Westing (By Musket and Sextant)

Listening to WESTING (BY MUSKET AND SEXTANT) is like looking at a photo album with baby pictures of one of the most important bands of the 1990s. A collection of Pavement's first EPs, WESTING presents the band in the early stages of its development. While singer/guitarist Stephen Malkmus would later blossom into a fine melodist/lyricist, the material here favours Sonic Youth-like noise attacks and fractured structures. Still, one can hear Malkmus's unique sensibility emerging on cuts like "From Now On", the oblique and tender "Home", and an early version of the magnificent "Summer Babe (Winter Version)" (later to be reprised on SLANTED AND ENCHANTED). more...

In its relentlessly lo-fi fashion, Pavement spins through chiming pop ("Box Elder"), driving anthems ("Price Yeah!"), left-field rockabilly ("Spizzle Trunk"), exuberant pop-rock ("Debris Slide"), and straight-up aural tomfoolery ("Drive By Fader"). The band's influences (Sonic Youth, the Fall) are more readily evident here before the band synthesized them into a potent and utterly unique sound. Smart, reckless, and full of charm, WESTING (BY MUSKET AND SEXTANT) shows Pavement finding its aesthetic legs. The collection is worthy for that alone, and also for everything it promises.

Rolling Stone (9/2/93, p.64)
- 3.5 Stars (out of 5)
- "...Imagine a world in which Sonic Youth aren't smug, the Fall don't think they're literary, Tommy James has had it with playing to the kiddies and Iggy Pop hits all the notes. Now imagine they're all one band. That band is Pavement..."

Spin (6/93, p.81)
- Highly Recommended - "...there's gold in this here murk....a record all connoisseurs of clamor will cherish....You could argue that this noise-for-noise's-sake approach is going nowhere, but it's going there in terrific style..."

Q (4/93, p.101)
- 3 Stars (out of 5)
- "...currently the hippest American indie rock band....they sometimes sound like The Fall, the Velvets and Swell Maps coupled with a rhythmic feel that recalls '60s psychedelic `jug' bands....an exciting alternative to grunge..."

NME (3/20/93, p.34)
- 6 (out of 10)
- "...to call the majority of this material abstract is a bit like saying Dali knocked out some odd little sketches from time to time....You could never accuse Pavement of not being interesting..."