10-05-1996 / Melody Maker / Galaxie 500 - Box Set - Rykodisc (47 tks / 197 mins)

Heavenly!

Galaxie 500 made some of the starkest, most beautiful, American underground music of the past decade. As this new collection attests.

They were there, then they were gone. The band that never played a chord too many. But is that a calling card or a conceptual joke? First single - King Of Spain; last track on third, final lp - King Of Spain, Part Two. No downward spirals or comeback trails. No trip hop remixes. Just three beautiful, timeless lps, a clutch of singles and, now, a stylish and complete box set. It seems almost too boringly perfect. In fact, it's some of the most emotional music you'll ever hear.
I remember when I first stumbled onto Galaxie 500. It was 1988 and I was working part-time at a record label/distributor wich handled lots of US imports. God, most of them were awful - Sonic Youth copyists and stupid garage bands trying to look authentically Sixties. Amid all this dopey flatulence, the arrival of Galaxie 500 seemed positively heraldic. Austere and graphically precise, even the band members' names implied a vague cosmopolitanism - Dean Wareham, Damon Krukowski, Naomi Yang. OK, it wasn't "world music" but it was some of the most European-sounding US music it's possible to imagine. Almost eerily restrained, it seemed they'd learned as much from Young Marble Giant and Joy Division as The Modern Lovers and The Velvets. But Dean was a native New Zealender singing falsetto and already they didn't sound like anyone.
Still, Galaxie 500 made a massive leap forward with "On Fire", their second lp. By now, they were perceived as being in the vanguard of a new, more abstract form of guitar music. But Galaxie 500 were only ever partially abstract, and once you started listening you found yourself being sucked into an emotional vortex by songs with titles like 'When Will You Come Home' and "Tell Me". Was this music supposed to make you feel calm or completely lonely? So much of Galaxie 500 was kind of
ambiguous. There's no bass to pin things down - what Naomi plays is pure mid. Damon's drumming is like jazz accompanist, but an accompanist to what? They were floating. You kept having to come back to them to see what you'd missed. And got closer and closer to the songs.
In the booklet that comes with this set, it's touching to read of Naomi playing back 'On Fire' in her dark room lit only by streetlight, and feeling so proud of what they'd just done.
The fact that the follow-up, 'This Is Our Music', was just as good seems almost anti-climatic. So they split and for the first time seemed as confused as their listeners.
This box set doesn't solve any puzzles, just brings back into print some music that should never have gone out of print. Oh, and theCD of out-takes is my favourite music of the year.
Stephen McRobbie.