
Search Results for:
MATADOR


Lucy Dacus uses her gift as a songwriter to help understand and cope with the world around her, including making sense of national holidays, often more geared towards social media boasts and manufactured consumerism than authentic celebration. “What is going on,” she asks herself on these days, retreating from the heightened expectations of holidays to figure out what to make of them and to find her own meaning. “I’ve collected some songs from trying to answer that question,” she says, and “this EP seems like the right place to put them next to each other. These songs are self-contained, not indicative of a new direction, just a willingness to do something different and sometimes even out of character.”
STAFF COMMENTS
Millie says: Lucy Dacus’ warm vocals are a welcoming bliss in this miserable November weather. Her ability to cover classics such as ‘In The Air Tonight’ and give it an entirely different tone is breath-taking, while her own song writing in ‘Fools Gold’ are stunningly original and moving.
After two years of seemingly endless tours, the quartet returned in early 2004 to Peter Katis’s Tarquin Studios in Bridgeport, Conn., to record their second album. They had already debuted a handful of songs earmarked for Antics on the road: “Length of Love,” “Narc,” “C’mere.” Meanwhile, having revisited – and reinvented– the material from Bright Lights night after night, they discovered new strengths. There was more room for experimentation in these songs, for toying with arrangements and intricacies of individual parts, than on their debut.
With Antics, Interpol has delivered a disc even more engaging than its celebrated predecessor, without sacrificing any of the depth that has made them such an important band for so many. The songs are at once catchier and more variegated, revealing themselves over time to a degree heard on few current releases, and nothing is ever obvious. Frontman Paul Banks describes, “A lot of time, there are specific topics or events that that inspire the songs, but it’s not explicit in my lyrics.“ Indeed, with Interpol, things are rarely what they seem.
FORMAT INFORMATION
Coloured LP Info: Limited white vinyl.
The album features eleven brand new Belle and Sebastian songs, as well as re-recorded versions of classics 'Get Me Away From Here I'm Dying', originally appearing on 1996's If You’re Feeling Sinister, and ‘I Know Where The Summer Goes’, from 1998's This Is Just a Modern Rock Song EP.
STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: Whether they're writing stand-alone albums, performing live or soundtracking, Belle And Sebastian have a pedigree that can't be denied. 'Days Of The Bagnold Summer' is in the latter camp, but works perfectly as a standalone album too, showcasing exactly why they're one of the most beloved bands on the indie circuit and have been for a great many years.

FORMAT INFORMATION
Coloured LP Info: Reissue on red translucent vinyl.
-
- Ltd 7"
- u/avbl
- Cat Number
- OLE864S
- Release date
- 2 Aug '19

STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: For a mindblowing nine albums worth of material, it's hard to collate a 'Best Of' that accurately represents a band who have consistently and reliably smashed it out of the park. There are none of the big hits here that I wouldn't expect to be here, The Underdog sounds every bit the proto punk-folk clanger it was back in 2007, 'I Turn My Camera Off' kicks things off and I honestly couldn't think of a better appetiser than that. This is a brilliantly diverse and essential summary of a great band at a ridiculously good price. Get on it!

Echoing its title, the artwork for A Fine Mess is illustrated by a series of lost images, recovered from an abandoned police station in Detroit, MI. In a crumbling evidence room - amongst the rubble - an undeveloped roll of film, dated “1-20-96”, featured latent images of a breaking and entering scene, the rooms in chaos.
From the beguiling refrain of the title track, to the soulful topsy-turvy of ‘No Big Deal’, cathartic chorus of long sought-after live favourite ‘Real Life’, anthemic swell of ‘The Weekend’, and angular shades of ‘Thrones’, A Fine Mess is a bracing and distinct entry in Interpol’s oeuvre.

Produced by John Agnello and the band, ‘The Eternal’ not only marks Sonic Youth’s return to the independent label sphere (titles on their own SYR label excepted) after a long association with Geffen but, more importantly, it ranks as one of their more inspired efforts in a 28 year career.
Recorded through November and December of 2008 at the band’s Echo Canyon West studio in Hoboken, NJ, ‘The Eternal’ features many firsts for a Sonic Youth album, including a number of shared vocals between Kim, Thurston and Lee and the studio debut of former Pavement / Dustdevils bassist Mark Ibold, a member of Sonic Youth’s touring band for the past few years.

Lush feels at times like an emotional rollercoaster, only fitting for Jordan’s explosive, dynamic personality. Growing up in Baltimore suburb Ellicot City, Jordan began her classical guitar training at age five, and a decade later wrote her first audacious songs as Snail Mail. Around that time, Jordan started frequenting local shows in Baltimore, where she formed close friendships within the local scene, the impetus for her to form a band. By the time she was sixteen, she had already released her debut EP, Habit, on local punk label Sister Polygon Records.

Originally released in 1993, Exile In Guyville is a seminal album and a feminist landmark. Its legendary status has only grown over the years. It’s continually included in countless lists…Rolling Stone’s 500 Greatest albums of all time + 100 best albums of the 90s, Pitchfork’s Top 100 albums of the 90s, etc. Numerous essays and think pieces have been written about it and the number of accolades piled on is endless.
Since the release of Exile in Guyville, Liz Phair has continued to defy expectation and break barriers. She has released five albums, and is currently working on a new one with Ryan Adams. She has also composed music for television shows and received awards for that work. In November, it was announced that she would be fulfilling a longtime dream to be an author, having received a two-book deal with Random House. Her first book will be called Horror Stories which focuses on “heartbreak, motherhood, and everything in between.
FORMAT INFORMATION
2xLtd LP includes MP3 Download Code.
Dacus and her band recorded the album in Nashville last March, re-teaming with No Burden producer Collin Pastore, and mixed it a few months later with A-list studio wizard John Congleton. The sound they created, with substantial input from multi-instrumentalist and live guitarist Jacob Blizard, is far richer and fuller than the debut — an outward flowering of dynamic, living, breathing rock and roll. Dacus' remarkable sense of melody and composition are the driving force throughout, giving Historian the immersive feel of an album made by an artist in full command of her powers.
STAFF COMMENTS
Millie says: Dacus' light Americana leanings of the superb No Burden are sidelined slightly for her grander, more expansive new outing, Historian. Though her smouldering guitar work and unmistakable voice are ever present, they are skillfully woven into an intricate and all-encompassing web of orchestration, grandeur and beauty. This is a stunner, and every bit the successful follow-up.FORMAT INFORMATION
Coloured LP Info: Indies exclusive clear vinyl.

-
- 2xDeluxe LP
- £25.99 + shipping
Usually ships within 1-3 days - Cat Number
- OLE11250
- Release date
- 25 Aug '17
- Format Info
- Deluxe heavyweight tipped-on sleeve, with 180g vinyl, plus 14 limited edition art prints by Boneface.
-
- 2xIndies Exclusive LP
- £19.99 + shipping
Usually ships within 1-3 days - Cat Number
- OLE11258
- Release date
- 25 Aug '17
- Format Info
- Independent store exclusive – different sleeve artwork.
Hundreds of epic shows, memory lapses, unexplained injuries, one yearlong detour with Iggy Pop and multiple Grammy nominations later, Queens Of The Stone Age re-emerge from the desert newly scarred and somehow strangely prettier with lucky seventh album, Villains.
Produced by Mark Ronson and co-produced by Mark Rankin and mixed by Alan Moulder, Villains is the first full album offering from Queens Of The Stone Age since 2013’s …Like Clockwork gave the band its first #1 album in the U.S. Like the stunning artwork of returning illustrator Boneface, the sonic signatures of the line-up that took …Like Clockwork around the world and back are as unmistakable as ever, though coexisting with sufficient new twists to induce recurring double takes. As Homme himself puts it, “The most important aspect of making this record was redefining our sound, asking and answering the question 'what do we sound like now?' If you can’t make a great first record, you should just stop—but if you can make a great record but you keep making records and your sound doesn’t evolve, you become a parody of that original sound."
Of his role working within such a closed and confident ecosystem as Queens Of The Stone Age, Ronson says, "Queens are and have always been my favourite rock n roll band ever since I walked into Tower on Sunset and bought Rated R in the summer of 2000, so it was incredibly surreal to be welcomed into their secret, pirate clan—or the ‘jacuzzi’ as Josh likes to call it. There were moments during the making of the album in which I was aware I was watching my musical heroes craft something that was sure to become one of my moments on any Queens album. And to have some part in that felt like being in a dream--a very heavy, dark, wonderful dream.”
Long-time Queens cohort co-producer Mark Rankin added, "After the baptism of fire that was …Like Clockwork, I was excited to get into the studio again with the challenge of pushing the sound for this record, especially with the addition of Ronson into the creative mix… What we’ve made is forward looking yet unmistakably Queens."
STAFF COMMENTS
Darryl says: ‘Villains’ finds the QOTSA boys in fine rockin’ form. Heavy sonic riffage with an added groove appeal too, no doubt courtesy of Mark Ronson in the producer’s chair.FORMAT INFORMATION
2xDeluxe LP Info: Deluxe heavyweight tipped-on sleeve, with 180g vinyl, plus 14 limited edition art prints by Boneface.2xIndies Exclusive LP Info: Independent store exclusive – different sleeve artwork.

Lucy Dacus's No Burden is full of surprises—sharp lyrical observations, playful turns of musical phrase, hooks that'll embed themselves in your frontal lobe for days. But the most surprising thing about this album might be the fact that it's a debut; it has a keen sense of self about it, and it nearly glows from the self-possession held by the woman at its core.
The 21-year-old Dacus grew up in Richmond; she was adopted at a young age, an experience that informed her curious, openhearted songwriting. "When my parents were explaining what adoption was—which was very early on in my childhood—they always said that my birthmother thought I was worthwhile even though she couldn't be my mom," she says. "And so from essentially infancy, I was taught that life was innately worthwhile because a bunch of people had worked together to set me up with one.”
Dacus started playing around Richmond while in college, opening for local acts and eventually meeting Jacob Blizard, a guitarist who invited her to make a record for a college project of his. No Burden, which originally came out in February on the Richmond label EggHunt Records, opens with the forthright, almost brutally honest "I Don't Wanna Be Funny Anymore," the last song Dacus wrote before the album's day-long recording session at Starstruck Studios in Nashville. Dacus delivers scalpel-sharp observations about resisting pigeonholing over chunky guitars, ticking off ideals of femininity and youth until the track's not-quite-resolution.
These themes extend to the lyrics of songs like "Strange Torpedo," a whirling portrait of a friend whose "bunch of bad habits" who, Dacus sings, has "been falling for so long… [and hasn't] hit anything solid yet." "I've been that friend watching a loved one do what they know is bad for them and not understanding why," says Dacus. The song offers a simple message: "I love you, why don't you love you? You're the one in your body so you get to choose what to do with it, but if I were you I'd treat me differently.”
The rest of No Burden, which was produced by Collin Pastore, puts Dacus's voice center stage, allowing the glinting poetry of her lyrics to shine even more brightly. "Trust," which Dacus wrote in late 2013, showcases her alone with her guitar, her faint vibrato floating over strummed chords as she sings of self-redemption. And the diptych "Dream State…" and "…Familiar Place," which revolve around Dacus repeating "Without you, I am surely the last of our kind/ Without you, I am surely the last of my kind," capture disappointment and loss in a jaw-dropping way; the music trembles around her while her voice stays steady, anticipating whatever might come next.
No Burden is a forthright, disarmingly catchy statement. And while it's a sterling debut, it only hints at the potential possessed by this passionate, thoughtful young woman.

On Denial, Toledo moves from bedroom pop to something approaching classic-rock grandeur and huge (if detailed and personal) narrative ambitions, with nods to the Cars, Pavement, Jonathan Richman, Wire, and William Onyeabor. By turns tender and caustic, empathetic and solipsistic, literary and vernacular, profound and profane, self-loathing and self-aggrandizing, he conjures a specifically 21st century mindset, a product of information overload, the loneliness it can foster, and the escape music can provide.
STAFF COMMENTS
Barry says: Boisterous and catchy college-rock anthems with a nod to melancholic folk, skate-punk and everything in between. Teens of Denial is a further expansion of singer-songwriter Will Toledo's already extensive back catalogue. Exciting and heartfelt, and another fantastic outing for Car Seat Headrest.
The reissue contains the original album newlyremastered by Howie Weinberg from the original tapes, a second disc with 12 previously unreleased demos from the era, a digital download of nine additional bonus tracks and a full colour book containing photos and an extensive oral history of the making of the album by The AV Club’s Sean O’Neal. The deluxe LP package also includes tipped sleeves, a 24” x 36” poster and a digital download of all songs.
‘Gimme Fiction’ dragged the sonic pointillism of ‘Kill The Moonlight’ further into dub-influenced weirdness as the increasingly confident Spoon went crazy in the studio, experimenting with everything from warped hip hop samples to horse whinnies. Whatever digging or strange alchemy had to go into it, they only produced more gold.
‘Gimme Fiction’ deserves special recognition as the album where Spoon took creative and stylistic quantum leaps that resulted in classics ‘I Turn My Camera On’, ‘The Beast And Dragon Adored’, ‘My Mathematical Mind’, ‘I Summon You’ and so many more. 10 years later, ‘Gimme Fiction’ gets the deluxe release it so richly deserves.

-
- CD
- £11.49 + shipping
Usually ships within 1-3 days - Cat Number
- OLE10882
- Release date
- 30 Oct '15
This prolific artist (also known as Will Toledo) comes to Matador having already crafted an 11-album catalogue of staggering depth, all self-released digitally, gaining him an obsessive following and over 25,000 downloads - all without the muscle of a manager, label, agent, or publicist - until now.
Car Seat Headrest began in 2010 in Will Toledo’s hometown of Leesburg, Virginia. Needing a place of solitude (and soundproofing) where he could record vocals undisturbed, a 17-year-old Toledo set up shop in the family car. Toledo’s catalogue is sharp, literary and culturally omnivorous as it touches upon youth and death, love and depression, drunken parties and 2nd Century theologian. Ever surprising, his lyrical imagery ranges from playful to sexually frank to sorrowful, often within the same song.
After relocating to the Seattle suburbs in 2014, Toledo assembled a line up with bassist Ethan Ives and drummer Andrew Katz. ‘Teens Of Style’ is the first Car Seat Headrest album recorded with a full band and the sound is vibrant and powerful with a wide stylistic range.
On ‘Teens Of Style’ Toledo has taken material from the first three years of the band’s existence and reworked it to generate some of the most realized arrangements to date. Drawing material from ‘3’ (2010), ‘My Back Is Killing Me Baby’ (2011) and ‘Monomania’ (2012), ‘Teens Of Style’ provides a concise overview of the band’s many sonic and emotional facets, with the songs ranging from electronic psychedelia to punky anthems to melancholic acoustic numbers.
The longest track on ‘Teens Of Style’, ‘Times To Die’ is just under seven minutes, applying breakbeat cut-ups and ‘Low Rider’ horns to a groove-driven neo-psych jam with lyrics about Judaism, Hinduism and the record business. Similarly, ‘Maud Gone’ is a wistful 60s-inspired pop number paying homage to Yeats’ unrequited love, while the intricate party track ‘Los Borrachos’ borrows its title from the Diego Velasquez painting.
Car Seat Headrest’s conceptual ambition and stunning songwriting has been apparent since its early days of laptop recording, the scale of Toledo’s vision going far beyond the constricting ‘lo-fi’ term. Now on his Matador Records debut we witness Toledo presenting his intricate ideas with more clarity and refinement than ever, delivering an enthralling collection of songs destined for wide acclaim.
“Toledo’s commitment to giving listeners a direct line to his inner monologue is the kind of thing that inspires hardcore fanhood - the ability to get lost in Toledo’s work is the entire point.” - Pitchfork
“Crazy impressive - catchy, thoughtful, and inventive” - Brooklyn Vegan
“A major new talent… his music is beguiling and easy to get lost in” - NME

Recorded and mixed in a number of locations, including Los Angeles and Joshua tree, b’lieve i'm goin down… is a handshake across the country, east to west coast, thru the dustbowl history (“valley of ashes”) of woody honest strait forward talk Guthrie, and a cali canyon dead still nite floating in a nearly waterless landscape. The record is all air, weightless, bodyless, but grounded in convincing authenticity, in the best version of a singer songwriter upcycling.”
STAFF COMMENTS
Andy says: With a late night/early hours ruminative glow, KV brings more songs from his couch, and his most mellow, considered collection so far.
-
- CD
- £3.99 + shipping
- Cat Number
- OLE10572
- Release date
- 18 May '15
Ceremony's fifth studio album, The L-Shaped Man, uses singer Ross Farrar's recent breakup as a platform to explore loneliness and emotional weariness, but it is by no means a purely sad album. Rather than look inward, Farrar uses his experience to write about what it means to go through something heavy and come out the other side a different person.
In order to tell Farrar's story, Ceremony have almost completely stripped back the propulsive hardcore of their previous records, turning every angry outburst into simmering despair. "We've always tried to be minimalists in writing, even if it's loud or fast or abrasive," says lead guitarist Anthony Anzaldo. "It's really intense when I hear it. Not in a way where you turn everything up to ten. Things are so bare, you're holding this one note for so long and you don't now where it's going-to me, that's intensity." That intensity is apparent on "Exit Fears," the first full song on the record. It meticulously pairs Justin Davis' loping bassline, which pulls the track along, with Anzaldo's icy, minimal guitar work. It brings to mind some alternate version of Joy Division that hasn't quite lost all hope. It gets close to exploding, but instead plays the shadows, never quite rising above a nervous simmer.
"A lot of the content has to do with loss, and specifically the loss of someone who you care deeply about," Farrar says. "There is no way for you to go through something like this artistically and not have really strong emotions of loss and pain. There's not really any way to hide that." Farrar, for his part, is singing with a new kind of intensity, his baritone swooping and retreating from stressed angst to unsettling near-mutter as he sings, "You told your friends you were fine/ you thought you were fine too..." and later, "nothing is ever fine/ nothing ever feels right/ you have to tell yourself you tried." It's the first of many lyrically direct moments, and it should be hard to listen to, but Ceremony have so effortlessly nailed the sound of sadness that it feels great to live inside for awhile.
The sound is abetted by producer John Reis, who honed his sound in seminal bands like Rocket from the Crypt, Drive Like Jehu, and Hot Snakes. Much of the gravelly aggression he experimented with in those bands is present on The L-Shaped Man.
There's a story behind the title too. "I was speaking to our driver Stephen while on tour," Farrar says. "We were talking about men in general and what shape they are...their body type. I said, 'I guess men are in the shape of an L. The torso is straight. Vertical. And then you have the little feet at the end.' There's this painter named Leslie Lerner who was living in San Francisco in the '70s and '80s and made these beautiful paintings. He died on my 21st birthday. A lot of the record is about the similarities in our ideas. In what we're trying to make. Things that have to do with love and losing love."

-
- 2xLP
- £18.99 + shipping
Usually ships within 1-3 days - Cat Number
- OLE10561
- Release date
- 19 Jan '15
- Format Info
- Double LP with a gatefold sleeve.
- Includes MP3 Download Code.
What it doesn’t indicate is how fun the album is. Produced and mixed at Maze Studios in Atlanta by Ben H. Allen III, best known for his work with Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective, and Raury, among others, the band – who have been listening to things like vintage Detroit techno and Giogio Moroder – have brought a dance-party element (and a disco song about Sylvia Plath) into their gorgeous tales of sensitive souls navigating a world gone awry. It is perhaps the most inspired and wide-reaching album Belle and Sebastian have ever made.
FORMAT INFORMATION
2xLP Info: Double LP with a gatefold sleeve.2xLP includes MP3 Download Code.

-
- LP Box Set
- £35.49 + shipping
Usually ships within 1-3 days - Cat Number
- OLE10568
- Release date
- 19 Jan '15
- Format Info
- Limited edition, quadruple LP in lidded box with download voucher and poster. Featuring two extended mixes and four bonus tracks, two of which are exclusive to this format.
What it doesn’t indicate is how fun the album is. Produced and mixed at Maze Studios in Atlanta by Ben H. Allen III, best known for his work with Gnarls Barkley, Animal Collective, and Raury, among others, the band – who have been listening to things like vintage Detroit techno and Giogio Moroder – have brought a dance-party element (and a disco song about Sylvia Plath) into their gorgeous tales of sensitive souls navigating a world gone awry. It is perhaps the most inspired and wide-reaching album Belle and Sebastian have ever made.
FORMAT INFORMATION
LP Box Set Info: Limited edition, quadruple LP in lidded box with download voucher and poster. Featuring two extended mixes and four bonus tracks, two of which are exclusive to this format.
-
- LP
- £17.49 + shipping
- Cat Number
- OLE10491
- Release date
- 2 Jun '14
The last two Fucked Up albums were sweeping, defining, monolithic gestures. On 2008’s ‘The Chemistry Of Common Life’ they tested hardcore’s capacity for stylistic innovation, for seven-minute songs and unconventional arrangements and they won Canada’s prestigious Polaris Music Prize in the process. With 2011’s ‘David Comes To Life’ they offered up a full-blown rock opera, coming with one larger-than-life hook after another and that made them even bigger and further away from the Toronto hardcore scene that nurtured them. ‘Glass Boys’ isn’t a retrenchment or a back-tobasics move - it’s too ambitious and complex for that - but after those last two albums it’s tight and concise and direct, an album of real and direct sentiment rather than artifice.
Musically, ‘Glass Boys’ carries echoes of some of the more ragged and adventurous bands from America’s punk past (Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr.) but it also has some of the anthemic charge of The Who and the guttural intensity of Negative Approach. Singer Damian Abraham still growls like a demon but he’s found more range and depth in his bark. Drummer Jonah Falco does something innovative on the album, adding two separate drum tracks, one of them in half-time, adding a psychedelic, disorienting feel.
The triple-guitar battalion of Mike Haliechuk, Ben Cook and Josh Zucker still builds symphonies out of feedback and powerchords but this time around there’s less emphasis on world-crushing riffs and more on world-creating textures. Bassist Sandy Miranda is now even more a part of that storm, her instrument blurring in with that overwhelming guitar roar.
If the album’s lyrics concern the quest to stay true to your younger self, the music pulls off the trick beautifully. ‘Echo Boomer’, like ‘Son The Father’ and ‘Let Her Rest’ before it, makes for a powerful album opener, a surge of catharsis that gives a strong idea of what's to come. ‘Sun Glass’ builds from acoustic strumming to bleary pummel and stays pretty the whole time. ‘DET’ has one of those world-annihilating choruses that demands a full-room singalong and the album-closing title track is a blast of epic catharsis as grand and forceful as anything this band has ever done. After two monumental concept-driven concept albums, Fucked Up have made another heartexpanding, life-affirming piece of work, and this time, they’ve done it by shooting straight from the heart.

-
- 3xLtd 12"
- u/avbl
- Cat Number
- OLE10431
- Release date
- 30 Sep '13
- Format Info
- This sold out as soon as we got it in, but someone who ordered it didn't collect it, so if you want this last copy, get your skates on!!
All versions are unreleased except the original version. Each 12″ pack comes with a download coupon with all the tracks plus the radio edit of “Ohm”.
There are only 20 copies of this for the UK so don't snooze if you want one!
FORMAT INFORMATION
3xLtd 12" Info: This sold out as soon as we got it in, but someone who ordered it didn't collect it, so if you want this last copy, get your skates on!!
Described by Queens principal Joshua Homme as “an audio documentary of a manic year,” ‘...Like Clockwork’ is the band’s first full length collection of all new material since 2007’s ‘Era Vulgaris’, as well as the band’s debut release on new label partner Matador.
‘...Like Clockwork’ was produced by Joshua Homme and QOTSA, and recorded by Mark Rankin with additional engineering by Justin Smith, at Josh’s Pink Duck studio in Burbank, California.

Kurt Vile (his real name) is one of ten children, born in 1980 and raised in the city of brotherly love, Philadelphia. As a teenager, his bluegrass-lovin’ father gifted him a banjo, when what Kurt truly craved was a guitar. So, with a ‘can do’ spirit that’s a boon to any independent musician, he simply played it as if it were a guitar. Along with his passion for the 4-track-toting titans of early 90’s indie-rock, Vile also harboured a love for classic rock of substance – Creedence, Tom Petty, Neil Young, artists with their roots in ‘Roots’, but with enough vision to carve out an Americana of their own. Within the footprints he was following, Vile began carving a path of his own, making an art of dipping from introspective mellow rambles, to sky-scraping anthems; eager to rock out, equally unafraid to sing low and sweet.
Fast-forward some years and with The Violators in tow (the Heartbreakers to his Tom Petty, if you will) barnstormers like ‘Freak Train’ from the full-length Childish Prodigy [2009] were contrasted with more reflective and sun-dappled tunes from his break-through album Smoke Ring For My Halo [2011], as Kurt quietly became one of the great American guitarists and songwriters of our time.
Wakin On A Pretty Daze, Vile’s fifth full-length, is an album that builds on all Kurt has done before, that makes sense of the supposedly contrary impulses of his previous work. Learning whilst ascending, he’s crafted an album that would have sounded great 30 years ago, sounds great today and will still sound great 30 years from now.
Realising he’s in no rush to prove anything to anyone, songs on Wakin On A Pretty Daze unfurl at their own extended and unhurried pace, but not a second of this loveliness is wasted or surplus. The likes of ‘Air Bud’, ‘Was All Talk’ and ‘Gold Tone’ could keep on ringing out, exploring every possible wrinkle in its chord sequences and expounding with wisdom on the simple pleasures of a beautiful day, for as long as Kurt could stand to play them. These aren’t jams; these are songs that glide as they unwind, with a natural charm that’s enough to convince you that, yes, for Kurt, Makin’ music is easy. So, seriously: Watch him.

"Wowee Zowee", originally released by Matador in April 1995 on the eve of Pavement's infamous mud-bespattered mainstage appearance at Lollapalooza, began life as a controversial release. Fresh off the success of "Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain" with its chart topping Modern Rock hit "Cut Your Hair", the band went into the studio and came out with a deliberately chaotic and eclectic album that sounded nothing like its predecessor. With influences from the Groundhogs to the Frogs, Captain Beefheart to the more obscure mid- 80s central California hardcore bands featured on Maximum Rock'n'Roll comp "Not So Quiet On The Western Front", "Wowee Zowee" confused critics and alienated fans. How fantastic, then, that it went on to scan 122K copies and became many fans' fave Pavement album. A return to their pre- Crooked cacophony, the songs have a darkness that now seems appropriate, and with Bryce Goggin at the mixing desk, the production was the band's most rocking to date.
FORMAT INFORMATION
LP Info: US import double vinyl 120 gram edition, includes a free download code.
FORMAT INFORMATION
LP Info: US import 120 gram edition, includes a free download code.
Pavement's fourth proper LP seems to be a direct response to anyone who thought 1995's "Wowee Zowee" sealed a downward spiral from indie-pop heroes to incomprehensible, in-joke nonconformists. On "Brighten The Corners", the rock hero in Pavement re-emerges as the dominant stereotype, making the lyrical idiosyncrasies on which critics of the band like to harp into witty window-dressing. Nowhere is this dichotomy better heard than on the electrifying opener, "Stereo", which rages with anthemic power-chords and a rock-star chorus ('Hey! Listen to me! I'm on the stereo'), while also pondering the longest-standing mystery in rock, the voice of Rush singer Geddy Lee ('how did it get so high/I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy').
Musically, "Brighten The Corners" extends the rock tradition to the other side of Sonic Youth's dissonant discoveries while staying free of grunge's self-defeatist mentality. No longer a group of lo-fi pranksters, Pavement has tightened up into a mighty ensemble, able to jam like psychedelic maniacs (the closing "Fin") or fly by night like punks on speed ("Embassy Row"). Lyrically, Stephen Malkmus and co-conspirator Scott Kannberg (aka Spiral Stairs) have started questioning where they belong in a late-90s world seemingly devoid of secrets and mysteries. Their declarations present yet another yin-yang to the Pavement whole: Kannberg's answers seem to lie in emotional stability, Malkmus' in the never-ending search itself. These uncertainties of dealing with one's unrecognised worth play out like an Irvine Welsh novel: the chapters full of spunky glee, the ending steeped in melancholy.
FORMAT INFORMATION
LP Info: US import 120 gram edition, includes a free download code.
FORMAT INFORMATION
LP Info: US import 120 gram edition, includes a free download code.
-
- CD
- £6.99 + shipping
Usually ships within 1-3 days - Cat Number
- OLE938-2
- Release date
- 7 Mar '11
Once compared to Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty, Psychic TV and Animal Collective in the same review, Kurt can bring to mind anything from Suicide to Leo Kottke to My Bloody Valentine, Bob Seger, Nick Drake and Eastern ragas. Still, he pieces together these disparate elements so seamlessly and unpretentiously that such reference points are rendered pointless by the singularity of his sound. Kurt Vile might belong to a long lineage of classic American songwriters, but he’s the only one who’s alive and in his prime today.
This is the fourth time Kurt Vile has put an album’s worth of songs together and stuck a name on it, but in a sense "Smoke Ring For My Halo" is his first real album - every flinching guitar arpeggio and vocal wander was made to be here, made with this record in mind, to sit alongside another in situ and in sequence. It’s a record that is perfect for any given day during whatever season, to satisfy all moods in every possible scenario, be that first thing in the morning or last thing at night; today, tomorrow or five years from now.

-
- CD
- £6.49 + shipping
Usually ships within 1-3 days - Cat Number
- OLE887-2
- Release date
- 5 Oct '09
*** REDUCED ***


STAFF COMMENTS
Darryl says: Their ninth album released back in 2000 saw Yo La Tengo peaking with gorgeous melancholy. An introspective, delicate and dreamy sound that shimmers along with shivery pulses and hushed vocals. Perfect for a moody winter night.

-
- Ltd 7"
- u/avbl
- Cat Number
- OLE8657
- Release date
- 30 Mar '09
- Format Info
- JUST FOUND ONE COPY OF THIS.

-
- Ltd 7"
- u/avbl
- Cat Number
- OLE8647
- Release date
- 30 Mar '09
- Format Info
- JUST FOUND ONE COPY OF THIS!

Fri 6th - 11:06
Fri 6th - 10:17
Thu 5th - 4:57
Thu 5th - 3:27
Sign up