For more than a decade, Matador Records has chosen to ignore the ongoing (and, as social media caught on, increasingly not-so-polite) demands of ardent Pavement fans who have pined for a deluxe reissue of the band’s much-loved fifth and final album, ‘Terror Twilight’.
Some frustration is warranted. After all, we did put out comprehensive special edition sets covering every other Pavement studio album. The truth is that we were just holding out for them to play some shows again.
On April 8th, Matador will release ‘Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal’, an exhaustive 45-track set compiling the remastered original album, B-sides, home demos, rehearsal tapes, era-appropriate live recordings, and even the rough tracks from Pavement’s scrapped session at Sonic Youth’s Echo Canyon studio. Altogether, it features 28 unreleased tracks. Today, you can listen to the never before heard full-band track “Be The Hook”.
The 4xLP and 2xCD editions will include a book with never-before-seen photos and commentary/context from band members Mark Ibold, Stephen Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich, Spiral Stairs, and Steve West as well as producer Nigel Godrich.
The LP will restore Godrich’s suggested sequence – which foregrounds the album’s headiest songs – while the CD preserves the final track order assembled by the band.
Originally released in 1999, ‘Terror Twilight’ marked a departure from Pavement’s established operating methods. Which is to say that it was recorded with a big-time producer in an expensive studio. However, for all the talk of “polish” and “precision” it’s still very much a Pavement record. And a great one. Like every Pavement album that preceded it, ‘Terror Twilight’ thrills and confounds. Often at the same time. Twenty-two years on, the songs remain moody, strange, and eminently deserving of re-celebration.
