Pavement
Watery, Domestic

THE REVIEW

Why ever raise indolence to a fundamental aesthetic category?
If you have made it your artistic signature, perhaps.
With bitter lyrics: poetry halfway between the sub-proletarian suburb and college; but where is it going and directed?
Restrained guitars, compelling low-fidelity structural awkwardness, which does not mean unfaithfulness, hollow chimes, nibbled melodies, drums and bass bouncing without emphasis, trembling more than anything out of fear of living "where the fog is rented, if there is".
Why not? You make indie rock!

Slackers have always been underrated. But they’ve taught a lesson. What would the '90s be without the "Sidewalk"? Malkmus, unaware of '80s hedonism, reincarnates the existential malaise of post-punk but gives it a new, tolerable form; he fights and wins his battle (pointless to fight, but even more pointless to lose!). He comes out pure. As if mocking, between clashes and beatings. A semi-serious hero, bearer of a humble yet not miserable art, grand but shrunk to the minimum, in the urgency of expressing itself reluctantly yet effectively, how it's done, well, only he knows. And with a phantom, distant beauty. But it's beauty! Hesitant, in slow motion, hidden. But beauty it is. Which makes Pavement enchanting. Shimmering above the exhaustion that has possessed them, and above every philosophical ailment.
Which side to choose, then? Pavement draw a line, willingly or not, you either jump in or you don't. Then, when you’re on their side, all you need to do is walk. No flying, no falling. You make do with what you have. And, a few steps later, with what you are. If you see a lesson in this, perhaps, there is. A bit like a Zen impresario. Improbable, all of a sudden. But soon you find yourself having to think before you speak or act! Whether you eat the bear or it eats you, you don’t care. That's how it must be.

"Watery, Domestic" is the EP with the well-known backyard bird embossed on the cover among little signs, darts, and titles engraved with very white reliefs and, at first glance, elusive. Four tracks that cut the legs starting with "Texas Never Whispers" to close with "Shoot the Singer (1 Sick Verse)". You have the impression of piercing noise, of the exquisite melody, that something immense is about to happen. Nothing! If at least Medusa's glance petrified you! But nothing. No jolts. No revolutions. No suspicions. Yet subversion. As if to say: Were you looking for liberation? Are you blind? You’re already free to begin with. Do whatever the hell you want, but don't bother. Shall I lend you the eye stolen by Perseus from the Graiae?

A tad more aggressive than what we are used to, but still kind, neither ungainly nor elegant. They sing about "dry and dirty summers", motels and car trips, "souls crumbling like a clod of earth". In "Weatery, Domestic" they show us the rubble of their work. Not achieved through sludgy waters, but domestically indeed. As if to say: we’ve left them here, if you want to come and see... If you want to call it "aesthetic avant-garde"...
A random group of guys, shabby, with flashes of genius. Stephen Malkmus and Scott Kannenberg/Kannberg from Stockton, a lost town: not too far from San Francisco, yet light-years away from Seattle. And, in particular, they tried to go against the current, for a little while, the rock more beautiful than it was.