NO ALARM BELLES

Stuart Murdoch – lead singer of Belle and Sebastian – arrives a few minutes late for our rendezvous at Mono, a vegan cafe in the edgiest part of Glasgow city centre; but he has an excellent excuse. “I set out on my scooter,” he explains, “but after a few streets, I realised I wouldn’t make it in time, so I went back for my bike.”

We are here to talk about the band’s new album, , which was released in early May. Murdoch is emphatic that – while the album was produced during the pandemic – it to the singalong chorus of it brims with joy; though the lyrics, as always, are tinged with melancholy. Maybe that’s because, for Murdoch– who spent his late teens/early 20s incapacitated with ME – the Covid-19 restrictions were not unduly traumatic. “I had my first big lockdown 30 years ago,” he says. “Now I have two young children [Denny, eight, and Nico, five]. Denny is on the autistic spectrum, so it’s hard to get out anywhere. We didn’t have much of a social life so there wasn’t much change. And when you make an album it’s a form of lockdown anyway.”