Such Great Depths

Any label that’s been around as long as Sub Pop has (20 years and
counting) will have some overlooked artists in its catalog. Not
everyone can be Nirvana, the Postal Service, the Shins, or Fleet Foxes.
The music business’s law of averages dictates that misses will always
outnumber hits, but—news flash—commercial failures often
are much more interesting than chart dwellers.

With Sub Pop’s deluxe reissue this week of Red Red Meat’s
underacknowledged 1995 classic Bunny Gets Paid, the time seems
ripe to survey this Seattle institution’s most compelling, obscure
gems—many of which can be found by New Economy–crippled
bargain hunters in used bins and online for much lower than their
original retail price. (Know also that if we had more space and time,
this piece could expand to a book-length treatise.)

Black Forest (2005)

The mostly black packaging with white tear marks is an apt visual
metaphor for A Frames’ bleak sonic attack. On this album, the Seattle
trio ratchet up post-punk’s tension to 21st-century specifications
while injecting a gallows humor into their exhilaratingly grim grind.
For all of its dark elements, though, Black Forest is not a
soundtrack for wallowing in self-pity. Rather, it is a moving album in
both senses of the word. The exuberant churn and spark of “Death Train”
should’ve been an alt-rock-radio hit, but songs about dire endings of
life generally don’t click with the hive mind. Somehow, sentiments like
“Nothing good ever stays/I’m living in the future tense/Absolute zero”
(from “Negative”) failed to win favor with the public, no matter how
germane they remain. Erin Sullivan’s Ian
Curtis–meets–
Steven Wright vocals perfectly complement
the tar-dark music, over which his cutting, trebly guitars spar with
Min Yee’s mammoth, cranky bass lines. Lars Finberg’s animated automaton
beats add just the right machinelike touch to A Frames’ threshing
approach (hear “Black Forest III” for the ultimate expression of this
impulse). Listen to Black Forest and wear your bruises like
merit badges.

Trivia: A Frames drummer Lars Finberg left the band in 2006 and
now leads the Intelligence, one of the city’s finest rock groups.

Once We Were Trees (2001)

Spirit Stereo Frequency (2004)

Led by Brent Rademaker and Christopher Gunst, Beachwood Sparks were
Californian dudes who got hyped on the Byrds’ Sweetheart of the
Rodeo and Gram Parsons’s oeuvre and then decided to carry that
tradition into our current century. This they did on Once We Were
Trees, a shiver-inducing work of country-rock with as much glitter
as grit on its cowboy boots. Some songs succumb to country’s common
malady of sentimentality, but most of Trees shimmers and twangs
with a beautiful, stoic grandeur—until the closing title track,
whose freak-out points toward wilder times ahead. It’s a McGuinner, for
sure. Beachwood Sparks members Jimi Hey and Dave Scher eventually
joined forces in All Night Radio, a project that found them dipping
toes into psychedelia’s cosmic pools of inspiration. ANR ditch the
Sparks’ rootsy approach in order to soar friction-free into the middle
reaches of space (they’re no Pink Floyd, but rather a postmodern Byrds
circa Notorious Byrd Brothers, enhanced by the Moody Blues’
rococo flourishes and vocal harmonies to cry for). Spirit Stereo
Frequency gently alters your mind, with no ill side effects.

Trivia: Scher has served as Interpol’s touring keyboardist.

Prison (1992)

Steven Jesse Bernstein was a mentally troubled poet who killed
himself in 1991. Prison is a posthumous document of his
raw-wound verses, cobbled into magnificence by production master Steve
Fisk. “No No Man (Part One)”—the only composition finished before
SJB’s death—is one of the greatest lead-off tracks ever: Fisk’s
film-noir-jazz/E-Z listening/
orchestral backdrop provides a
thrilling proscenium from which Bernstein relates a tale of sleazy
debauchery and piercing self-deprecation. Prison leaves no doubt
why luminaries such as William S. Burroughs, Kurt Cobain, and Oliver
Stone respected him. While Bernstein was in serious pain of many sorts
during his 40 years, he got enough bleak, prickly brilliance on
paper/tape, abetted by Fisk’s brilliantly sympathetic accompaniment, to
leave this indelible artifact.

Trivia: Bernstein was never fond of his face.

999 Levels of Undo (2001)

This album is Steve Fisk’s reward for being Sub Pop’s all-around
badass producer/instrumentalist. It’s self-indulgent, yes, but who
doesn’t want a genius to indulge his self? Only fools. 999 Levels of
Undo is essentially Fisk letting his imagination run riot with the
electronic gadgets and computer software in his studio. The result is
one of those bizarre, unclassifiable works that sell squat, but that
will be discussed in worshipful tones by heads for decades. (It’s also
the sound of Sub Pop’s accountants frowning.) Fisk’s facility for funk
sporadically surfaces, but a menagerie of peculiar textures and
baffling arrangements mostly confounds dancing. Ultimately, you end up
scratching your noggin in 7/4 time. I may be alone on this, but
Undo is my favorite Sub Pop release ever.

Trivia: Fisk also played keyboards in Pigeonhed (see below) and Pell
Mell, the latter of which cut similarly overlooked gems The Bumper
Crop and Flow for SST Records.

5 Style (1995)

These Chicago white boys replicate the N’awlins funk of the Meters
and the struttin’ jams of Billy Preston with frightening authenticity.
But did you care? No, you and billions of others showed stunning apathy
toward 5 Style. Torqued instrumental-funk workouts just weren’t
selling in the mid-’90s like they are now. Guitarist Bill
Dolan—who later played with the equally slept-on Heroic Doses and
the less-slept-on Fire Theft—chikka-wakka’d and spangled his way
into the funk pantheon with panache, while Tortoise sticksman John
Herndon channeled Zigaboo Modeliste with precision. And “I Told Ya”?
Best zoned-out dub track ever to receive the Sub Pop imprimatur. 5ive
Style are the Above Average White Band history forgot—till
now.

Trivia: 5ive Style bassist LeRoy Bach did time in Liz Phair’s studio
band and with Wilco, and keyboardist Jeremy Jacobsen became the
Lonesome Organist.

Valende (2005)

As Syd Barrett acolytes go, Jennifer Gentle mastermind Marco Fasolo
is no Robyn Hitchcock. That’s why the Italian
guitarist/vocalist/producer labors in obscurity and Valende‘s
faint ripple of notoriety five years ago has receded. A pity, as
Valende puts up a funhouse mirror to various ’60s psych tropes,
all of which are memorably frosted by Fasolo’s munchkin vox. Amid all
the mad-as-Syd capers, Jennifer Gentle deliver an absolutely gorgeous
ballad, “Circles of Sorrow,” which I described in a review in these
pages as “an acid-refracted glimpse of what a Brian Wilson/Skip Spence
collaboration circa 1968 would sound like.” It gives your goose bumps
shivers.

Trivia: Jennifer Gentle cover “Meccanica” on the Franco Battiato
tribute album What’s Your Function?

Microminiature Love (2003)

Excavated from obscurity 35 years after it was recorded for and
rejected by Sire Records (although De Stijl got there a year earlier
with a vinyl reissue), Microminiature Love gusts in from the
turmoil-y Vietnam War era. It’s a period piece, but it still stings
with urgency. Michael Yonkers laces his trebly, troublemaking garage
rock with Phil Ochs–like vibrato while generating a distinctive,
open-tuned guitar tone. “Boy in the Sandbox” convincingly re-creates
the sound of heavy incoming ammo, while lines like “Ain’t much that I
understand/Ain’t much that makes me feel grand” from “Smile Awhile”
reflect the album’s lyrical tenor. Michael Yonkers Band’s off-kilter
take on post-Nuggets rock bears similarities to the Monks, but,
unlike that cult group, MYB are to parties as napalm is to skin
care.

Trivia: Yonkers has lived in severe pain since 1971, when a wall of
computer equipment fell and crushed his back, and the dye from his
X-rays caused his spine to degenerate.

Pigeonhed (1995)

A true oddity in Sub Pop’s voluminous catalog, Pigeonhed is a
weird dance album
fueled by Shawn Smith’s affecting blue-eyed soul
stylings—which predate Jamie Lidell’s by about a decade—and
Steve Fisk’s production (Fisk is this company’s MVP). It wouldn’t be
stretching it to say Pigeonhed is the sexiest disc in SP’s
history—yes, even sexier than God’s Balls. People drone on
about Afghan Whigs member Greg Dulli’s stud cred, but Pigeonhed beat
him nads down (sonically, at least). Seriously, Smith is like this
freakish Caucasian hybrid of Al Green, Marvin Gaye, and Prince. The
music here is funky, slinky, and sometimes wonky, and it ideally should
come with a tube of KY—as should its listeners.

Trivia: Soundgarden guitarist Kim Thayil (?!) contributed to
Pigeonhed.

Bunny Gets Paid (1995)

Sub Pop does us a solid by reissuing this classic album with a
seven-track bonus disc (which includes alternate takes, covers of Low
and A Flock of Seagulls, and a previously unreleased song). Red Red
Meat hailed from Chicago, but they sounded like they dwelled in the
Mississippi Delta area—while still being cognizant of avant-garde
musical developments. Their roots had wires sprouting from them, and
they were twisted into convoluted shapes. Bunny Gets Paid is a
blues-rock opus with a yearning ache at its core, communicated via
guitarist Tim Rutili’s deeply affecting slur. Musically, Bunny Gets
Paid recalls the Rolling Stones’ country-esque fare off Beggars
Banquet or Royal Trux at their straightest. Back in the day, the
disc mostly won the hearts of unconventional-rock fans, but one can
imagine John Lee Hooker or Muddy Waters nodding in approval over Red
Red Meat’s stark, powerful transformation of their own grainy, groiny
innovations.

Trivia: Rutili, Ben Massarella, and Brian Deck later formed the fab
post-Americana outfit Califone.

Severe Exposure (1995)

Six Finger Satellite’s second album hit with a savage, caustic
impact. Like some laboratory experiment in which Big Black’s propulsive
power electronics melds with Chrome and Killing Joke’s pitiless guitar
sandblasting, Severe Exposure lives up to its title. J. Ryan
fulfills the Steve Albini role to the hilt with larynx-tearing bellows,
while John MacLean shreds on guitar and keyboards like a politician who
has a lot to hide. In a way, this album is like the next evolutionary
step for Sub Pop followers who liked their rock rugged and
fuzzy—6FS translated that Jesus Lizard/Mudhoney steez into a more
futuristic lexicon. Not enough people were ready for this hot plate of
anger, though, and Six Finger Satellite eventually faded like so many
rave reviews in the yellowing pages of Your Flesh.

Trivia: MacLean now records dance music for DFA Records as
the Juan MacLean.

Burned Mind (2004)

Sure, Wolf Eyes have received hosannas from celebs like Thurston
Moore and Andrew W.K., but somehow they couldn’t convert them into fame
and fortune—or even a place in the queue for NPR bumper music.
That’s because

Burned Mind is a dirty bomb of noise anti-rock, a
saber-toothed tiger among widdle puddy tats. Play these convulsive
cacophonies on the radio, and you’ll get fired; play ’em in your
apartment, and you’ll get evicted; play ’em for your girlfriend, and
you’ll (probably) get dumped. (You might say this album is an ordeal
breaker.) Sub Pop cofounder Jonathan Poneman once told The
Stranger: “[Wolf Eyes’ music is] very expressive, very liberating;
it makes me want to kick shit, and rock ‘n’ roll needs to be about
that.” It took titanic balls for Sub Pop to issue Burned Mind.
The least you could do is lend an ear to its noirish abattoir
symphonies.

Trivia: Wolf Eyes’ set at the 2006 Wooden Octopus Festival
sent waves of pain through a certain Stranger music writer’s
testicles.

This story has been updated since its original publication.