Until You Can Actually See The Rays

Pavement “Black Out (Wow Out 7″ Version)” – For most (if not all) of the tour for Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, “Black Out” was included on setlists as “New Gold Soundz,” which is fair enough given its general vibe, though this early draft is more along the lines of “New Stop Breathin’.” Interestingly, with its original chorus (which incidentally repurposes the lyric “haunt you down,” and makes me wonder whether or not this was recorded before or after the “Haunt You Down” 7″) the song takes on an accusing, wounded tone whereas the final version is notable for its contented aimlessness. Several lines that made it to the finished recording appear in a slightly negative variation — “your own hall of shame,” for example — and the implication of “the lessons you’re learning” shift over to a darker sort of self-revelation. Malkmus’ voice couldn’t quite handle the demands of his own arrangement (though I think he could probably do okay with this now that he’s grown into a more confident vocalist), but I would kinda love to hear someone with a full, commanding voice take on this version of the song. (Click here to buy the Wowee Zowee reissue via the Wow Out site — this 7″ is now out of print and unavailable.)

The National Gallery “Barbaric, Classical, Solemn” – Though every era produces its fair share of weird, ambitious projects, it must have been very amusing back in the ’60s when people seemed to have no idea what pop art was capable of and thus went off in all sorts of wild directions, attempting to harness the power of the zeitgeist for just about any purpose. In the case of The National Gallery, the idea was to produce an album of psychedelic pop songs that were “musical interpretations of the paintings of Paul Klee.” The songs are catchy and amiable, but their style seem arbitrary in relationship to Klee’s work, which seems to be at odds with the album’s prim and chirpy arrangements. Lyrically, the words come across as snippets of dense, enthusiastic reviews of the paintings, and so when the songs work, it is like a peculiar sort of arts criticism. Maybe that should be someone’s mp3 blog shtick — a serious review site in which everything is expressed in the form of original songs. (Click here to buy it from Dusty Groove.)