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Album Reviews
Album Review: Galaxie 500 – Today/On Fire/This Is Our Music (Domino)
By CMU Editorial | Published on Friday 19 March 2010
A welcome set of reissued albums from one of the most underrated bands of the late 1980s/early 1990s. Geographically, Galaxie 500’s roots are Harvard University and New York. So far, so bohemian. However, it’s their intricate musical heritage that’s much more fascinating. They don’t sit comfortably within the alt-rock canon of the era. They weren’t spearheading the grunge movement like their American contemporaries, but neither were they aligned to the curiously British shoegaze phenomenon.
They actually sat somewhere in between the two scenes. Their influences were never current, always from the past, taking in Jonathan Richman and the later Velvet Underground albums (once John Cale and Nico had departed) as well as the more obvious reference to the Beatles, as seen in their covers of George Harrison and Yoko Ono tracks.
‘Today’ sets the tone for the Galaxie 500 musical template. Although they employ the standard indie setup of vocals/guitar/bass/drums, they pull off a pretty idiosyncratic approach. The Naomi Yang/Damon Krukowski rhythm section is tight and sets the right foundations, ceding the centre stage of Dean Wareham, whose low-key guitar work and desperate, sometimes off-key vocals are the band’s calling card. Though never should we underestimate the lo-fi production work of Kramer, which allows the tracks themselves to remain the focal point.
First single ‘Tugboat’ shows all the hallmarks of the slowcore sound that the likes of Red House Painters would finely hone in the next few years and remains both awkward and charming in its coy declarations of love. ‘Oblivious’ impresses equally with its use of harmonica and guitar that’s friskier than normal. The band also throw in a Richman cover for good measure; ‘Don’t Let Our Youth Go To Waste’.
‘On Fire’ probably remains the band’s best-received album to date, with Pitchfork citing it as their sixteenth best album of the 1980s. ‘Blue Thunder’, the opening track, sets the tone perfectly. Showcasing a more confident, forceful development to their sound, it’s an ode to hitting the road under the expansive sky, but it seems much more important than this initially sounds as Wareham’s high vocal register warbles optimistically. The production and arrangement of ‘Snowstorm’ is handled so well that it perfectly evokes its subject matter, giving it a suitably wintry feel. ‘Strange’ picks up the pace by the band’s standards, with Wareham’s vocals hitting a higher plane than usual but his wry and humorous observations of a late night trip to a drugstore never fail to amuse. The cover of Red Krayola’s ‘Victory Garden’ is a nice touch to almost round the album up, confirming Galaxie 500’s neat ability to reinvent secondary material.
The Ornette Coleman referencing ‘This Is Our Music’ was Galaxie 500’s swansong and remains a suitable point to bow out, even if the band’s split was far from amicable. Almost as if the band knew it would be the end, all are at the top of their respective games and the band certainly gives it their all. ‘Fourth Of July’ juxtaposes Wareham’s spoken voice verses and his typically wailing choruses. ‘Summertime’ feels positively epic, which is strange for a band who almost seemed proud of being modest. Whilst it proceeds at a typically funereal pace for much of its running time, it suddenly develops a sense of urgency and builds into a far more substantial piece. The choice of ‘Listen, The Snow Is Falling’ as the album’s central cover version seems particularly inspired, providing Naomi Yang an opportunity to flex her vocal muscles.
Although Galaxie 500’s record career was brief; three albums in as many years, their influence is apparent in numerous bands that followed. They resolutely pursued their own sound and agenda, unconcerned about musical shifts and trends around them. For that, they sit quite uniquely within the bands of the era. Domino’s reissues of their three albums will rekindle the memories of those who listened to them first time around and also attract a new audience for whom the spirit of Galaxie 500 at least might be familiar. KW
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