Pavement added a little pop infusion to their smart cynical surrealism with this laid back and delightfully distorted depository of matured and assured indie rock gems. After the experimental madness of 'Wowee Zowee' the band was ready for something more polished. Certainly, there was pressure from Matador's new distributor Capitol Records to make something more accessible. Guitarist and vocalist Stephen Malkmus, guitarist Scott "Spiral Stairs" Kannberg, bassist Mark Ibold, multi-instrumentalist Bob Nastanovich, and drummer Steve West recorded the album with Mitch Easter at his North Carolina home studio, the Fidelitorium. Kannberg says Easter's "biggest contribution was this big old plantation studio mansion which he’s in the process of renovating. There’s music related items everywhere. Some of the different elements were interesting. He had two front parlors with records, posters, and antiquated gear. There were harpsichords, a Chamberlain, a tape loop machine, and tons of old equipment. It had a real good vibe. It was like a candy store. And Mitch went into some long dissertation about sounds. I’d like to go back there because there’s a lot of stuff we never even got to use."
Malkmus points to a change in the band's approach: "Except for 'Brighten the Corners', we didn't rehearse. It was all kinda made up in the studio, the versions and the overdubs, nothing was really planned out, it was actually just made up on the spot. Brighten the Corners, we went to Steve West's house for ten days before we went to Mitch Easter's, where we recorded it. It was a little more focused I guess...'Brighten the Corners' is more straight ahead, like, let the tape run. There were some things added to it, but it was pretty kinda dry, and not so much reverb and not so much compression as the other record."
'Brighten the Corners' went to number seventy in the US, sixty-four in Canada, fifty-six in Sweden, fifty in New Zealand, thirty-eight in Norway, and peaked at number twenty-seven on the British album chart.
http://www.matadorrecords.com/pavement
https://www.facebook.com/pavementtherockband/
http://www.matadorrecords.com/pavement
https://www.facebook.com/pavementtherockband/
About "Stereo", Malkmus says, "I was trying to write a song that was funky with a catchy bass-line." It peaked at number forty-two in the UK.
"Pigs, they tend to wiggle when they walk
The infrastructure rots
And the owners hate the jocks
With their agents and their dates
If the signatures are checked
You'll just have to wait
And we're counting up the instants that we save
Tired nation so depraved
From the cheap seats see us
Wave to the camera
It took a giant ramrod
To raze the demon settlement
But high-ho silver, ride"
"Shady Lane / J vs. S" went to number forty in the UK.
"Blind date with a chancer, we had oysters and dry lances
And the check when it arrived, we went dutch dutch dutch
Dutch a redder shade of neck on a whiter shade of trash
And this Emory board is given me a rash
I'm flat out
You're so beautiful to look at when you cry
Freeze don't move
You've been chosen as an extra in the movie adaptation
Of the sequel to your life"
"Embassy Row"
"I need to get born, I need to get dead
I'm sick of the forms, I'm sick of being misread
By men in dashikis and their lefist weeklies
Colonized wrath -- their shining new path
The converted castle of moorish design
If you want to stay the weekend, well, we wouldn't mind
The plots they are hatching, the surface is scratching
In an open corner where the news is late
In a netherland of foreign feeds
In a netherland of foreign feeds
In a netherland of foreign feeds
I'm gonna take you down, I'm gonna take the crown"
"Passat Dream" was another song by Scott Kannberg.
"Yeah, you gotta be strong -- there's no other way to fund it
All the plantings are young and able --
and I hope you find a way to buy it
'Cause that's the way to his heart, babe
And that's the way to his soul
You got to give him millions in gold, child --
before I go the way of the sold"
'Brighten the Corners'
full album
No comments:
Post a Comment