My addition to the Slint reissue circlejerk:

There‰’s something about being immersed in the mundane, cyclical toils of prepubescent academia that has left me utterly unmotivated to follow this column‰’s self-imposed structure. I spend my days hunched over a sickeningly clinical white screen, pecking away at a keyboard as I mentally milk one or two worthwhile ideas into several pages‰’ worth. I don‰’t want to subject the music that I really love to that approach.

I was watching the documentary Breadcrumb Trails on the making of Slint‰’s Spiderland (I can‰’t recommend either highly enough) and I was totally immersed in the story of these off-the-wall teenagers making music unlike anything before (and pretty much after). Even James Murphy, complete with collared shirt, glass of wine, and that perpetual one-day old beard was engaging. He told this beautiful story about Britt Walford‰’s inclination to suspend his work in music and move to New York to bake penis and tit cakes. Then, a cell phone lights up and Murphy cuts off the story and submits his gaze to the phone. For some reason, that moment felt like it spoke more to the cultural divide between Murphy and Slint‰’s “peaks‰” than anything else.

If you aren‰’t intimately familiar with Spiderland already, you‰’re f*cking up. Once that bond has been established, go watch Breadcrumb Trails. It‰’s a really beautiful portrayal of an equally eccentric and compatible band that made an unlikely classic.