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Rating: 1992. Matador. Slanted and Enchanted.
Before it, there were various EPs (Perfect Sound Forever, Slay Tracks, Demolition Plot) which will be included in the Westing (By Musket And Sextant) collection and in which the seeds of Pavement can be discerned, with their lo-fi and somewhat ramshackle inclinations. This attitude will embody more mature arrangements in Slanted And Enchanted. Dirtier than the subsequent Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, in which Pavement's jewels shine in perhaps too polished a way; it should be said, however, that Pavement's noise is probably far from a total adherence to an intellectualistic intent to serve the spontaneity and genuineness of the creative process through a method that almost aspires to self-annihilation: someone might find it a bit plastic and studied, provided they find a similar "lack" in Pixies or Dinosaur Jr. (perhaps less in Sonic Youth, although eternally present in noise-rock references).
Just to be clear, Pavement are not John Cage.
Moreover, they recover the low fidelity of recordings (lo-fi), perhaps less arbitrary in groups like Half Japanese and Beat Happening and for this reason less loaded with ideological significance.
But coming to the CD... “Summer Babe” is the beginning, the single that makes its way among American college fans, with a melody perhaps a bit familiar, but now it's the approach that counts, the notes are combinations that have been exhausted, and in the composition of the piece (as in all Slanted And Enchanted) a carefreeness transpires as a cure from anxieties and frustrations and not as gratuitous disengagement. In the following “Trigger Cut,” as the fast pace advances, perfectly calibrated drops and tone recoveries are introduced, the melody gets into your head while second voices respond to Malkmus’s singing (“I've got a message for you... I keep it in my head”).
One after another, each better than the last, quickly, and the tracklist ends rapidly. But there is already time to choose two or three pieces to consecrate in your player... because Pavement invades you, they lend themselves to all kinds of listening, from attentive and presumptuously cultured to free, evasive, and completely uncritical.
Some vaguely jazzy influences in “Conduit For Sale!” and various Pavement-like catchy disharmonies (made effective by slightly off-key singing and small experiments on guitar strings) from “Chesley’s Little Wrists” to “Jackals, False Grails...” (how can you not hear in the latter the influence that Pavement had on hard-to-label bands like Modest Mouse). Not to mention the various “In The Mouth A Desert,” “Zurich Is Stained,” and “Here,” the latter stunning even in its distortion-filled, shoegazing-like version; any comment would frankly be reductive.
Two years later, still for Matador, the album “Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain” will be released, consecrating them as champions of the lo-fi era (somewhat unjustly) in the Cobainian and post-Cobain period, a time when grunge monopolized American scene attention. For many, the second will be their best work; for others (like me), it will be great but not on par with the first.
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Summer Babe (Winter Version) (03:16)
ICE BABY
I SAW YOUR GIRLFRIEND
SHE'S EATING HER FINGERS
LIKE THEY'RE JUST ANOTHER MEAL
SHE WAITS THERE
IN THE LEVEE WASH
MIXING COCKTAILS WITH A PLASTIC TIPPED CIGAR...
MY EYES STICK TO
ALL THOSE SHINY ROBES...WEAR
ON THE PROTEIN DELTA STRIP
IN AN ABANDONED HOUSEBOAT
ILL WAIT THERE, ILL BE WAITING FOREVER...
MINERALS
ICE DEPOSITS DAILY
DROP OFF THE FIRST SHINY ROBE
IVE GOT ALOT OF THINGS I WANT TO SELL YOU
THERE NOT HERE
YOU TOOK IT ALL
EVERYTIME I TURN AROUND I FIND IM SHOT
YOU'RE MY...
SUMMER BABE
04 In the Mouth a Desert (03:52)
can you treat it like an oil well
when it's underground out of sight
and if the sight is just a whore sign
can it make enough sense to me
pretend the table is a trust knot
we'll put our labels down, faith is down
and watch the yards of twine unravel
and you'll never get it back
it's what I want (it's what I want)
it's what I want (one gets down)
it's what I want (it's what I want)
don't you know
I could make it dry, make it dry, make it dry
make it dry
I've been crowned, the king of it
and it is all we have so wait
to hear my words and they're diamond sharp
I could open it up if it's up and down
it's what I want (it's what I want)
I see a bagluck, a little bar (all on time)
don't you know that it's what I want
(that's what I want)
I see your bag and it makes me try
make me try, make me try, make me try
I've been down, the king of it
and it is all we have, I've been down
if I could wait to hear those words
they're diamond sharp today
05 Conduit for Sale! (02:52)
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin' and I'll try (2x)
Imagine if you will Herr Proctor
Alias and nobleman
Son of son of sky, and of scion
Part of his rich inheritance
Parceled and generous divorce
Sentence forthwith being
Certain blocks of land
And living quarters deemed
By all gentlemen
And wives thereof
To be grossly humane
And frankly, quite un-dirty
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin' and I'll try (2x)
Herr Proctor
In his enviable good taste
Tries quick escape gambit
Via local periodicals
But no takers land an enviable station
In the conduit between two selves
A veritable no-man's-land
Array of the flophouse cardboard materials
And carbon-monoxide wallpaper
All his brig-deck Torino boys ask
Is irrelevant...
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin' and I'll try (2x)
Unable to bear the scandal, Ray, philanthropist
Rents low-down scab house in conduit
Herr Barockter offers said land for a song,
But no one wants to sing
In an attempt to retain social privileges
Yet mask it as goodwill
He says to the conduit members,
"Take this rotten old tree and make it bear fruit."
Cheers erupted throughout the thin settlement;
An Italian male was heard to say,
"Between here and there
Is better than anything over there!"
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin'
I'm tryin' and I'll try (3x)
06 Zurich Is Stained (01:41)
i can't sing it strong enough:
that kind of strength i just don't have.
if you watch the lights change please
don't hold them hanging
you think it's easy, but you're wrong
i'm not one half of the problem
zurich is stained and it's not my fault
just hold me back or let me run
what does it mean, a mistake or two
if it's the kind of mistake no one can trace
to the fountain where we sold it
and held them hanging.
you think it's easy, but you're wrong
i'm not one half of the problem
zurich is stained and it's not my fault
just hold me back or let me run
08 Loretta's Scars (02:55)
how can i [3x]
make my body shed for you?
how can i [3x]
make my body shed around your
metal scars
loretta's scars [3x]
from now on i can see the sun
makes me anxious, makes me run
from now on i can see the sun
makes me nervous, makes me run
how can i [3x]
make my body shed for you?
how can i [3x]
make my body shed around your
metal scars
loretta's scars [3x]
from now on i can see the sun
makes me anxious, makes me run
from now on i can see the sun
makes me nervous, makes me run
from now on i can see the sun
i can see the sun etc.
10 Two States (01:47)
two states!
we want two states
north and south
two, two states
40 Million Daggers! [x4]
two states!
we want two states
there's no culture
there's no spies
40 million daggers! [x4]
11 Perfume-V (02:09)
fun for an hour til the hour's gone
can one trick nights feed 40 days?
in my bed at the break of dawn
she shivered like a vein slashed bright and new
she's got the radio active and it makes me feel ok (i don't feel ok) [x2]
grip-force the vials and strip the locks
smash the set & slash the beds
and when it looks life a wife's ex-plot
we'll cover all the rugs with cheap perfume
she's got the radio active and it makes me feel ok (i don't feel ok) [repeat]
like a docent's lisp, like a damsel's spit, like a dry gin's twist (of lime)
like a poor droll sir, like a pike's dull spurs, like a pastor's flock (of sheep)
12 Fame Throwa (03:22)
fame throwa pass out the gold,
the diamon watch the last reward,
all the things we had before
you sold us out and took it all
head-borne cries from zenith sluts
astral rites from dead-end ruts
these ends are sickened wars [x2]
he's one of our nation's spies
he's one of our first recruits
i click with her leather thighs
he's one of our first recruits
how can you know?
in the distance lies a grower,
n閑 Rudolph, king fame throwa,
son of groupie, bed-worn sexan
spent his cash convincing us
that the desert was a starscape
took our lives for satellites so we could cry:
naked, naked, foul.
he's one of our nation's spies
he's one of our first recruits
i click with her leather thighs
he's one of our first recruits
14 Our Singer (03:09)
i've been waitin'
anticipatin'
sun comes up
the skies won't sink my soul
i've dreamt of this
but is never comes
but it never comes
the risin'
the natures dry
folk!
i've been dreamin'
traced out but dreamin'
the sun coems up
the blisters burn my soul
i'm dreamin
of something now
of something now
of the risin'
the natures dry
and all the groovey ones (?)
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By Sallu
With every listen, it feels like they’re playing in the next room or in the garage; they are there with you.
They dress masterpiece tracks as sloppy, dirty, schizophrenic songs, but there remains that incredulity, that magic, that certain something like a band next door.
