Artist – Album: Pavement – Slanted and Enchanted
Released: 20th
April 1992
Sounds Like: They do what they want and they do it well
Pavement stand in
that weird middle ground between being underground enough to feel like a
treasure when you first discover them and being a band that eventually everyone
really should get to know.
A lovely, if over generous, reader gave me a book last month
called “The Best Music You’ve Never Heard”, a tome chock full of great
forgotten artists from Daniel Johnston and Clifford T. Ward to Faust, The Monks
and Felt. And there, in-between Lightspeed Champion and Slint in the Strictly
Indie chapter, sat Pavement. The book argues that, akin to The Velvet
Underground, few people bought Pavement’s records at the time, but those that
did went on to form their own bands around the turn of the millennium. It lists
the likes of Modest Mouse, The Shins and Blur as examples of those taken in by
the Californian slackers. It is true that whilst this album was released in the
midst of the grunge era, and therefore wasn’t the huge success of lesser rock
albums of the same time, it pointed to a much more positive and enduring
direction for alternative rock in the future.
But really, all of Pavement’s first four albums are must
haves. Slanted and Enchanted, their debut, is arguably the least accessible of
the quartet with its distinctive DIY blend of melody and noise, but it’s still
a great one to get in to. ‘Summer Babe’ is
an early classic, its druggy imagery and distorted guitars melting into one of
the biggest indie anthems of the last few decades. In amongst the rough sounds
lie a couple of great acoustic efforts in ‘Zurich
Is Stained’ and ‘Here’. ‘Two States’ actually reminded me of
T-Rex.
It is truly an excellent album and deservedly highly lauded. Personally,
Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain tops it, but the impact of Slanted and Enchanted
makes it one of a kind.
Albumaday... rating: 9/10
1. Summer
Babe (Winter Version) – 3:16
2. Trigger
Cut/Wounded-Kite at :17 – 3:16
3. No
Life Singed Her – 2:09
4. In
the Mouth a Desert – 3:52
5. Conduit
for Sale! – 2:52
6. Zurich
is Stained – 1:41
7. Chesley’s
Little Wrists – 1:16
8. Loretta’s
Scars – 2:55
9. Here
– 3:56
10. Two
States – 1:47
11. Perfume-V
– 2:09
12. Fame
Throwa – 3:22
13. Jackals,
False Grails: The Lonesome Era – 3:21
14. Our
Singer – 3:09
Listen to ‘Summer Babe
(Winter Version)’: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-kHIsPe-Qw
Also released on the 20th April:
1962: Stan Getz and Charlie Byrd – Jazz Samba
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Also released on the 20th April:
1998: Boards of Canada – Music Has the Right to Children
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Also released on the 20th April:
1998: Massive Attack – Mezzanine
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