Spiderland

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Spiderland
A black-and-white photograph of Slint standing in tall water with only part of their faces visible
Studio album by Slint
Released March 27, 1991 (1991-03-27)
Recorded August–October 1990 at River North Records in Chicago, Illinois, United States
Genre Post-rock, post-hardcore, math rock
Length 39:38
Label Touch and Go
Producer Brian Paulson
Slint chronology

Tweez
(1989)		 Spiderland
(1991)		 Untitled EP
(1994)

Spiderland is the second and final studio album by American rock band Slint. It was released on March 27, 1991, through Touch and Go Records. Featuring dramatically alternating dynamics and vocals ranging from spoken word to shouting, the album contains narrative lyrics that emphasize alienation. Spiderland was Slint's first release on Touch and Go, and the group's last record.

Although Spiderland was not widely recognized on its initial release, it eventually sold more than 50,000 copies and became a landmark album in underground music after Slint broke up. The album has been highly influential on the styles of many bands in the post-rock and math rock genres, including Mogwai and Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and has been named a favorite of several indie rock musicians. In 2007, Slint reunited for a tour consisting of performances of Spiderland in its entirety.

Context

Slint formed in 1987 in Louisville, Kentucky from the remnants of the punk rock band Squirrel Bait; the founding members included Brian McMahan (guitar, vocals), David Pajo (guitar), Britt Walford (drums) and Ethan Buckler (bass guitar). The band's debut album, the Steve Albini-produced Tweez, was released on the group's self-owned label Jennifer Hartman Records and Tapes.[1] The album's sound has been described as a combination of "scratchy guitars, thumping bass lines and hard hitting drums".[2] Buckler promptly left the band out of dissatisfaction with Albini's production, and was replaced with Todd Brashear.[3] The band's second recording was for the instrumental extended play Slint, which included a new version of "Rhoda" from Tweez. The EP, which would not be released until 1994, was a departure from Tweez's sound and reflected the band's new musical direction.[4]

After the band ended its brief tour in support of Tweez most of its members went to college.[3] Around this time McMahan and Walford began writing together for the band's next record, creating six new songs which the band practiced throughout the summer of 1990.[3] Slint entered River North Records in August 1990 to record Spiderland. At that time there were no vocals or lyrics prepared for the album, so the band wrote them while in the studio.[3] The album's producer, Brian Paulson, was known for his "live" recording style in the studio, with minimal takes.[5] Paulson recalled "It was weird while I was doing [Spiderland] because I remember sitting there, and I just knew there was something about it. I've never heard anything like this. I'm really digging this but it's really fucking weird."[5]

The recording sessions for Spiderland are reputed to have been difficult for the members of the band and were, according to AllMusic, "intense, traumatic and one more piece of evidence supporting the theory that band members had to be periodically institutionalized during the completion of the album."[6] Rumors circulated that at least one member of Slint had been checked into a psychiatric hospital.[7] Walford later addressed these stories in an article in Select by saying, "[We were] definitely trying to be serious about things, pretty intense, which made recording the album kinda stressful."[7] The recording was completed in four days.[5]

Music

"Breadcrumb Trail"
A sample of "Breadcrumb Trail", the opening track from Slint's 1991 album, Spiderland. This sample contains part of the song's verse, bridge, and chorus.
"Good Morning Captain"
A sample of "Good Morning, Captain", the sixth track from Spiderland. This sample contains part of the song's second verse.
Problems playing these files? See media help.

The music of Spiderland is noted for its angular guitar rhythms, dramatically alternating dynamic shifts and irregular time signatures. McMahan's singing style interchanges between mumbling spoken word and strained shouting. The lyrics of Spiderland are often written in a narrative style. Influences on the record included Gang of Four, Black Sabbath and Sonic Youth.[8] Will Hermes of Spin summarized the album's sound as "mid-'70s King Crimson gone emo: screeching guitar chords and gorgeous note-spinning in odd-metered instrumentals speckled with words both spoken and sung".[9]

The album's opening track, "Breadcrumb Trail", describes a day spent at a carnival with a fortune-teller.[10] The song features a complex arrangement with sharp transitions, and the guitar fluctuates between a clean-sounding riff with harmonics in the verse to heavy distortion featuring extremely high-pitched notes in the chorus.[10] "Nosferatu Man", the second track, is inspired by the 1922 German Expressionist silent film Nosferatu.[11] The song's verse includes a dissonant guitar riff, which uses high-pitched notes similar to those in "Breadcrumb Trail" and a drumbeat based on snare and toms, absent of cymbals.[11] The chorus, featuring "jagged" distorted guitar and a thrash-influence beat, segues into an extended jam before the song ends with 30 seconds of feedback.[11]

"Don, Aman" features Walford on lead vocals and guitar. Delivered in a hushed tone, the song's ambiguous lyrics depict the thoughts of an "isolated soul" before, after and during an evening at a bar.[12] The tempo quickens throughout, and then becomes loud and distorted before slowing back to the original tempo.[12] "Washer", the album's longest track, features a "barely audible" intro with guitar and cymbals before the rest of the band comes in.[13] The song builds tension until the final verse, which features loud distortion, and is followed by a lengthy outro.[13]

"For Dinner..." is an ambient instrumental track.[14] Beginning with a quiet section of "brooding chords throb[bing] with the occasional rumble of muted toms and bass drum", the song cycles through sections of building and releasing tension.[14] One guitar chord is repeatedly strummed for the last minute of the song before ending.[14] The final song of the album, "Good Morning Captain", is based on the Samuel Taylor Coleridge poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.[15] The song features a two chord guitar structure, a "spindly, tight riff" from the rhythm section and a "jerky" beat.[15] During the recording of the song's final chorus, McMahan became physically sick due to the strain of yelling over the guitars.[7] David Peschek of The Guardian compared "Good Morning Captain" to Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven", writing that "the extraordinary Good Morning Captain is [Slint's] Stairway to Heaven, if it's possible to imagine Stairway to Heaven bleached of all bombast."[8]

Title and packaging

Slint in a photo taken by Will Oldham from the same session as the Spiderland cover[1]

The name Spiderland originates from McMahan's younger brother, who thought that the record sounded "spidery".[7] The album's black-and-white cover photograph, which depicts the members of the band (Brashear, McMahan, Walford and Pajo, from left to right) treading water in the lake of an abandoned quarry, was taken by Will Oldham.[3] An article in The Stranger credited the cover for creating a mystique surrounding Slint, noting "[m]ost people only had seen Slint as four heads floating in a Kentucky quarry on Spiderland's cover. Listeners pondered the band's sparsely adorned black-and-white covers as if they were runes bearing secrets."[16] Chris Gaerig of the Michigan Daily wrote, "the cover of Slint's masterful Spiderland captures the joyous fear and violence of the album so precisely it shakes souls. The group—submerged in a lake to their chins with deranged smiles—seems to be stalking you, hovering out of the black-and-white façade."[17] Several other promotional images have been taken from the same photo session with Oldham.[18]

A photo of a spider taken by Noel Saltzman is used on the back cover, reflecting the album's title. The inside sleeve contains the message "interested female vocalists write 1864 douglas blvd. louisville, ky. 40205". McMahan confirmed that this message was serious, and said "We did get some responses and we did listen to CDs and tapes. We didn't end up doing anything immediately, so that idea of adding someone sort of fell by the wayside."[19] The message "this recording is meant to be listened to on vinyl" is printed on some CD issues of Spiderland, demonstrating Slint's preference of analog audio devices.[20]

Reception

Spiderland received minimal attention from major publications upon its release. One of the first major reviews of the album was written by Steve Albini, producer of Slint's previous album Tweez, for Melody Maker. Albini was highly positive about the album, awarding it "ten fucking stars", saying "Spiderland is a majestic album, sublime and strange, made more brilliant by its simplicity and quiet grace. [...] Spiderland is flawless. The dry, unembellished recording is so revealing it sometimes feels like eavesdropping. The crystalline guitar of Brian McMahan and the glassy, fluid guitar of David Pajo seem to hover in space directly past the listener's nose. The incredibly precise-yet-instinctive drumming has the same range and wallop it would in your living room. [...] Play this record and kick yourself if you never got to see them live."[21]

Retrospective reviews of the album have been mixed. A review of the album from Dean Carlson of AllMusic praised the album as "one of the most essential and chilling releases in the mumbling post-rock arena", despite describing it as "slightly overrated". Carlson also criticized McMahan's singing style, saying that he "too often evokes strangled pity instead of outright empathy."[6] Robert Christgau gave the album a rating of C+, calling Slint "art-rockers without the courage of their pretensions" and criticizing the album's lyrics.[22] The Rolling Stone book The New Rolling Stone Album Guide rated the album two and a half stars; while the reviewer Mac Randall favored the album over Tweez as an "easier listen, with longer, more developed songs", he wrote that "[t]he absence of anything resembling a tune continues to nag."[23]

By contrast, music critic Piero Scaruffi gave the album an almost perfect score, saying "Spiderland is a masterpiece in rock history. Leveraging from experiments of preceding years, Slint is now completing a more sophisticated search on rhythm and resonance, culminating in an almost transcendental quality [...] a monumental work, in its capacity to construct rock music without reconstructing the stereotypes of its genre, without recourse to iconic sounds or prefabricated codes, that have always constituted the principle channels of rock expression."[24] Scaruffi also included Spiderland at the top of his list The Best Rock Albums of the 1990s.[25]

In 2003, Pitchfork wrote of Spiderland: "a heady, chilling listen; the irregularity of its hypnotic melodies, fractured beats and mismatched lyrics demand a new kind of appreciation, independent of traditional notions of songcraft. With its half-mumbled, half-hollered vocals, deliberate percussion and drone-gone-aggressive guitars, Spiderland's urgency is almost traumatic to swallow: despondency never tasted so real." They named it the twelfth best album of the 1990s.[26]

Legacy

Slint performing Spiderland at the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival

Though largely ignored upon its initial release, Spiderland has attracted greater attention through time. This growth in popularity has been attributed in part to the appearance of the track "Good Morning, Captain" on the soundtrack to the 1995 film Kids.[27] The soundtrack has sold over 50,000 copies,[28] though Kory Grow of the College Music Journal suggested that the album "has inspired countless bands (and therefore fans) far beyond its SoundScan numbers".[29] Spiderland has become a landmark indie rock album and is considered, along with Talk Talk's Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock, to have been the primary catalyst of the post-rock and math rock genres.[30][31] David Peschek said that the album is "the ur-text for what became known as post-rock, a fractured, almost geometric reimagining of rock music stripped of its dionysiac impulse."[8] Rachel Devine of The List called Spiderland "arguably the most disproportionately influential [album] in music history".[32]

McMahan reflected on the album's success: "We worked really hard on Spiderland. I mean, I definitely felt much more personal about it. I thought it represented us as people, musically, a lot more than Tweez did. That's about it. It seemed like when we were around, and actively playing and stuff, that people's responses to us were fairly ambivalent. I thought it was funny when the press picked up on it. For an independent release, it had a strange sort of audience and kept selling three or four years after we recorded it; it still sells more copies than when it first came out."[33] Touch and Go founder Corey Rusk said that Spiderland is "like an icon now. But when it came out, nobody cared! The band had broken up by the time the album came out, and it really didn't sell particularly well or get written about all that much in the year it was released. But it was a revolutionary, groundbreaking record, and it's one of the few instances where people catch up to it later on."[34]

Post-rock bands Mogwai, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Isis and Explosions in the Sky have been influenced by Spiderland.[35] Dinosaur Jr and Sebadoh member Lou Barlow said of Spiderland, "It was quiet-to-loud without sounding like grunge or indie rock. It sounded more like a new kind of music."[7] PJ Harvey has named Spiderland as one of her favorite albums,[36] and supposedly contacted Slint regarding the band's request for a female vocalist.[27] Bob Nastanovich of Pavement[37] and Mark Clifford of Seefeel[38] have also cited Spiderland as among their favorite albums. The album cover of Spiderland was recreated by The Shins in the music video for "New Slang".[39]

Reunion

An advertisement for Slint's performance of Spiderland at the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival

Despite having plans for a tour of Europe to promote Spiderland, Slint broke up in 1991 for reasons that were not revealed.[3] Members of the band went on to join other musical projects, including Tortoise, The Breeders, Palace and The For Carnation.[40] Slint reunited briefly in 2005 for an eighteen-date tour. Pajo said, "We don't want to be a reunion band that keeps reuniting. [...] I know that this is going to be it."[41] However, in 2007 Slint reunited again for a tour featuring performances of Spiderland in its entirety as part of All Tomorrow's Parties' "Don't Look Back" concert series celebrating classic albums.[42] The tour included appearances at the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival[43] and Primavera Sound Festival.[44] McMahan said in an interview at the Pitchfork Music Festival that performing the album live was "pretty cool. It moves a little slower than it does on the record, but it's all there. [...] It took some getting used to, some revisiting the material and rehearsing."[45] In an August 2013 interview with Vish Khanna, former producer Steve Albini revealed that the band was working on remastering Spiderland with producer Bob Weston.[46]

Critical responses to Slint's reunion has been mixed, with detractors commenting on the music's unsuitability for a live setting. Chicago Sun-Times music critic Jim DeRogatis wrote that although "fans greeted [Slint's performance at the Pitchfork Music Festival] as manna from heaven. [...] the musicians' fragile, intertwining guitar lines, mumbled attempts at poetry and uninspiring shoegazer personas were poor matches for the setting and the occasion, especially during the static, percussion-deprived 'Don, Aman' and the bloated anthem 'Good Morning, Captain'."[47] According to members of The A.V. Club, Slint's performance of "Don, Aman" at the festival "capture[d] the band's greatness and its greatest weakness: Slint completely lacks stage charisma, and playing a deathly quiet, moody song on a big outdoor stage just doesn't work."[48] Both DeRogatis and the A. V. Club review also noted that the band's performance was plagued by sound problems.[48][49] A New York review of a performance at Webster Hall opined "the deeply brooding, fussily-executed album finally sounded, sixteen years later, like the existential, cosmos-annihilating shrug it was envisioned as. Which is to say: It sounded fucking great."[50]

Track listing

  1. "Breadcrumb Trail" – 5:55
  2. "Nosferatu Man" – 5:35
  3. "Don, Aman" – 6:28
  4. "Washer" – 8:50
  5. "For Dinner..." – 5:05
  6. "Good Morning, Captain" – 7:38

Personnel

Slint
Technical personnel

Accolades

Publication Country Accolade Year Rank
Alternative Press United States The 90 Greatest Albums of the 90s 1998 No. 34[51]
Pitchfork Media US Top 100 Albums of the 1990s 1999 No. 12[52]
Melody Maker United Kingdom All Time Top 100 Albums 2000 No. 55[53]
NME UK 100 Best Albums 2003 No. 53[54]
Spin US 100 Greatest Albums, 1985–2005 2005 No. 94[9]

References

  1. ↑ "Slint | Touch and Go / Quarterstick Records". touchandgorecords.com. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 
  2. ↑ Jackson, Chris (April 16, 2006). "Slint – Tweez (Album Review) | Sputnikmusic". Sputnikmusic. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 McCarthy, Shannon. "Slint Biography". musicianguide.com. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  4. ↑ "Slint". southern.com. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Parker, Chris (February 9, 2005). "Independent Weekly: Special Issues: Rock & Roll Quarterly: Brian Paulson". indyweek.com. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Carlson, Dean. "Spiderland – Slint : Songs, Reviews, Credits, Awards : AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Irvin, Jim (2001). The Mojo Collection: The Greatest Albums of All Time. Edinburgh: Mojo Books. p. 640. ISBN 1-84195-067-X. 
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Peschek, David (February 28, 2005). "Slint, Camber Sands Holiday Centre | Music | The Guardian". guardian.co.uk. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Hermes, Will (July 2005). "Slint - Spiderland". Spin. 
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Maginnis, Tom. "Breadcrumb Trail – Slint : Listen, Appearances, Song Review : AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 Maginnis, Tom. "Nosferatu Man – Slint : Listen, Appearances, Song Review : AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 Maginnis, Tom. "Don, Aman – Slint : Listen, Appearances, Song Review : AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Maginnis, Tom. "Washer – Slint : Listen, Appearances, Song Review : AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Maginnis, Tom. "For Dinner... – Slint : Listen, Appearances, Song Review : AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Maginnis, Tom. "Good Morning Captain – Slint : Listen, Appearances, Song Review : AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 
  16. ↑ Segal, Dave (March 10, 2005). "Web of Influence". The Stranger. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  17. ↑ Gaerig, Chris (September 20, 2007). "Cover Stories – The B-Side". michigandaily.com. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  18. ↑ Simigis, Antonia (July 12, 2007). "On the record: Slint". Time Out Chicago. 
  19. ↑ "Don't Look Back – Don't Look Back 2007 – Slint – Review". don'tlookbackconcerts.com. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  20. ↑ Albini, Steve (March 30, 1991). "[Steve Albini review]". Melody Maker. 
  21. ↑ Christgau, Robert. "Robert Christgau: CG: Slint". robertchristgau.com. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  22. ↑ Bracket, Nathan; Hoard, Christian (2004). The New Rolling Stone Album Guide: Completely Revised and Updated 4th Edition. New York: Simon & Schuster. pp. 744–745. ISBN 0-7432-0169-8. 
  23. ↑ Scaruffi, Piero. "The History of Rock Music. Slint: Biography, Discography, Reviews, Links". scaruffi.com. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  24. ↑ Scaruffi, Piero. "Best Rock Albums of the 1990s". scaruffi.com. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  25. ↑ "Staff Lists: Top 100 Albums of the 1990s | Features | Pitchfork". Pitchfork. November 17, 2003. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  26. ↑ 27.0 27.1 Chen, George. "Spidey Powers". San Francisco Bay Guardian. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  27. ↑ "S/FJ: You Thought I Was Backing Out". abstractdynamics.org. July 25, 2005. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  28. ↑ Grow, Kory (July 19, 2007). "Review: Slint Performs Spiderland in New York". College Music Journal. 
  29. ↑ "Post-Rock : Significant Albums, Artists and Songs, Most Viewed : AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  30. ↑ Carew, Andrew. "Genre Profile – Post-Rock". About.com. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  31. ↑ Devine, Rachel (August 16, 2007). "90s Revival – Back for Good | The List". list.co.uk. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  32. ↑ Modell, Josh (April 1996). "The For Carnation". Milk. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  33. ↑ Crock, Jason (September 5, 2006). "Interviews: Corey Rusk | Features | Pitchfork". Pitchfork. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  34. ↑ Goldberg, Michael Alan (July 18, 2007). "The Last Time We Reunite (Except for That Next Time)". SF Weekly. 
  35. ↑ Blandford, James R. (2004). PJ Harvey: Siren Rising. London: Omnibus Press. p. 37. ISBN 1-84449-433-0. 
  36. ↑ Jovanovic, Rob (2004). Perfect Sound Forever: The Story of Pavement. Boston: Justin, Charles & Co. p. 129. ISBN 1-932112-07-3. 
  37. ↑ "Perfect Sound Forever– Interviewee's Favorite Music". furious.com. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  38. ↑ Mercer, Ben (July 11, 2002). "The Shins – Page 1 – Music – Dallas – Dallas Observer". dallasobserver.com. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  39. ↑ Ankeny, Jason. "Slint – Music Biography, Credits and Discography : AllMusic". AllMusic. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  40. ↑ Harrington, Richard (March 18, 2005). "'Post-Rock' Slint Briefly Reunites". The Washington Post. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  41. ↑ "Slint Announce More Performances of 'Spiderland' | News | nme.com". nme.com. March 23, 2007. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  42. ↑ Solarski, Matthew (April 20, 2007). "Slint Join Sonic Youth for Pitchfork Fest Kickoff". Pitchfork. 
  43. ↑ Solarski, Matthew (January 16, 2007). "Slint Rock Spiderland at Primavera Sound Festival". Pitchfork. 
  44. ↑ Thompson, Paul (July 13, 2007). "Interview: Brian McMahan of Slint". Pitchfork. 
  45. ↑ http://vishkhanna.com/2013/08/16/ep-24-steve-albini/
  46. ↑ DeRogatis, Jim (July 15, 2007). "Pitchfork Music Fest Diary and Features". Chicago Sun-Times. 
  47. ↑ 48.0 48.1 Gordon, Scott; Modell, Josh; O'Neal, Sean; Ryan, Kyle (July 18, 2007). "Festival Diary: The 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival | Music | The A.V. Club". avclub.com. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  48. ↑ DeRogatis, Jim (July 16, 2007). "Indie Oasis". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  49. ↑ Catucci, Nick (July 18, 2007). "Slint Plays a Funeral Mass for the Album – Vulture". vulture.com. Retrieved October 14, 2012. 
  50. ↑ "Rocklist.net..Alternative Press..". rocklistmusic.co.uk. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 
  51. ↑ "Staff Lists: Top 100 Albums of the 1990s | Features | Pitchfork". Pitchfork. November 17, 2003. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 
  52. ↑ "Rocklist.net...Melody Maker Top 100 Albums – 2000 .....". rocklistmusic.co.uk. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 
  53. ↑ "Rocklist.net...NME Writers Lists...". rocklistmusic.co.uk. Retrieved October 13, 2012. 

External links

Slint
  • Ethan Buckler
  • Todd Brashear
Studio albums
EPs
Associated acts
Other
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