Up for a Bit with the Pastels

Up for a Bit with The Pastels is the debut album by the Scottish band The Pastels, released in 1987. It was named the 37th best Scottish album by The Scotsman. Perhaps the most iconic of all twee acts, Scottish institution The Pastels were formed by boyfriend/girlfriend Stephen McRobbie and Aggi Wright —known, via their records, as Stephen Pastel and Aggi— who'd both fleetingly been in early incarnations of the Shop Assistants. From their earliest singles, The Pastels knelt at the altar of willful amateurism, their raw, rudimentary, barely-together songs somehow capturing a kind of 'truth' in this lack-of-polish. Where most C86-era bands bashed songs out at a furious rate, The Pastels were always unafraid of heart-on-sleeve sentimentality and mid-tempo balladry; and, over the next 20-odd years, they'd grow slower and prettier with each increasingly-scarce release.