When new bands play guitar music heavy on reverb and slow in tempo-- a combination that drapes tunes in a sublimely druggy dream-pop haze-- I can be slow to embrace them. It's not that there isn't plenty of good music in this vein being made. It's that one band, 20 years ago, did this sound so well and with so much personality, they set a difficult standard for newcomers to meet.
Galaxie 500 didn't last long. They formed in Boston in 1986, released three albums between 1988 and 1990, got great notices in the press (especially the UK), and then dissolved. Following their breakup, after which lead singer and guitarist Dean Wareham went on to Luna and the rhythm section of Damon Krukowski and Naomi Yang formed Magic Hour and Damon and Naomi, Galaxie 500 albums went out of print. Krukowski bought the master tapes in an auction, the albums were gathered with bonus material in a box set by Rykodisc in 1996 and then reissued separately. They fell out of print again.
Damon and Naomi's label, 20/20/20, are now bringing them out again in expanded 2xCD form, along with newly mastered vinyl editions. The CD packages are more functional than revelatory. The three original LPs have been smartly paired with extra discs that gather all extant material: 1988 debut Today with the covers/demos/B-sides set Uncollected; 1989's On Fire with Peel Sessions; and 1990's This Is Our Music with the live album Copenhagen. The liner notes by Byron Coley originally included in the latter are included with all three packages. There's no new information or previously unheard stuff in these sets, but there is a lot of remarkable music.
Today might be the best song-by-song album of Galaxie 500's three. It's also the most varied, moving from the ghostly mid-tempo beauty of opener "Flowers", the dreamiest dream-pop song of them all, to the deeply affecting absurdity of "Tugboat", where the narrator wants to leave the world behind and "be your tugboat captain," to the pounding, mantra-like cover of Jonathan Richman's "Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste", which actually rocks. Wareham's voice stays in a cracked upper register that can either be yearning or transcendent, and his guitar sustain seems to go on for days. Yang's bass playing, like that of Peter Hook, from whom she borrowed heavily, is the band's emotional center, and Krukowski's drums are as much about texture as they are about time-keeping. There were no virtuosos in this group, but everyone's part was essential. Rare is the band where three voices this distinctive come together to make a fourth, equally distinctive thing that transcends everything that went into it. And even more rare is the debut this assured and complete.
Indeed, Today was such a terrific first statement, the only way for Galaxie 500 to best it was to narrow their focus and concentrate on doing one thing perfectly. Everything about 1989's On Fire, from the iconic cover art (the sleeve, like all three of their records, was designed by Yang) to producer Kramer's brilliantly surreal liner notes, to the just-under-mid-tempo beat that drives every song, comes together to support the whole. Wareham's guitar in particular remains fixated on one primitive strumming pattern, and the first three songs all find him taking off onto soaring wordless choruses in a falsetto-drenched reverb. Krukowski uses his drums to superb effect throughout, reinforcing the narcotic pace of the music with his slow-mo percussive explosions. It sounds samey in a sense, but On Fire's narrow focus turns out to be a strength. It feels immersive, the rock album as ambient record, and it's the definitive slowcore statement.
On this reissue, as with the prior Rykodisc set, the original album is augmented with three additional songs originally on the Blue Thunder EP, including a take on Joy Division's "Ceremony" that could be the best cover of the legendary band in existence. And the Peel Sessions set, collecting two four-song sessions, is nothing short of essential. Galaxie 500's versions of their own work are just as strong but different, and the covers of the Sex Pistols, Young Marble Giants, and Buffy St. Marie, show how they could absorb the songs of others into their aesthetic.
This Is Our Music, from 1990, has a few of Galaxie 500's best tunes and it also has the richest production, with greater focus on keyboards and layered guitars. "Fourth of July" is funny, "Summertime" has an almost blinding sparkle, and Yang's vocal on the cover of Yoko Ono's "Listen, the Snow Is Falling" is a pretty good argument that she should be fronting her own project. But despite its high points, This Is Our Music also has a few duds, which are the only easy skips on the band's proper records. "Way Up High" and "Hearing Voices" are nice enough, but feel like Galaxie 500 on cruise control. Hard to say where they might've gone from here.
Given the relative merits of This Is Our Music, a fine album that sometimes sounds sleepy instead of dreamy, the fact that Galaxie 500 called it quits in spring 1991 is no tragedy. Some bands are meant to last for three albums; this was one of them. All involved would go on to do good things, including Kramer, who carried his sonic innovations into Low's early work. The live album, Copenhagen, which is heavy on songs from This Is Our Music and in almost every case improves upon them, turns out to be the ideal closing chapter. During the 1990 show in Denmark, Galaxie 500 play magnificently to what sounds like a pretty small crowd. But that small crowd is into it. Sometimes bands work like that. They never made it big, but during their short run, Galaxie 500's often quiet and always beautifully rendered music had a profound impact on a few people, including this writer. It needs to stay out there, where it has a chance of finding a few more.
