Monday 15 February 2010

Pavement – Quarantine The Past: The Best Of Pavement

Well you should now all about Pavement by now, but if not then here is a good place to start. They summed up slacker better than anyone with their louch demeanour, jagged guitars and surreal lyrics about Geddy Lee’s speaking voice (see Stereo) and the like. For me In The Mouth A Desert and Summer Babe conjure up pleasant memories of discovering the band through Slanted And Enchanted, chancing on the vinyl after a review in the NME. Suffice to say, it amazed and astounded me. It’s hard to argue with the sheer class of stuff like Cut Your Hair and Range Life. As ever, there’s the odd quirk to this compilation, a mere best of would be too straight forward for Pavement. So gems like Major Leagues and Carrot Rope make way for decidedly average tracks from other compilation albums, such as Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence. No matter, as this should really lead you on to getting the rest of the back catalogue if you don’t own it already. Maybe start with Terror Twilight and get those two missing gems.


Quarantine The Past: The Best Of Pavement is released by Domino on March 9th

Pavement website is here

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