July 2002 • Rockbites Alternative Daily
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Merge Records launches new compilation series 30 July 2002
After putting out a few cassettes and vinyl 45s (the label’s very first release: a cassette album by McCaughan’s band Bricks called Winter Spring), Superchunk found themselves in the pleasantly awkward position of being too big for their own company. They signed to New York’s Matador Records to distribute their self-titled debut and quickly won a worldwide following among university students. They used that success to build up Merge, and over the years have extended their labor of love to embrace dozens of bands all over the musical map—ranging from the chamber pop of The Ladybug Transistor to the pop-core of Spoon to the techno-chill of Spaceheads. But as McCaughan said a couple of years ago in an interview with Raleigh, North Carolina’s Spectator, “To this day still we live off of Superchunk before we live off of Merge.” Today, celebrating their continuing fortitude in the increasingly difficult commercial realm of indie rock, McCaughan’s and Ballance’s Merge Records launches a new series of compilation albums under the banner Survive And Advance—a basketball finals analogy that applies quite well to the label itself. Survive And Advance Volume 1 is no dashed-off afterthought or set of sweepings from the recording studio floor. It’s a delight: a wonderful collection of previously unreleased, rare, and forthcoming tracks with only two of the 14 readily available on other albums. Included are previously unavailable live offerings from The Ladybug Transistor, Lambchop, Portastatic, and Spaceheads; a great new song from Spoon off their next album Kill The Moonlight (due next month); and an amazing, previously unreleased tune from East River Pipe, called Machine Man, that I want to hear blaring from car radios this summer as I walk down the street. There are also hit-single-quality, previously unreleased songs by Crooked Fingers, Destroyer (Merge’s newest signing), The Gothic Archies, Annie Hayden, and The Radar Bros. And if you’ve missed out on Ashley Stove or Imperial teen, a couple of strong album tracks by those bands will clue you in. Survive And Advance Volume 1—the first in a promised regular series of compilation offerings—is an elegant and beautiful album, an engaging introduction to an exceptional label, and the only way to get your hands on some really great music by a dozen or so Merge bands. You can pick it up for $6.50 direct from the label. Four bites out of five. Rockbites ratings 5: life changing, 4: stunning, 3: captivating, 2: amusing, 1: annoying. | Merge Records | | Merge Records feature from Spectator Online | | top of page | |
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