I've never been entirely sure about Pavement or Stephen Malkmus, I liked some stuff and thought some was close to rubbish, a bit too clever by half. This track Pencil Rot was free with a magazine covermount cd, and I loved it. It was the first song on his 2005 solo album Face The Truth so I bought the album cheap from ebay- couldn't tell you anything about any of the rest of it, the track titles ring no bells at all. Pencil Rot is fantastic though- it's a riot of synths, fuzzy detuned guitars, with an urgent, driving rhythm and lyrics about a villain in his head giving him shocks, leather bound poison, secondhand weakness, privilege, spikes on your feet, dancing to the top of the human shit pile, unmade beds, ghosts, more poison and pencil rot. I don't know what it's about. Maybe it doesn't matter.
01 Pencil Rot.wma
01 Pencil Rot.wma