What's a "Winter Wooskie"?

Part of what makes Belle and Sebastian so appealing is its allegiance to the EP, already antiquated when the band started releasing them in pre-mp3 1996. For most bands, they're rarely standalone works -- released either to hype a forthcoming or album proper, expand on a single, or secrete more experimental material.

Not so for Belle and Sebastian. Theirs are complete entities, that sound much like Belle and Sebastian on all the other records (see "The Loneliness of a Middle Distance Runner"), but tweak the template just enough to pique your interest (see the psychedelia of [the song] "Legal Man," among others). And then there's the "A Century of Elvis"-"A Century of Fakers" combination, on two of the EPs in the "Lazy Line Painter Jane" boxed set: "Elvis" ends an EP, "Fakers" starts the next one, and they use the exact same music, but one is spoken word about cats and marriages in reverse, while the other is -- oh, I don't know what either is really about. Brilliant! I've told my girlfriend about this so many time it exasperates her each time I start anew, largely, I think, because I always act as though I've never told her before and am revealing some profound secret of music composition.

But the best song on all of them is "Winter Wooskie," from "Legal Man." It bounces along with a jaunty bass line and pleasantly staccato piano chords, and then in the second verse, Murdoch, in one of the few songs where he doesn't have lead vocals, comes in with delicately syncopated backup vocals. The lyrics are about longingly staring at a lovely girl from your window in the winter -- and that's exactly what it sounds like. I love it when that happens. (For a more recent vintage, see Beach House, which sounds like a echo-filled, empty beach house.)

Pitchfork reports Matador is releasing this fall a collection of Belle and Sebastian's BBC appearances, though the dispatch also unfortunately says the band is on hiatus and has no plans to record new music anytime soon. Even if this could be a release to fulfill contractual obligations, guess who'll be spending $12.98 soon?