Pitchfork: You are one album way from having all the Pavement albums reissued, and the band is pretty well canonized at this point. Does that awareness affect you at all as far as how you make music now?

Stephen Malkmus: I don’t think so. There’s probably a certain confidence in your voice, or something, that is validated. You know what I mean? I’m just imagining if people didn’t already say that you were cool, that you’d [have] more doubt in what you’re doing. That’s not so conscious, but that’s part of my cosmology now. What we’re doing now, it’s usually more based on records that I’ve bought or a projection of what I can do well now and the inner dynamics of playing with the people I’m playing with, Janet Weiss and Joanna Bolme, what we come up with. What works for us doesn’t, like, have that much relation to the past.

Pitchfork: Do you think that when you were working with Pavement, you were as focused on the dynamic between the other musicians there, or were you more just writing songs?

SM: Hmm. Well, yeah it was probably at the start. There was probably more of a projection, being part of like, “indie rock.” We were buying SST and Homestead albums and contemporary bands were very important to us. As you get older, [music] became inter-generational. That’s probably also a product of our age, more availability of a wide variety of music. Everybody’s more educated. So then, yeah, we just kinda wanted to be as good as Dinosaur Jr. or something, or some band that we saw at Maxwell’s, like Mudhoney. Specifically, it was more dialed into a fanzine culture that I don’t know even…I guess Pitchfork is a version of a fanzine culture, but it’s much more universal. When Pavement was going, it was Forced Exposure and Gerard [Cosloy]’s Conflict, and it was real, real small. Little bands like the Royal Trux, they were so important, their first album even though weren’t even a band yet. Then Pavement, once it got off the ground, and Slanted and Enchanted got into mainstream media, out of fanzines and into Spin and England [music press], and we toured and stuff, it became more about Pavement itself, and being more ambitious and not just part of something. There was more ego involved, probably. Which is good, because you need that to make something new.

Pitchfork: Would you say Brighten the Corners falls into that end of things, where you’re going for something a bit more ambitious?

SM: That was our most band-oriented album. Everyone played more instruments, and like, Bob Nastanovich double-drummed on a couple songs. Mark [Ibold] played bass on almost all the songs. The ones before that were a little more controlled by me, and Scott [Kannberg] to a lesser extent, in terms of the songs and playing on the records.

We were an established brand name by that point, like most bands after four albums.

Pitchfork: How involved have you been in getting these reissues together? Have you been hands-on?

SM: No, not very. Most of the credit goes to Scott and to Jesper [Eklow] at Matador– he’s in Endless Boogie also, this great band. He’s been really instrumental. And Matador’s really pushing it, and Scott to a certain extent, because he’s got the tapes at his house, and more of the ephemera.

Pitchfork: Have you had a chance to go back and listen to a lot of the stuff on this reissue?

SM: Not too much, but I know it all. I haven’t listened to, like, the KCRW thing. All the B-sides, that’s really kind of remarkable in a certain way. I remember, thinking back, there were so many extra finished songs that could’ve been on the record. There could’ve been different songs on the album, or a different song order, it could’ve been longer. There was some commercial efforts to have the songs “Stereo” and “Shady Lane” front-loaded. I’d never done that before. Our last two albums were more front-loaded, and maybe could’ve been different, a different song order to make the album more epic, maybe, or more cohesive.

Pitchfork: Was that a reaction to Wowee Zowee being very long?

SM: That’s true. That one was like, my song order, and what I thought, you know, was a really cool album, and it kinda got shot down by a lot of people at the time. Or it was maybe just time to have enough of Pavement, because we’d have a pretty good run of it, media-wise and critic-wise. But it’s turned out to be a cool, cool album. It’s cooler than Brighten the Corners; it’s not better maybe, but it’s definitely cooler.

Pitchfork: Going back to those songs that got left out, listening through them, I noticed that some were not necessarily finished, and you’re shouting out directions to the band as you’re playing them. What back then, or even up to now, makes you decide to put a song aside, or not finish it?

SM: It was probably something like, rhythmically it just wasn’t good. Like, I remember this song called “And Then”, it’s a B-side that eventually came out on the next album in a different way, and that was kind of a rock song. It is a good version of it, and it should’ve been on it– it was going to be the first song on the album in my mind, but then there was something with the cymbal. I was probably listening to it too much, and I started hearing this cymbal have this frequency, the ride cymbal, and all of a sudden it was really bothering me. It was a ringing that I can’t even hear now, or I wouldn’t even notice. But if you’re over-listening to yourself, you hear it a hundred times more than anyone is going to listen to it.

There was no one there to say, “Oh, this is fine, don’t worry about that.” So it’s probably just that kinda thing. Or a song like “Harness Your Hopes”, which is a song a lot of Pavement fans really like, and I like the lyrics, but I just thought “Oh, the guitar tone’s kinda dull, and it’s just kinda boring maybe.” It’s not exactly right. Earlier times, there was a song called “Grounded”, which we did on Crooked Rain and for some reason it just didn’t seem right in my mind.

Pitchfork: How often do you want to go back to these kind of songs? Because you did “Grounded” again for Wowee Zowee, and “Starlings of the Slipstream” goes back to the early 1990s.

SM: At that time, if something seemed really special, we’d go back to it in one album, but it wouldn’t go to the next album. There were no really old ones we’d go back to, no more than a year. Things were moving pretty fast back then in terms of touring, and at the time of the release, it seemed much quicker than it does now. We’d take a shot at it in one studio, and then maybe the next time have another go at it. 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 10 days before we went to Mitch Easter’s, where we recorded it. It was a little more focused I guess.

Pitchfork: Was there an intention for Brighten the Corners to be a tighter record? It definitely seems like the lyrics were more deliberately composed, especially in comparison to Wowee Zowee.

SM: The lyrics just came out more fully formed, I don’t really know why. Wowee Zowee was more off the cuff and more odds-n-sods, everything included, warts and all. There’s sloppy takes and stuff that we still liked, songs like “AT&T”, I’m playing drums on it and I don’t even know how to play drums. It was better than the tight version, so we put it on there. It was more like “We’re just going to do this at Mitch Easter’s studio and it’s gonna be all this sound, and it’s all gonna be mixed in the same place.” I don’t remember it being necessarily tighter, but when we were mixing it and stuff, there were certain directives, like not as much compression. On Wowee Zowee, the engineer did more experimental mixing– messing around while we were mixing with compressors and echoes. 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.

Pitchfork: A lot of the songs on that record seem to deal with this sort of anxiety about getting older and domesticity. It’s not just your lyrics, but also in the songs by Scott. Was that something you had in mind before writing the songs? Were you talking?

SM: Not really. I don’t even remember. I don’t think so. Every song has a different genesis, or feeling. Usually the lyrics, I don’t really know what it’s all about, I just kinda do it. I mean, there’s a combination of, like you’re saying, that kind of lyrics about commitment or vaguely relationship lyrics mixed with jokey 90s Beck-style non-sequiturs and stuff. Like the song “Stereo”, to me that’s like, kind of hip-hop in that slacker way. There’s some slackerisms mixed in with that stuff, but it wasn’t really conscious, I guess. When things would get more typical rock’n'roll that was my fallback to go to those kind of lyrics instead of the alternatives.

Pitchfork: So there’s this sorta of ambient anxiety on that record, and so 11 years later, you’re kind of on the other side of it. How do you relate to the lyrics on that record now, or the general mood of it?

SM: I thought they were good then, they seemed cohesive. How I relate to it is not really…I don’t really relate to it in a way that it’s like me or anything, I kinda relate to it like it’s a disembodied voice and someone’s singing a certain way, you know? Well, you know, it’s a younger person, and it was maybe an effort to be a little more sincere and adult about the lyrics occasionally, which is a good thing. It’s nice that it’s not too self-conscious like some of our lyrics could be. You know, the songs that are self-conscious or jerky, they are that way, but the other ones aren’t, so that’s a good thing. Some of the songs are Beck-jokey, but the others, they have heart in them.

Pitchfork: Do you feel like you’re more mature now? One of the things I’ve picked up on in your last two records is that there’s some songs that seem like you’re imparting wisdom, or advice. “Malediction”, “It Kills”, “We Can’t Help You”– like an indie rock life coach.

SM: Yeah, right. I suppose! The earlier stuff is more like “this is happening to me,” but now there are more songs that are accusatory or something, or more declaratory. I don’t know where that voice comes from, like, “I’ve been down the road, we’ve been there and done that.” That’s sort of like a tougher style, or a less vulnerable style. Not to mention the Royal Trux again, but they’re always like that. “You’re Gonna Lose”: It’s sort of a rock voice. “We’re tough, get used to it” or “Get with it man!” It’s not like a “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”-kinda one where the guy is hurt or vulnerable. The feeling-sorry-for-myself style of song– I’m not as into that. “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” is kinda like “I’m feeling sorry for myself,” but in the end, it’s still a song about a guy trying to get laid.

Pitchfork: So aside from maybe “Fillmore Jive” on Crooked Rain, Brighten the Corners is sort of the first place where you’re stretching out in the songs, and playing longer solos. You’ve become more associated with that now, but what initially took you to that place, with a song like “Type Slowly”?

SM: We were touring with Silkworm, and they were having some jam breakdowns, and I remember being like “Yeah, there’s a place for that.” It was already in the song structures as far back as Crooked Rain, and before that it was more of a post-punk guitar style, I think influenced more by the Swell Maps or maybe Chrome, but there wasn’t any noodling going on. I think my melodic ideas were getting more concerned with guitar and less sing-songy ooh-oohs. It just kinda took over. Pavement, from the very beginning, was led by the guitar, the melodies were in the guitar lines, and guitars that were tuned differently. It was in G and D, different tunings that brought out melodies on the high strings, and I was imitating them or not playing them on the guitar, just singing them, so it’s always been a guitar band.

My interest in music changed, and I was getting into that Fairport Convention electric folk music, and I can’t remember exactly what else. Just kinda harder 1970s things, the Groundhogs and groups that were like acid rock bands. It’s a typical thing where like punk bands went metal, you know, indie rock bands went…rock, straight rock or something. It happened so many times. We were gonna change, and we weren’t going to go techno.

Pitchfork: You never considered metal?

SM: No, I couldn’t. I hated it so much as a child. I just didn’t like it when punk bands went metal, it really bothered me. It was happening left and right in the 1980s. It started I think with D.C. bands– G.I., Soul Side, they went metal. Right at that time, R.E.M. was coming out, these more kinda feminine bands, and I was more drawn to that than to go metal. And you remember MTV, with the bad metal. But even Metallica, it just wasn’t my direction.

Pitchfork: Now that the Jicks have gone further in this direction, some of the criticism that you get now comes down to “Oh, it’s too jammy.” Do you feel like that stuff gets misunderstood, because it seems to me that it’s all rather tightly composed, not just aimless.

SM: Yeah, on the records, the guitars are made melodic, and I try to make it memorable. There’s not much just wanking, to be honest– it’s mostly melodic parts. I try not to play too many notes. It’s just more instrumental music. It’s a totally valid criticism if you don’t like that kind of thing. It also is maybe a little anachronistic or unnecessary in a certain way. If someone’s really busy listening to other CDs, and worried about what’s new and what’s truly relevant for discourse now, maybe it isn’t that interesting. To me it is, because I’m tuned into that and that’s what I like, so it’s interesting to me. It’s all I can do. I would just imagine there’s a criticism for just about everything, if you want to take something down. No one’s invincible. The Jicks are a work in progress and we don’t think everything we do is the bee’s knees or something, we’re just trying our best to get turned on by what we’re doing.

Pitchfork: At this point, you’re at the same point with the Jicks as you were with Pavement on Brighten the Corners, four albums in. How long do you think the Jicks will last? Do you think there’s an end point, like with Pavement?

SM: You know, it’s people’s lives, so as you get a little older, your own life narrative, I guess, invades a little more. It’s not like we’re traveling in separate buses to each show. It’s a labor of love, so we just do it because we like it. Maybe someone’s gonna move, or not want to go on a tour for some reason– that could happen, I guess. But we’re still rehearsing and planning to make a new album next year. We have some really good new songs that we’ve already been playing on that last tour that we just finished.

Pitchfork: There was one that I really liked when I saw you play at the Siren Festival, something called “Astral Facial”.

SM: Yup, we have that one. That will change, that title. We’ve got about six potentially good songs that need a bridge or some lyrics. I guess we’re in this place where I want to play this sort of West Coast flowing guitar rock, I want it not to be signifying cock-rock or guitar wanking, but I want these flowing instrumental passages. In my mind, it’s this place the Grateful Dead would be or could have been. But we don’t even listen to the Grateful Dead– except on Sirius radio. They have their own station. I don’t know how many times I heard “China Cat Sunflower”. That’s what it would always say on Sirius. I don’t even know what the song is, but I know the name.

Pitchfork: When do you get a sense of the character of the records, how far into the process? You always have these songs that get put to the side. I really love that song “Walk Into the Mirror”, and I can kinda understand why it didn’t make the cut for Real Emotional Trash, but when do you know it doesn’t belong?

SM: Well, Joanna didn’t like it, for one thing. It also went through all these weird permutations, like we sped up the tape and slowed it down, and remixed it twice. It lost its luster for us. The idea was for it to be this sort of Creedence-style short pop song like they used to do. Also a little bit like “Everyday People” or something by Sly and the Family Stone. It was supposed to have this funkiness, and it does, but I think we all felt like we could’ve done it better. We were blinded to what was good about it at that point, you know what I mean? It wasn’t how we heard it in our heads, but it was good enough to release.

Then again, it’s good that it’s a B-side and weird, that’s its buried somewhere where people can find it. It comes out, that’s important too. In Pavement and the Jicks, it’s been a good thing and a bad thing that people are very partisan to certain B-sides, thinking, “That should’ve been on there, and that song is better than this song that’s on the album, and why isn’t that on there.” In the end, I think that’s a good thing for the people who dig for things, especially as I did when I was a fan of bands. When I was into R.E.M., you’d want to find the B-side and be psyched about it.

Pitchfork: You’re always getting these questions about Pavement reunion tours. Is that kinda hard to think about when you’re busy writing new songs with a current band? Does that get annoying or uncomfortable?

SM: Well, I don’t think about it too much. It’s sort of an out-of-sight, out-of-mind type thing. It’s just standard question #10 on the interview circuit for Real Emotional Trash. It’s almost as if it’s a script. Most bands will tell you, make sure you like your press release, because everything is going to come off of that, and you know what’s coming. That’s part of the formula, so I usually just say “No, it’s not happening.” People say stuff about Pavement, and I say that I’m really honored and proud that a lot of people at the show are into Pavement, and there wouldn’t be as many people there, we wouldn’t have the dialogue, or play the same venues, frankly, if we were just a new band. So I’m happy about it. But I’m into the new thing.

Pitchfork: Do you think your bandmates in the Jicks ever feel weird about it?

SM: I think they’re used to it at this point. Maybe for Janet it was a new thing. She was in Sleater-Kinney, and that’s it own thing.

Pitchfork: Yeah, “When are Sleater-Kinney going to get back together again?

SM: Right. It had its own world, Sleater-Kinney world, with its own type of fans. In certain territories, like in Europe, it was more just looking at me– they don’t care as much about any of us there. Times sorta changed faster there, musically, and they’re like “Oh yeah, there’s the Pavement guy,” and they’re not really reading up on it. The Jicks haven’t really had as much of an impression in Europe as they have in America. Well, we’ve spent more time touring here, and Matador’s maybe done a better job, or the music just connects more. In Europe we maybe don’t have as many of these Americana signifiers, that’s kinda become what European indie rockers seem to like more, like Lambchop or Calexico. That’s seen as like, American, and we’re kinda devoid of those signifiers, it’s just rock music.

Pitchfork: Well, it seems American, but maybe in a less pastoral kind of way.

SM: Yeah, it’s just not country. There’s no southern or western imagery or something that seems to make Europeans go more crazy because they don’t have it. But over there, it’s more just looking at me, and it’s more Stephen Malkmus and oh, there are those Jicks. Over here, everyone is watching the band, and it’s been more of a successful transition. Certainly, Joanna is a great bass player and really cute, so she’s gonna have her fans no matter what band she’s in. She’s gonna have some guys checking her out, probably. Janet’s a great drummer.

Pitchfork: And Mike [Clark] does stuff.

SM: And Mike, no one is gonna look at Mike. Just kidding! He’s cool too. He’s surprisingly been here from the early start. Never would’ve thought that would’ve happened at the start, I guess, he was just kind of a hired gun initially. Now he’s a force over there.

Pitchfork: Do you think people’s expectations for a Jicks show now is kinda from hoping to see some Pavement songs?

SM: There’s people who still ask for those songs occasionally, the Pavement stuff, but there’s definitely enough people that know. There’s also people coming and yelling for songs like “1% of One” and “No More Shoes”, the kinda long jam songs. I noticed that in the Midwest: There are Bonaroo-style people who are there for those songs, which I’m all for. It’s hard for me to know what the audience is.

Here in Portland, we’re not really a growing concern. Maybe most bands feel like they’re taken for granted in their local town. It definitely feels like we’re an old tree that grows and doesn’t get much pruning. No one is raking the leaves underneath this tree. I mean, I’ve heard that from other bands here, like the Thermals or something. The other groups, like the Decemberists or something, they’ve become synonymous with Portland, sorta. They’re a bigger band in general, so it’s not surprising.

Pitchfork: Do you feel like you’re part of a scene with bands coming up now?

SM: Definitely, but up to a certain point, up to a certain age. 30 year olds, or something, we’re part of it. I don’t really know what’s going on with 18 year olds, kids in basements, but a band we’ve toured with, like Blitzen Trapper, I feel like we’re part of what they’re doing. If they’re part of something that’s with younger people, we’re part of that by extension. Well, the Joggers, that’s a group we’ve toured with that I really like. It’s down to that– the bands you tour with, and meet on the road, that make me feel like I’m part of it. I was on this boat, and this band the Crystal Castles were on that boat in Europe. I’d read about them before.

Pitchfork: You were playing a show on a boat with Crystal Castles? Did I get that right?

SM: No, traveling on a ferry to one of those festivals. They were on there, and they were like “Hey dude, when is Pavement reforming?” We talked to them for a while, and as it turned out, a band I wouldn’t think we had much in common with [were] Pavement fans– or at least the guy was. He probably doesn’t listen to Jicks albums, but he’s still interested. And I was like, “Oh yeah, it’s a smaller world than you think,” and you know, everybody is aware that they’re, like, in the same game. We’re on the same team. I value and like that.

Which brings me back to the Arcade Fire, and my brother’s simple question. “I’ve read a lot of good things about them,” I sputtered in response. “Haven’t actually heard their music yet, though.” This was a shameful admission. As any young, hip American could tell you, the Arcade Fire is one of the most important bands in indie rock today, their big-deal status cemented by a so-glowing-you-gotta-wear-shades review of their first album on the music webzine Pitchfork. In fact, nearly every big new indie band of the past couple years has, at some point, received the Pitchfork stamp of approval. I decided, therefore, that the best way to re-access the strange world of music obsessives was to let Pitchfork be my tour guide. My plan: to buy ten of Pitchfork’s highest-rated CDs from this past June, listen to them, and get a feel for what kinds of music the most influential indie tastemakers in the country are digging. And because every good plan has an ulterior motive, here was mine: to find a new album that I could fall in love with. It had been a while.

On the off chance you haven’t heard of Pitchfork, here’s the backstory: In 1996, teenage slacker Ryan Schreiber launched pitchforkmedia.com from his parents’ house in suburban Minneapolis, writing all the CD reviews himself. Gradually, unpaid freelancers came aboard to contribute copy. Interviews and features (mostly top-100 lists) followed, but the meat of the site was, and remains, the reviews, which grade records on a ten-point scale. In 1999, Schreiber bravely threw his whole wad into running the still-insignificant site. He corralled advertisers and started paying his writers. Pitchfork grew in size and influence, soon becoming notorious for the “Pitchfork Effect”—a rave from Pitchfork can thrust an unknown band onto center stage at the Hammerstein; a bad review means “Nice knowin’ ya!” Today, Pitchfork employs half a dozen full-time staffers at its Chicago HQ. It’s far and away the most successful online music magazine on the scene.

Pitchfork now averages 160,000 visitors each day. It’s a safe bet, however, that of those 160,000, zero would admit to actually liking Pitchfork. Non-casual music fans love to complain about the site’s overarching editorial tone (“snarky,” “hipper-than-thou”: two overused terms that nevertheless apply here), as well as the CDs it chooses or declines to review (don’t trust any artist over thirty; marginal indie rock trumps marginal indie rap every time).

And then there’s the actual writing. Conventional wisdom states that Pitchfork prose is, um, casually edited, as well as pretentious to the point of impenetrability. But it’s fairly evident that Pitchfork is barely edited at all; vague language and wasted words abound. However, the weird, form-shattering reviews that Pitchfork was once known for (check out the review of Metallica’s St. Anger, for instance, or Autechre’s Untitled) seem to have disappeared from the site completely. The bulk of Pitchfork’s content is now meat-and-potatoes rock-crit, competent hackwork through and through. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but one misses the oddball experiments, even if they were occasionally self-indulgent. Nowadays, if Pitchfork’s reviews falter—which they often do—it’s in two crucial areas: critical insight (in lieu of substantive analysis, reviews offer superficial blandishments about “strong” choruses, “engrossing” melodies, and “affecting” vocals); and even worse, entertainment value, which you’d better believe counts for a lot in rock writing.

But as a friend of mine says, you read Pitchfork for the numbers at the top of the screen, not the words in the middle. These are, after all, reviews, not essays. Their goal—and it’s a noble goal—is to tell you which records most deserve your hard-earned iTunes credits. Though their reviewers tend toward mediocrity in their collective writing ability, historically, they’ve displayed solid (if narrow) taste in music. Broken Social Scene, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Band of Horses: all good-to-great bands, all recipients of Pitchfork raves.

In June, Pitchfork tagged fourteen albums with the label of “Recommended” or “Best New Music.” From that group, I selected ten at random and bought them. Actually, that’s a lie: I must confess a slight selection bias. White Stripes, Dizzee Rascal, and Pharoahe Monch were the only three Pitchfork-approved artists that I had heard of before, so I made sure to pick up their new CDs. As it turned out, Dizzee’s Maths + English and the Stripes’ Icky Thump were my two favorite albums of the month—the former a wry, smirking party record bolstered by some ingenious samples and the hot-fun-in-the-summertime anthem “Da Feelin’,” the latter a giddy tour of a rock ’n’ roll rag-and-bone shop in which Jack White flaunts his acting skills sometimes and his blues riffs always. Pharoahe’s Desire is also pretty darned good. My experiment was off to a fine start.

Next, I gave two dance records a spin: † by Justice, and Attack Decay Sustain Release by Simian Mobile Disco (the latter set me back twenty-one bucks—goddamn imports). Justice’s album is uneven, but at its best it’s goofy, gimmicky fun, earning its 8.4 rating. I ran into problems with Simian Mobile Disco, however. As former Village Voice critic Robert Christgau has pointed out, the esoterica-obsessed Pitchfork reviewers often seem so starved for hooks and beats they’ll heap praise on anything that emits even the faintest pop pulse. Thus, Pitchfork’s Jess Harvell writes that Attack’s “over-the-top friendliness, immediacy, and excitement has a cramped, amped-up hysteria, like all great bubblegum.” Now, as a connoisseur of great bubblegum, I must call bullshit here. The album is eager to please, sure, but silly playground-chant samples and bouncy rhythms alone do not elevate music to bubblegum status. Bubblegum is about songs: melodies and choruses and that added je ne sais gabba gabba hey. Attack’s linear synth workouts are in no way “bubblegum,” period.

Still, Harvell’s adjective-drunk review was well-written. He knows what he’s doing behind the home row, one of about three or four Pitchfork writers whose bylines are actually worth Googling. It’s always tempting to use “Pitchfork” as a synecdochic catch-all for all the site’s scribes (“Did you read what Pitchfork wrote about Liz Phair?”), but there’s a wide spectrum of writing abilities exhibited along the fringes of Pitchfork’s stable of forty-three contributors. There’s one thing that isn’t on display, though: vaginas! An unfathomable four out of the forty-three are chicks, lending the site a dramatically boy-centric skew. Consider albums six and seven in my experiment: Pig Destroyer’s Phantom Limb (grindcore) and Pissed Jeans’ Hope for Men (sludgecore). Both are extreme, fringe-y, and therefore masculine, and Harvell’s reviews of both are very boy. I couldn’t parse either of ’em, which reflects poorly on my manhood, I’m sure.

Fort Nightly, by the NYC-based White Rabbits, was album number eight. Of all the albums I listened to in June, Fort Nightly earned the clunkiest Pitchfork review. Joe Tangari is right to note the band’s “rhythmic intensity”—it’s the most striking aspect of their sound—but elsewhere, he hears things that simply aren’t there. (“A major second-wave ska influence”? There are some upstrokes, sure. But “frequently surf-inspired guitars”? Where?) I drew a blank on album number nine, Matthew Dear’s Asa Breed. To my ears, it’s partly pretty sonic wallpaper. I still can’t get a bead on it, and Pitchfork’s book report of a review isn’t terribly insightful. Finally, Wild Mountain Nation by Blitzen Trapper: It looks like a Pavement record, it sounds like a Pavement record, it’s actually pretty good. (It also sounds kind of like an Olivia Tremor Control album, minus the lo-fi psychedelic fiddle-dee-dee.) Pitchfork’s review of the album is fine.

“Fine”—it’s the great mean of Pitchfork editorial content. Schreiber would be nuts to cough up any more than the twenty-five bucks he reportedly pays writers per review. Then again, you’d be even crazier to base a month’s worth of music purchases solely on Pitchfork’s recommendations. And you’d have to be downright touched in the head to pay twenty-one bucks for the Simian Mobile Disco album. Trust me.

Matthew Ozga

- Matthew Ozga is a writer living in Brooklyn.

Circlesquare: “Hey You Guys (The Juan MacLean Remix)”
Original version from Circlesquare’s album Songs About Dancing and Drugs; out now; remix from the “Hey You Guys” EP; due 04/07/09; all on !K7

Pete Doherty: “New Love Grows on Trees”
A track from Pete Doherty’s forthcoming solo debut Grace/Wasteland.

Joanna Newsom, Animal Collective, Clipse, Fuck Buttons, The Thermals, The Decemberists: Older Folks Reviewing Records for “Breakfast at Sullimays”
Gorilla vs. Bear posted the first of these the other day. Some elderly gentlemen sitting in a diner reviewing some bigger indie records (Animal Collective, the Thermals, and interview with Fuck Buttons, and more) in a roundtable format for the Scrapple.tv show “Breakfast at Sullimays”. Pitchfork gets a shout-out in their Joanna Newsom review (er, they are not fans of her or us) and they dismiss the music at hand with an entertaining bile. They also offer some cringe-inducing comments on race that we might chalk up to generational differences.

Dirty Projectors: Various Songs (Live in Minneapolis)
Dirty Projectors perform Rise Above track “Depression” and a couple of new songs from the forthcoming Bitte Orca at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Minn. (via Minneapolis Fucking Rocks)

Buraka Som Sistema: “Aqui Para Voces”
[from Black Diamond; out 04/07/09 in the U.S. and Canada on Fabric; out now in Europe on Enchufada/Sony BMG]

Radiohead: Rehearsing with the USC Marching Band for the Grammys

It’s difficult to suss out the Handsome Furs’ intent on “All We Want, Baby, Is Everything”. They avoid the most obvious hooks from “Temptation”, instead opting to build an entirely new song around the melody of its verses. The lyrics in those verses are very loosely adapted from the New Order song, with Dan Boeckner starting off lines just the same as Bernard Sumner before dashing off in another direction, usually contradicting the sentiment of the original line. “All We Want…” does not come across as being a song about “Temptation” or a love letter to New Order, but rather a distinct composition conveying an overwhelming feeling of lovelorn desperation that uses the emotional center of a familiar tune as a point of departure. Boeckner’s chorus, which has nothing to do with New Order at all, is the clear focal point with his ragged, weary voice intersecting with chiming, hopeful guitar notes that recall U2 at their most starry-eyed and epic. The song is exactly as ambitious and romantic as its title suggests, and ultimately, it scratches a very different itch than “Temptation”. One need not even be familiar with that song to appreciate what the Handsome Furs have achieved here.

— Matthew Perpetua

Last month, we reported that the Breeders had taped a music video with the St. Louis roller derby team Arch Rival Roller Girls. The St. Louis Riverfront Times account of the taping mentioned that the video was for a song from a forthcoming Breeders EP. Now, we can report that the EP, Fate to Fatal, will be out on April 21.

Of the four tracks on the EP, one song, “The Last Time”, features guest vocals from Mark Lanegan. Another, “Chances Are”, is a Bob Marley cover (?!) that the band recorded live in Steve Albini’s Chicago studio. And that roller derby video (still forthcoming) is for the EP’s title track, which the band recorded in London with producer Gareth Parton (the Go! Team, the Pipettes).

Fate to Fatal will be the Breeders’ first self-released record. In a press release, Kim Deal has this to say about their release method: “It seems that now, more than at any other time in the past, we could put the music out ourselves – hand-screen some cool artwork ourselves, sell the EPs at our shows and on our website, as well as get them to traditional record stores and other online outlets. So we’re just going to press up a thousand twelve-inch vinyls.” (The Breeders remain signed to 4AD otherwise, apparently.)

The artwork for the EP is also notable for its connection to a certain President of the United States. Take it away, Kim: “An artist named Chris Glass designed the logo for Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act – we saw a news photo of Obama and Biden at a press conference standing next to a signboard with the logo on it – well, Chris designed the artwork for our EP.  He’s like family – we’re related by marriage, so it was really exciting and it looks really good.  We’re getting some fancy craft paper for twelve inch sleeves, and Kelley and I are going to personally hand-screen the artwork at Chris’ studio, Wire & Twine, in Ohio.”

In other news, as previously reported, the Breeders will curate an All Tomorrows Parties weekend in Minehead, England May 8-10. They’ll play alongside handpicked bands like Gang of Four, X, Throwing Muses, and Bon Iver. Also, according to a press release, bassist Mando Lopez is shooting a documentary about the band, which should be a lot of fun.

Fate to Fatal tracklist:
01 Fate to Fatal
02 The Last Time
03 Chances Are
04 Pinnacle Hollow

Written by Tom Breihan – pitchfork.com