This 30th Anniversary Edition of the Pavement full-length debut marks the beginning of Matador Revisionist History 2022, a catalog series that includes releases from Yo La Tengo, Interpol and Spoon this year. 

In 1992 "Slanted And Enchanted", arguably the first and best release of 90s 'slacker rock', felt like a compendium of all the very best post-punk moments from the previous fifteen years as well as a surprising new combination of wit, absurdism, noise and pop. All these years later, the album is still fresh, still exciting and still makes most of the competition sound derivative and lazy. So to summarise; still slanted, still enchanting.

STAFF COMMENTS

Laura says: It's easy to forget just how different Pavement sounded to their 'indie' contemporaries back in '92 when this LP was first released. Their angular, abstract art rock and Steven Malkmus' witty, absurdist lyrics were a breath of fresh air and have subsequently influenced a whole heap of bands down the years.
30 years on and it still sounds as fresh as it did back then and is there a more perfect soundtrack to the summer sunshine than "Summer Babe"?
Check out that splatter vinyl too!!!!

TRACK LISTING

Side A
1. Summer Babe
2. Trigger Cut/Wounded-Kite At :17
3. No Life Singed Her
4. The Mouth A Desert
5. Conduit For Sale!
6. Zürich Is Stained
7. Chesley's Little Wrists

Side B
1. Loretta's Scars
2. Here
3. Two States
4. Perfume-V
5. Fame Throwa
6. Jackals, False Grails: The Lonesome Era
7. Our Singer

The first Matador pressing of Pavement’s Westing (By Musket And Sextant), the compilation of Pavement’s early work from 1989-1993. The new pressing coincides with this year’s release of the Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal 4xLP box set and a 30th anniversary limited vinyl edition of Slanted & Enchanted. Pavement begins several months out touring by headlining Primavera Sound Barcelona before continuing onto sold-out tour dates in North America and Europe.

TRACK LISTING

You're Killing Me
Box Elder
Maybe Maybe
She Believes
Price Yeah!
Forklift
Spizzle Trunk
Recorder Grot
Internal K-Dart
Perfect Depth
Recorder Grot (Rally)
Heckler Spray
From Now On
Angel Carver Blues/Mellow Jazz Docent
Drive-By-Fader
Debris Slide
Home
Krell Vid-User
Summer Babe
Mercy Snack: The Laundromat
Baptist Blacktick
My First Mine
My Radio

Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal is an exhaustive 45-track reissue of the band’s much-loved fifth and final album. The new special edition compiles the remastered original album, B-sides, home demos, rehearsal tapes, era-appropriate live recordings, and even the rough tracks from Pavement’s scrapped session at Sonic Youth’s Echo Canyon studio. Altogether, it features 28 unreleased tracks.

Originally released in 1999, Terror Twilight marked a departure from Pavement’s established operating methods. Which is to say that it was recorded with a big-time producer in an expensive studio. However, for all the talk of “polish” and “precision” it’s still very much a Pavement record. And a great one. Like every Pavement album that preceded it, Terror Twilight thrills and confounds. Often at the same time. Twenty-two years on, the songs remain moody, strange, and eminently deserving of re-celebration.

The 4xLP and 2xCD editions include a book with never-before-seen photos and commentary/context from band members Mark Ibold, Stephen Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich, Spiral Stairs, and Steve West as well as producer Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck).

TRACK LISTING

LP Tracklisting

Side A
1) Platform Blues
2) The Hexx
3) You Are A Light
4) Cream Of Gold
5) Ann Don’t Cry

Side B
1) Billie
2) Folk Jam
3) Major Leagues
4) Carrot Rope
5) Shagbag #
6) Speak, See, Remember
7) Spit On A Stranger

Side C
1) The Porpoise And The Hand Grenade
2) Rooftop Gambler
3) Your Time To Change
4) Stub Your Toe
5) Major Leagues (Demo Version)
6) Decouvert De Soleil

Side D
1) Carrot Rope (SM Demo) #
2) Folk Jam Moog (SM Demo) #
3) Billy (SM Demo) #
4) Terror Twilight [Speak, See, Remember] (SM Demo) #
5) You Are A Light (SM Demo) #
6) Cream Of Gold Intro (Jessamine) #
7) Cream Of Gold (SM Demo) #

Side E
1) Spit On A Stranger (SM Demo) #
2) Folk Jam Guitar (SM Demo) #
3) You Are A Light (Echo Canyon) #
4) Ground Beefheart [Platform Blues] (Echo Canyon) #
5) Folk Jam (Echo Canyon) #

Side F
1) Ann Don’t Cry (Echo Canyon) #
2) Jesus In Harlem [Cream Of Gold] (Echo Canyon) #
3) The Porpoise And The Hand Grenade (Echo Canyon) #
4) Spit On A Stranger (Echo Canyon) #
5) Be The Hook #

Side G
1) You Are A Light (Jackpot!) #
2) Terror Twilight [Speak, See, Remember] (RPM) #
3) Rooftop Gambler (Jessamine) #
4) For Sale! The Preston School Of Industry (Jessamine) #
5) Frontwards (Live) #

Side H
1) Platform Blues (Live) #
2) The Hexx (Live) #
3) You Are A Light (Live) #
4) Folk Jam (Live) #
5) Sinister Purpose (Live) #

#= Previously Unreleased

2xCD Features 1999 Album Sequence

"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.

TRACK LISTING

We Dance
Rattled By The Rush
Black Out
Brinx Job
Grounded
Serpentine Pad
Motion Suggests Itself
Father To A Sister Of Thought
Extradition
Best Friend's Arm
Grave Architecture
AT&T
Flux = Rad
Fight This Generation
Kennel District
Pueblo
Half A Canyon
Western Homes

Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels Edition’ 2CD Bonus Tracks:
Sordid
Brink Of The Clouds
False Skorpion
Easily Fooled
Kris Kraft
Mussle Rock
Give It A Day
Gangsters & Pranksters
Saganaw
I Love Perth
Sentinel
Sensitive Euro Man
Stray Fire
Fight This Generation
Easily Fooled
Soul Food
It's A Hectic World
Kris Kraft
Golden Boys/Serpentine Pad
Painted Soldiers
I Love Perth
Dancing With The Elders
Half A Canyon
Best Friend's Arm
Brink Of The Clouds/Candylad
Unfair
Easily Fooled
Heaven Is A Truck
Box Elder
No More Kings
Painted Soldiers
We Dance

Originally released in 1994, this was Pavement's second album, and it signaled the end of Pavement seeing themselves as a recording experiment and the beginning of Pavement as a full time touring band. One of the casualties of this change was the eccentric and usually drunk drummer Gary Young (included here are eight tracks of pre-album Gary Young sessions), whom was replaced by Steve West who bought a greater stability to the line up. The new line up recorded "Crooked Rain Crooked Rain" in NYC, and it proved to be an instant indie classic, packed with superb tracks including singles such as the awesome "Cut Your Hair", "Range Life" and "Gold Soundz".

TRACK LISTING

Silence Kid
Elevate Me Later
Stop Breathin
Cut Your Hair
Newark Wilder
Unfair
Gold Soundz
5-4=Unity
Range Life
Heaven Is A Truck
Hit The Plane Down
Fillmore Jive

‘Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain: LA’s Desert Origins’ 2CD Bonus Tracks:
Camera
Stare
Raft
Coolin' By Sound
Kneeling Bus
Strings Of Nashville
Exit Theory
5-4 Vocal
Jam Kids
Haunt You Down
Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence
Nail Clinic
All My Friends
Soiled Little Filly
Range Life
Stop Breathing
Ell Ess Two
Flux = Rad
Bad Version Of War
Same Way Of Saying
Hands Off The Bayou
Heaven Is A Truck (Egg Shell)
Grounded
Kennel District
Pueblo (Beach Boys)
Fucking Righteous
Colorado
Dark Ages
Flood Victim
JMC Retro
Rug Rat
Strings Of Nashville
Instrumental
Brink Of The Clouds
Tartar Martyr
Pueblo Domain
The Sutcliffe Catering Song

Where 1997's "Brighten The Corners" saw Stephen Malkmus and his merry band of indie rock pranksters shine a light on the band's rock-centric qualities, "Terror Twilight" harkens back to 95's "Wowee Zowee", when Pavement were all about the shambolic sprawl of Alternative possibility. Of course, four years later the context is entirely different - the band's fate as rock's (commercially unsuccessful) great post-Nirvana hope is nearly sealed. And maybe that's where both the terror and the twilight come into play - in the realization that preaching sprawling possibility to the converted is more a noose than an open field, that failed expectations are a setting sun.

So, a downbeat spirit pervades "Twilight"'s songs. And in this gloom, Malkmus looks for and finds soft, dark, melodic wonders: "Spit On A Stranger" turns its eye towards relationships, "Major Leagues" towards a careerist's self-worth, and "Ann Don't Cry" tries to be an anthem for outsiders while visibly flashing its own lonely tear. It's not until the closing "Carrot Rope", a sunny bit of mid-tempo Pavement-pop-foolery with two competing and overlapping vocals, that a major-key ray of light is cast upon the proceedings. Let's hope that this little light is enough to get them through the night.

TRACK LISTING

Spit On A Stranger
Folk Jam
You Are A Light
Cream Of Gold
Major Leagues
Platform Blues
Ann Don't Cry
Billie
Speak, See, Remember
The Hexx
...And Carrot Rope

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.

TRACK LISTING

Stereo
Shady Lane/J Vs. S
Transport Is Arranged
Date W/IKEA
Old To Begin
Type Slowly
Embassy Row
Blue Hawaiian
We Are Underused
Passat Dream
Starlings Of The Slipstream
Fin

‘Brighten The Corners: Nicene Creedence’ 2CD Bonus Tracks:
And Then (The Hexx)
Beautiful As A Butterfly
Cataracts
Westie Can Drum
Winner Of The
Birds In The Majic Industry
Harness Your Hopes
Roll With The Wind
Slowly Typed
Cherry Area
Wanna Mess You Around
No Tan Lines
And Then (The Hexx)
Harness Your Hopes
The Killing Moon
Winner Of The
Embassy Row Psych Intro
Nigel
Chevy (Old To Begin)
Roll With The Wind (Roxy)
Oddity
Type Slowly
Neil Hagerty Meets Jon Spencer In A Non-Alcoholic
Bar
Destroy Mater Dei
It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl
Maybe Maybe
Date W/IKEA
Fin
Grave Architecture
The Classical
Space Ghost Theme I
Space Ghost Theme II

‘Quarantine The Past: The Best Of Pavement’ spans the entirety of Pavement’s career from 1989 to 1999, from the scratchy and mysterious sounds of their early vinyl-only releases to the rich, multi-layered warmth of their final recordings.

TRACK LISTING

Gold Soundz
Frontwards
Mellow Jazz Docent
Stereo
In The Mouth A Desert
Two States
Cut Your Hair
Shady Lane/J Vs. S
Here
Unfair
Grounded
Summer Babe
Range Life
Date W/ IKEA
Debris Slide
Shoot The Singer (1 Sick Verse)
Spit On A Stranger
Heaven Is A Truck
Trigger Cut/Wounded-Kite At :17
Embassy Row
Box Elder
Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence
Fight This Generation

Westing is a compilation of Pavement's early singles and rarities, that shows the band growing from the initial "Slay Tracks" EP through to the singles and EP's from their first two albums.

TRACK LISTING

You're Killing Me
Box Elder
Maybe Maybe
She Believes
Price Yeah!
Forklift
Spizzle Trunk
Recorder Grot
Internal K-Dart
Perfect Depth
Recorder Grot (Rally)
Heckler Spray
From Now On
Angel Carver Blues/Mellow Jazz Docent
Drive-By-Fader
Debris Slide
Home
Krell Vid-User
Summer Babe
Mercy Snack: The Laundromat
Baptist Blacktick
My First Mine
My Radio

Matador Records is excited to announce the release of a three-song shaped picture disc commemorating the 25th anniversary of Pavement’s 1995 album Wowee Zowee. The special disc, cut in the shape of the speech bubble found on the cover of Wowee Zowee, features the tracks “Sensitive Euro Man” and “Brink of the Clouds/Candylad” that first debuted on Wowee Zowee: Sordid Sentinels, the expanded edition that was released on CD in 2006, and will be available on vinyl for the first time via Matador Records globally. Limited to a one-time press of 3,000 copies.

TRACK LISTING

Sensitive Euro Man
Brink Of The Clouds/Candylad