. You hits you with a punch of raw energy, the euphoric high continuing apace, before the Pastels/Vaselines tinged single Bo’s New Haircut flies by in a flash.
I know, I said I’d stop the references, but I’m Not Sad is surely a lost song The Primitives never released, I’m certainly not sad listening, I’m 16 again and the world is my oyster. I may even have got a bit emotional on the first listen when I got to this song. Let me take a moment…Then just when you least expect it, the next song takes a bit of a change of direction, Yes It’s True dips it’s toe in shoegaze territory and that euphoric high just goes a little bit higher. The next song title hits the nail on the head, Weird Feeling is exactly what I’m experiencing, the stress and strains of life that have taken their toll over the years seem to disappear as the hypnotic nature of the song washes over me.
As we reach the end of what is more than just an album, but a journey back in time, there is time for three more songs, Done With You takes things back to that perfect straight down the line jangly guitar/drums formula before penultimate song Rather Not Stay, the double A side to the earlier Bo’s New Haircut creates a feeling of melancholy as, contrary to the songs title I want to stay right here with this warm fuzzy feeling that these songs are giving me, before the album ends with the only song they could end the album, the gloriously epic and swoonsome When You Said Goodbye, a song that has the ability to break your heart and mend it all in one.
This is more than an album, it is a time machine, Grace and Eva may have said goodbye, but I’m saying hello again as I reach for the play button to return once again to my time capsule and bathe in the glow of these 13 slices of sublime aural sunshine.