The Green Pajamas-In A Glass Darkly (2001)

Artist: The Green Pajamas

Title: In A Glass Darkly

Label: Hidden Agenda

Format: CD EP

Cat #: AHA 023

Year of Release: 2001

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 2001

Listed Condition: VG+/VG+

Sell Date: 7/4/21

Sell Price: $5.99

Discogs Last Sold: 5/8/21

Low: $2.00

Median: $5.00

Average: $4.88

High: $7.14

Current low price: $2.38

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 13

Have/Want: 50/7

Where Sold: Buffalo, NY

Time it took to sell: 8 years

Where and When Bought: Kims Underground around 2001-2 $4.99 sticker still on it

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: B+

Sad To See It Go: No

I'm a bit biased toward The Green Pajamas, since of the 60 titles that came out with me on Rubric, their Seven Fathoms Down and Falling was one of my favorites we did, although I loved every record we put out for one reason or another.   The band was licensed through Bevis Frond's Walthamstow UK Woronzow label for the US for those records even though they had been established well before that on labels such as Get Hip and Camera Obscura, which I went to work on mail ordering to catch up.   Seven Fathoms Down And Falling which came out a year before this release with us and we also did This Is Where We Disappear through the same arrangement in 2002 when we were in the Knitting Factory.  The band did this EP through distributor Parasol's Hidden Agenda label in between those two, which I bought used upon first sighting of it flipping through Kim's used stock probably around the time it was promoed, perhaps even before it was actually released.

This conceptual title was based on J.S. Le Fanu aka Joseph Thomas Sheridan le Fanu, a leading Irish writer in the 1800's of ghost stories and gothic fiction.  The titles are named after his various works.  I guess that makes this record "gothic" but not "goth."

Since I knew not about the work of Fanu, I have to backtrack a bit and judge the work at hand by the work at hand and dig deeper later.  That's the fun of multi-layered literary rock, you can check into the source at the library.  Normally when I hear a Green Pajamas release I'm expecting Jeff Kelly vocals and psychedelic guitar workout, and the locked down room mystery inspired Uncle Silas gives just that.  But for this EP, the stand out was the closer sung by Laura Weller, "Laura Silver Bell."  The short story, from what I quickly garner,  is a tale of a farmer's daughter Laura Lew, wears a keepsake silver bell ponders going off with a tall man in black despite the warning of midwife cum witch Mother Carke that he is a fairy.  

Will she or won't she?  We'll just have to get the book to find out.