'Universe Room' is the eighteenth Guided By Voices album in ten years and packs a vast mix of energy levels and sounds into seventeen diverse tracks in less than forty minutes. The new record ventures into truly surprising territory, where barely any song segments and choruses are revisited and fidelity daringly shifts between lo-fi and hi-fi.

“I wanted to create, hopefully, an experience, kind of a wild ride, where the listener would want to hear it multiple times in order to grasp all the sections and fields of sound to discover something new with each listen,” says Robert Pollard. “I trimmed down the songs so that there wasn’t a lot of repetition, so you get a lot of sections that happen only once or twice.”

'Universe Room' embodies a realm of new horizons for Guided By Voices, who continue to redefine and expand as they blast off to unpredictable worlds.

TRACK LISTING

1. Driving Time
2. I Couldn’t See The Light
3. I Will Be A Monk
4. The Great Man
5. Clearly Aware
6. Dawn Believes
7. Play Shadows
8. Fly Religion
9. The Well Known Soldier
10. Hers Purple
11. Independent Animal
12. 19th Man To Fly An Airplane
13. Elfin Flower With Knees
14. FranCisco
15. Aluminum Stingray Girl
16. Aesop Dreamed Of Lions
17. Everybody’s A Star

Originally released in 1996 as a limited fan-club pressing for Rockathon, Guided By Voices’ Tonics And Twisted Chasers has always existed as an anomaly in Robert Pollard’s vast discography. In many ways, the album serves as the tail of a creative comet that in just two years included the “classic line-up” trilogy of Bee Thousand, Alien Lanes, Under the Bushes, Under the Stars and countless singles that crammed endless hooks in their grooves. In the intervening space, Tonics And Twisted Chasers has taken on a mythic status. It’s arguably Pollard’s strangest, gnarliest, most enlightened record and also the fans first chance to see the stitches that bind his galaxy of songs. It’s like peering at the caliber inside a watch, responsible for making the whole enterprise tick.

This nineteen-song collaboration with guitarist Tobin Sprout could be interpreted as spontaneous sketches, late-night improvisations, ideas that blossomed later in the timeline (“Knock ’Em Flyin’” and “Key Losers”), but as with anything in Pollard’s orbit, its intention is clear when heard as a cohesive whole. The Pollard tenet that “less is more” is on full display here. The songs rarely creep past ninety seconds and coalesce much like Pollard’s collage-styled visual art. Arena anthems in miniature (“158 Years Of Beautiful Sex”) bash up against eerie piano laments (“Universal Nurse Finger”) without any time to breathe, acoustic lullabies that sound like a Midwestern summer’s twilight (“Look It’s Baseball”) segue into monochromatic post-rock (“Maxwell Jump”). The euphoric joy and obtuse melancholy in Pollard’s voice is so palpable on the album’s standout, “Dayton, Ohio 19 Something & 5” (which has since become a live staple), that it’s impossible to find a more autobiographical yarn in his catalog.

The album’s closest analog is 1993’s Vampire On Titus, as it contains that album’s prickly, dark and shimmering obfuscation that only reveals its beauty after repeated listens. Tonics And Twisted Chasers maintains the lore because the melodies are so strong. Using a primitive drum machine, Radio Shack effects, minimal instrumentation and the DIY spirit that guided them in the first place, Pollard and Sprout constructed a masterpiece of pop that could only come from a basement in north Dayton, Ohio. Anyone in that hallowed era who happened upon it, kept it as a secret.

TRACK LISTING

1. Satellite
2. Dayton, Ohio-19 Something And 5
3. Is She Ever?
4. My Thoughts Are A Gas (Fucked Up Version)
5. Knock ’Em Flyin’
6. The Top Chick’s Silver Chord
7. Key Losers
8. Ha Ha Man
9. Wingtip Repair
10. At The Farms
11. Unbaited Vicar Of Scorched Earth
12. Optional Bases Opposed
13. Look, It’s Baseball!
14. Maxwell Jump
15. The Stir-Crazy Pornographer
16. 158 Years Of Beautiful Sex
17. Universal Nurse Finger
18. Sadness Is To End
19. Reptilian Beauty Secrets

Building on forty years years of GBV history, the majestic and triumphant Strut Of Kings is the forty-first album by indie rock royalty Guided By Voices. Largely recorded in Kings County, New York (Brooklyn), the album is perhaps a gesture towards the malevolent “kings” on the world stage. As the “Serene King” waltzes across the battlefield, Emperor Pollard evokes castles, King Kong and strutting roosters, a surreal yet regal journey.

TRACK LISTING

1. Show Me The Castle
2. Dear Onion
3. This Will Go On
4. Fictional Environment Dream
5. Olympus Cock In Radiana
6. Leaving Umbrella
7. Cavemen Running Naked
8. Timing Voice
9. Bit Of A Crunch
10. Serene King
11. Bicycle Garden

This record is massive and amazing. Nowhere To Go But Up is Guided By Voices’ third album of 2023 (and thirty-ninth overall) and is a sprawling, wild adventure. With virtually no choruses and just two repeated lyrics in forty minutes, GBV is audacious and unafraid.

One of the most fully realized works that Guided By Voices has created, Nowhere To Go But Up showcases an expert rock band at the top of their game. The band is on a roll and unstoppable.

Following their monumental 40th Anniversary Celebration in Dayton, Ohio, GBV begins their fifth decade with a bang!

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: You'd think that by an artists THIRTY NINTH album, they'd have a struggle coming up with the goods, but Pollard & co have once again crafted a beautifully psychedelic blast of epic proportions. It's got tons of heft, and packed to the brim with melody too.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Race Is On, The King Is Dead
2. Puncher's Parade
3. Local Master Airplane
4. How Did He Get Up There?
5. Stabbing At Fractions
6. Love Set
7. We're Going The Wrong Way In
8. Jack Of Legs
9. For The Home
10. Cruel For Rats
11. Song And Dance

Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia was Guided By Voices’ third album, self-released by the band in 1988 in a pressing of 500. While both of the band’s earlier albums exhibit strong songwriting and plenty of vision, it is here that the GBV sound really begins to coalesce. While Devil Between My Toes is rife with contrasts, variety, and dark psychedelia, and its follow up Sandbox is a cohesive ’60s-influenced affair, Self-Inflicted Aerial Nostalgia marries the two approaches to outstanding effect.

Unsurprisingly, recording began before Sandbox was even done pressing. These sessions would yield an aborted LP titled Learning To Hunt, but after personnel changes and second thoughts, Robert Pollard shelved most of the tracks, dismissing them as too similar to those on Sandbox. Fair enough, as many of Pollard’s more recent songs were simply on another level than previously. Here are the first of the classic Pollard slow-burners, often built on a simple melodic or rhythmic figure that circles itself ever outward, accumulating heft, variation, and inevitability as the song evolves into something unexpected yet inevitable. It’s the aural equivalent to watching a butterfly grow out of its cocoon.

A few things are unique to this particular LP. Original powerhouse drummer Peyton Eric returns for nearly half the tracks, while engineer and lead guitarist Steve Wilbur shines at his brightest, resulting in some of the most thoroughly rocking GBV songs to ever be cut to lacquer, such as “Earful o’ Wax,” which simply explodes out of the speakers when the solo section begins. On the other end of the spectrum, you get Pollard recording perfect pop gems at home with just voice and guitar, which would become a calling card on later GBV albums. There’s simply a tremendous variety of material, all strung together in such a way that the album is all of one piece, a mosaic.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Future Is In Eggs
2. The Great Blake Street Canoe Race
3. Slopes Of Big Ugly
4. Paper Girl
5. Navigating Flood Regions
6. An Earful O’ Wax
7. White Whale
8. Trampoline
9. Short On Posters
10. Chief Barrel Belly
11. Dying To Try This
12. The Qualifying Remainder
13. Liar’s Tale
14. Radio Show (Trust The Wizard)

Robert Pollard has a very strong work ethic. With most of their touring canceled due to the pandemic and then a fractured kneecap, Guided By Voices ran up an extremely prolific streak in the studio, recording and releasing eight albums in the past three years and garnering piles of rave four star and five star reviews in the process. In case one were snoozing, the last album, La La Land was Uncut magazine’s “Best Of The Month.”

The pandemic records were particularly notable and unique that the band members recorded most of their instruments individually in separate cities. Welshpool Frillies finds the gang back together, in a Brooklyn basement with producer Travis Harrison. Much of it was recorded live to tape. The catchy ear worms in these new songs are undeniable, as the kinetic energy of the band is captured in its most raw and pure form. The album is brash, no-frills, and punky, inspired by the wiliness of 90s-era GBV, specifically the Scalping The Guru compilation that Pollard put together in 2022. 2023 marks the 40th anniversary of GBV’s start in Dayton, Ohio. Robert Pollard was an elementary school teacher with no formal music training, and his unlikely success has been an odds-defying adventure. It’s never too late to discover this vital rock band and join the GBV cult.

La La Land doubles down on the intricate proggy-pop displayed on Guided By Voices’s last album Tremblers And Goggles By Rank. On a hot streak of critical acclaim, Robert Pollard continues expanding his songwriting towards extremes of prettiness, heaviness and poeticism. As always, unforgettable hooks are everywhere. But with this latest, it seems Pollard is playing with the extremes of his abilities as a songwriter, emboldened by the power of this lineup now on their fourteenth album together since 2017. The prettiest stuff is prettier than ever (“Queen Of Spaces”) and odder, more complex songs like “Slowly On The Wheel” combine minimalism, whimsy, and cinematic inclinations. There are the exquisite power pop bangers that fans come to expect like “Ballroom Etiquette” and “Pockets.” Tracks like “Instinct Dwelling” and “Caution Song” effortlessly display a cranked-up weight and complexity most bands could never muster. Celebrating forty years in 2023 with their thirty-eighth album, GBV has lately been garnering rave reviews from Rolling Stone, Stereogum, Brooklyn Vegan, Uncut, MOJO, Shindig, Paste, Popmatters, The Quietus and many more.

TRACK LISTING

1. Released Into Dementia
2. Ballroom Etiquette
3. Instinct Dwelling
4. Queen Of Spaces
5. Slowly On The Wheel
6. Cousin Jackie
7. Wild Kingdom
8. Caution Song
9. Face Eraser
10. Pockets

On Oct 9, 2007, Robert Pollard simultaneously released two albums on Merge Records: Standard Gargoyle Decisions and Coast To Coast Carpet Of Love. Both now out of print, Pollard has reimagined and condensed the two as Our Gaze, a single fifteen song album. Because it’s better.

TRACK LISTING

1. The Killers
2. Pill Gone Girl
3. Count Us In
4. The Island Lobby
5. Rud Fins
6. Current Desperation
(Angels Speak Of Nothing)
7. Hero Blows The Revolution
8. Come Here Beautiful
9. Shadow Port
10. Miles Under The Skin
11. Folded Claws
12. Feel Not Crushed
13. Youth Leagues
14. When We Were Slaves
15. Our Gaze

Originally released in 2001, Isolation Drills is the twelfth album by Dayton, Ohio indie rock group Guided by Voices. It was their second and final LP released under TVT Records and their second to feature producer in Rob Schnapf. The album notably features instrumental contributions from Elliott Smith and David Sulzer. This special 20th Anniversary Edition has been remastered and it is included on double gatefold vinyl for the first time. The packaging mirrors the original foldout design from the limited cd digipak.

TRACK LISTING

Disc: 1
1. Sister I Need Wine
2. Fair Touching
3. Want One?
4. Skills Like This
5. The Enemy
6. Chasing Heather Crazy
7. Unspirited
8. Frostman
9. Twilight Campfighter

Disc: 2
1. How's My Drinking?
2. Glad Girls
3. The Brides Have Hit Glass
4. Run Wild
5. Pivotal Film
6. Fine To See You
7. Privately

Guided By Voices’ long out-of-print ninth studio album repressed on vinyl - originally released in 1996 as the follow up to the breakthrough Alien Lanes, Under The Bushes Under The Stars further cemented GBV as one of rock music’s most lauded contributors

TRACK LISTING

Man Called Aerodynamics
Rhine Jive Click
Cut-Out Witch
Burning Flag Birthday Suit
The Official Ironmen Rally Song
To Remake The Young Flyer
No Sky
Bright Paper Werewolves
Lord Of Overstock
Your Name Is Wild
Ghosts Of A Different Dream
Acorns & Orioles
Look At Them
The Perfect Life
Underwater Explosions
Atom Eyes
Don't Stop Now
Office Of Hearts
Big Boring Wedding
It's Like Soul Man
Drag Days
Sheetkickers
Redmen And Their Wives
Take To The Sky

Matador Records is proud to announce the release of a 25th Anniversary vinyl edition of Guided By Voices’ 1995 album Alien Lanes. Inspired by the multicoloured drumhead featured on the album’s artwork, this new edition is pressed on blue, green and red multicolored vinyl making it the first non-exclusive color vinyl edition of this release. Limited to a one time press of 2,500 copies.

Originally released on April 4, 1995, Alien Lanes served as the first Guided by Voices album to be released on Matador Records. With 28 tracks spanning the course of 41 minutes, the album would fundamentally alter the concept of what a rock and roll record could be. Bursting at the seams with classic rock bravado (“Game of Pricks”, “Closer You Are”), anthemic power pop (“My Valuable Hunting Knife”, “Motor Away”), punk (“Pimple Zoo”, “My Son Cool”), psychedelic experimentalism (“Ex-Supermodel”, “Alright”), and tape-warped ballads ( “King And Caroline”, “Blimps Go 90”, “Chicken Blows”) Alien Lanes dips and dives between genres and moods with breakneck efficiency and a remarkable amount of intellect and emotion bolstered by the abstract poetry of songwriter and front-man Bob Pollard.

“A brilliant collection of songs whose importance feels predestined.” - Rolling Stone “The gold standard in intoxicated-visionary psych-pop scrapbook-ing... your first exposure to this band changes you forever.” – Stereogum “The greatest post-modern classic rock album ever made.” – Pitchfork “Genius, loon or mystical union of both, Pollard’s consistent songsmith-ery and charisma are joys to behold.” - Magnet

TRACK LISTING

A Salty Salute
Evil Speakers
Watch Me Jumpstart
They're Not Witches
As We Go Up, We Go Down
(I Wanna Be A) Dumbcharger
Game Of Pricks
The Ugly Vision
A Good Flying Bird
Cigarette Tricks
Pimple Zoo
Big Chief Chinese Restaurant
Closer You Are
Auditorium
Motor Away
Hit
My Valuable Hunting Knife
Gold Hick
King And Caroline
Striped White Jets
Ex-Supermodel
Blimps Go 90
Strawdogs
Chicken Blows
Little Whirl
My Son Cool\Always Crush Me
Alright

The final Matador album from Dayton, Ohio’s legendary geniuses Guided By Voices which, at the time, was set to be their last ever. After twenty- odd years, twenty-odd line ups and twenty-odd albums, EPs, singles, triples, stolen bases, misdemeanour convictions and broken hearts, Dayton’s fortunate sons took a leave of absence only to re-emerge in 2010 at a certain label’s 21st birthday celebrations in Las Vegas. Back in print for the first time since 2008!

TRACK LISTING

Everyone Thinks I’m A
Raincloud (When I’m Not
Looking)
Sleep Over Jack
Girls Of Wild
Strawberries
Gonna Never Have To Die
Window Of My World
Closets Of Henry
Tour Guide At Winston
Churchill Memorial
Asia Minor
Sons Of Apollo
Sing For Your Meat
Asphyxiated Circle
A Second Spurt Of
Growth
(S)Mothering And
Coaching
Huffman Prairie Flying

“Twenty-plus years... two dozen albums... twice that many bandmates... the mad genius that is Robert Pollard finally decided it was time to bring down the curtain on one of indie rock’s most innovative and, well, outrageous live bands. Certainly nobody could accuse Guided By Voices of being too tame, too mainstream, too predictable. Ever since Pollard created the ‘gang’ in Ohio in the early 1980’s with the help of his brother Jimmy and Pete Jamison (with the help of a loan to pay for the first few records), ‘lo-fi’ may be the best descriptor for their brand of bursting, raw, no-holds-barred shout-out songs.

“The end came in 2004, after the release of their final, critically acclaimed Half Smiles of the Decomposed, and this Austin City Limits recorded on November 9, 2004 was one of their last performances. “I love the guys in the band, but I’m getting too old to be a gang leader,” Pollard said, who’s now focusing on his solo work.

“And what a finale it was. Much of it couldn’t, wouldn’t ever be broadcast on television - public or otherwise - but it’s all here for GBV fans to savor forever. Pollard was in rare form, with buckets of beer literally and liberally decorating the stage. He always said he wanted to end the band’s decades of music on a high note. And this is it!” - Terry Lickona (producer ‘Austin City Limits’)

TRACK LISTING

Demons Are Real
Pimple Zoo
Everybody Thinks I’m A Raincloud (When I’m Not Looking)
Exit Flagger
Sleep Over Jack
Girls Of Wild Strawberries
Navigating Flood Regions
Gold Star For Robot Boy
Window Of My World
Redmen And Their Wives
Dayton, Ohio - 19 Something And 5
My Impression Now
Do The Earth
Game Of Pricks
Secret Star
My Kind Of Soldier
Sad If I Lost It
Cut Out Witch
Gonna Never Have To Die
Best Of Jill Hives
Watch Me Jumpstart
Tractor Rape Chain
Buzzards And Dreadful Crows
Pendulum
Murder Charge
Fair Touching
Teenage FBI
Glad Girls
I Am A Scientist
Echos Myron