Built To Spill - Ultimate Alternative Wavers

8.5 - USA - 1993

On their first album, Boise, Idaho’s favourite sons jump right of the gate with their sound more or less fully-formed and startling mature. Although the line-up was still in formation with front-man Doug Martsch as the only member who would persist on to the next records (Martsch’s intention was to change the line-up for each album, but the band would eventually become more stable than that), the characteristic Built To Spill sound of effects-laden guitar jams welded into somewhat disjointed songs is already present. On the one hand, there’s a fair amount of sloppiness to the proceedings – the governing aesthetic could be described as Neil Young & Crazy Horse jamming with Sonic Youth – yet on the other hand, with the complex arrangements that bounce around through different time shifts and segmented parts, there’s a bit of a prog-rock thing going on here, too. Highlights: the stop-start acoustic/electric interfacing of “Three Years Ago”; the rousing, sing-along Velvet Underground tribute “Nowhere Nothin’ Fuckup”, the shimmering, eponymous “Built To Spill”; and the lazy beauty of “Hazy”. Only the unfortunately overlong slog of “Shameful Dread” lets the side down.

Personal note: My first exposure to this record was when a friend lent me a copy in undergrad. This was back before file-sharing had really taken off, when music – particularly more underground stuff like this – was still primarily shared via word of mouth and, as such, had the effect of building subcultural communities (since deterritorialized into various obscure rabbit holes). Even then, this album was more than ten years old already. Several years later, I found a used copy of this record and was ecstatic to pick it up. At the time, I was really into a lot of stuff from the 1970s (Tropicalia, Italian film soundtracks, library music), so it felt good to be listening to something a bit more contemporary. I recall putting the record on while putting away laundry, and when the guitars hit with that distinctive early-90s sound, it suddenly dawned on me that this album was (then) over 15 years old. And, as an inevitable conclusion of such reasoning, I also realized how old I was and how far back my unmispent youth had slipped.