Embryonic Silver Jews/Pavement

Hey look, I just wrote this yesterday...a review of Silver Jews' Early Times, up today at Dusted.

Silver Jews
Early Times
Label: Drag City

Early Times compiles Silver Jews’ earliest out-of-print recordings: 1992’s Dime Map of the Reef and 1993’s The Arizona Record, a 7” single and an EP made while Pavement’s Stephen Malkmus was still a regular member of Silver Jews. Really terribly recorded – on a boombox or answering machine, depending on who you ask -- these noisy, haphazard songs are interesting mainly as a document of the development of two of 1990s indie rock’s definitive bands. Inside the murk and chaos, you can hear bits of Silver Jews’ incipient slanted attack on Americana and traces of Pavement’s intelligence and erratic tunefulness.

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