SLINT – SPIDERLAND
(TOUCH AND GO)
For me this is the
secret Nevermind. The epic album that people in the know love
and worship, the badge of honour that qualifies an alt rock fan’s
credentials. Even though both records
were released in the same year in many ways Spiderland has had the longer
influence, serving to sculpt and expand guitar music with what was the template
for math and post rock. The cover photo
taken by Will Oldham
features the members of the band up to their necks in water and it has been
said the baby on the cover of Nevermind is swimming beneath them.
Spiderland is only six
songs and forty minutes in length. And
yet somehow within such a short distance they managed to make one almighty
impact.
In some ways this is
like a grunge Marquee
Moon, there is a lot of narrative attached to the songs that is steeped
with haunted imagery. So as a result it
is a vast and affecting album taking music places where it has not been before.
At the time of release
this record didn’t make much of a dent.
Indeed by this time the band had split up and with a lack of information
or knowledge circumstances a legend was born including tales of how at the
completion of the album the various band members check themselves into
psychiatric institutions. Why let the
truth in the way of a good story?
Subsequently over the
years the common entry point for this record has been the appearance of “Good
Morning, Captain” on the Kids
soundtrack followed by constant name checks from Mogwai in their early
years. And over the years since
discovering the record it has been a recurring constant on my stereo first
beginning as cassette copied from my Gringo
Records partner’s vinyl (with “Dare
To Be Surprised” by Folk Implosion on the other side) then returning
digitally to my iPods and iPhones. Is
this the way it was designed to be listened? Definitely not but access is vital. And whereas I have aged and not matured, the piece has stayed
timeless.
My most vivid memory
at the hands of the album came after a failed date in early 1997. The night went to the dogs as a date with my
cousin’s ginger bridesmaid called Nicky proved a flat and depressing
affair. She was impressed by the
concept of me but not the reality. And
when it ended early the night was still young, too young to return home on so
instead I drove to Frinton seafront in Essex and took in the dark evening to
sound of Spiderland just as a storm started and when “Good Morning, Captain”
kicked into the final lap of the album a magnificent hail of rain and
lightening descend on my car and surroundings.
It felt a big gesture for a big moment in time for me. This was the night that I fully felt
Slint. I never saw Nicky again but the
record remained.
Fast forward more than
ten years later and suddenly I am seeing another lady called Nikki. This time the woman is black and Canadian as
at this point we have just broken up (well, I have been dumped). It is the Thursday before Christmas and I
have decided to turn up at apartment unannounced. She is already angry and I know this is just going to make her
angrier but in the grand scheme of things, it is a gesture that needs to
made/done. The place is Brockley, I
have now moved from Essex to London where the world darker and somewhat more
sinister. And as I brace myself to walk
up to her front door and make the knock “Washer” appears by random on shuffle
via my iPhone. The haunting is
painfully appropriate to what is about to occur with my step into the
unknown. It is also at this point I
realise/recognise how much the vocals of Brian McMahon sound like Weird Al
Yankovic. What am I? Needless to say the moment peaks here. Nikki does not respond positively to my
arrival, does not say “I know its dark outside” or anything as poetic as “wash
your face with your tears”. Instead
once more Slint make all the emotional flow on this evening.
The earliest champion
of the band was Steve Albini even
though he removed from production duties for this record after his work on Tweez
which itself caused band member bassist Ethan Buckler to leave the band. Vocally he reviewed the album for Melody
Maker giving it “ten fucking stars”, the kind of endorsement some bands would
later pay thousands for. Perhaps it was
just not their time.
I once interviewed guitarist Dave
Pajo and long after the event he wasn’t shy about addressing Slint, more
bemused by the interest it was now generating some seven or so years after the
event. This was before the reformation.
It begins with
“Breadcrumb Trail” which naturally conjures up imagery of Hansel and Gretel
being lead through the forest to a sinister trap. However the witch here is a fortune teller. And a carny is never one to be trusted.
The track is a gradual
builder that sees proceedings opened in story like fashion. There feel’s something gothic attached to
the tale of a day spent at the carnival, almost the musical embodiment of
Something Wicked This Way Comes. Maybe
Bradbury by accident there is a heavy sense of literature thread through it’s
exploding surroundings.
The guitars are fuzzy
playing off the quiet loud quiet format in a groundbreaking fashion. The opening notes interweave in tandem with
the other instruments until it pauses and explodes at the one minute twenty
three mark. Suddenly the whole piece
flies off in a whirl as the guitars raise the roof and the vocals become
screams. It’s a dizzying feat containing
piercing high-pitched licks that were to become the trademark of both Slint and
post-rock in general. It’s a lumbering
beast of a revelation that audibly displays the guitar hanging in the air for
an extended period offering the band and the listener a moment to breathe and
recapture their composition. Then by
the close of proceedings the shredding guitar is sounding like saxophone.
Spiderland was
recorded in four days over two weekends at a studio that generally only
recorded radio jingles. Adopting the
old blues methodology of one man playing into one microphone and humanity prevailing
much of the album was recorded live by people barely in their twenties that had
written and rehearsed the shit out of these songs. It remains an incredibly discipline feat.
“Nosferatu Man” has
the biggest drive on the album. When
the album was discovered during the post-rock frenzy of the late nineties
absolutely every such band had their own “Nosferatu Man” rip off, a track with
the classic harsh stop start dynamic.
Of course the track is so much more than that. The initial knock on wood of the snare feels like the ballast of
a pirate ship as the brooding bass carries the track as a voice appears to
speak code to a twinkling guitar lick.
Then it all explodes. In
addition to being great in its own right, over the years this track has come to
smell like Nirvana
to me with said dense baseline carrying the song into a distinct quiet loud
quiet dynamic as all eventually ramps into wreckage. This is powerful stuff.
Side A concludes with
“Don, Aman” and another distant, dark lullaby.
With this track the literary narration of the lyrics take a step up as a
singularly strummed guitar accompany the story of a man up to no good suffering
a paranoid panic attack at a party. Then
a third of the way and an injection of pace is added as the story speeds up and
races to a horror that seems/feels inevitable.
And with the dirty work done and two minutes left distorted guitar licks
take centre stage before Don wakes up for one final revelation. The song is a bad scene.
This album was meant
to be listened to on vinyl.
Moving into a more
delicate territory “Washer” opens the second side with almost nine minutes of
drenching emotion as the band continues to calmly pick at the pieces. This is another lullaby, albeit it on
without less overt panic and fear. The
playing is classic, gorgeous and brooding, exuding agony in a stoic. The direction taken in the music is minimal
while also overwhelming. The words
spoken by McMahon appear in place as a gesture of assurance in the most direct
vocal manner Slint would ever employ.
There is a sense of abandonment and sense of escape enveloped in these
minutes and thus when it all eventually erupts and explodes like a violent
storm there can be no surprise attached.
When the dust settles
“For Dinner…” emerges through the fog as a five minute instrumental of high
tension that exudes like the aftermath and outro of a storm. Equally it could be a Hitchcock score
following some sinister character as he makes his move towards a costly
inevitable.
Clocking in at seven
minutes and thirty nine seconds “Good Morning, Captain” is the most famous
Slint track. And it ends Spiderland in
majestic and cinematic fashion. It is a
booming and intense that flourishes and grows only stronger throughout the
duration of it’s existence.
Keeping with the
tortured soul and subtle horror again there is a ghostly marine feel to the
song as the opening bars of the track ring like the bell of a ghost ship
emerging from the mist in the distance.
With that Brashear drops in another heavy baseline they appears to rock
from side to side and perform the duty as pulse to the piece. From here McMahon drops in more angst ridden
vocals in the style of a frightened child as the guitars drop in and out with
spooky refrains. Then at one minute
fifty two seconds there is a detonation as things take flight.
By the third act there
are calls for help as the track begins to tick as apprehension grows until one
final hellfire surge of chorus takes hold at which this time the guitars really
grip the reigns of the song and McMahon repeatedly screams “I miss you!” in a
most pained gesture.
When the record ends
it deserves silence and reflection.
Spiderland is no ordinary album.
If you have never heard it, you have never heard music.
Thesaurus moment:
paradigm.
