Amazing Records That Sound Incredible: Polvo, Celebrate the New Dark Age (Merge, 1994)
Discovering this record for a huge deal for highschool-age me: it was the weird, and I liked it; thus I was weird, and that was fine. The all-guns-blazing psychedelic strangeness of “Fractured” and “Every Holy Shroud” were what did it for me then. I still love them, but the delicate, shimmering uncanniness of “City Spirit” and “Virtual Cold” are what have kept me coming back for the last thirty years. This remains a lost classic of 90s indie rock. Strange tunings, loud-quiet, a genuine fuck-everything willingness to experiment… we’ve gotten used to all that in Sonic Youth or whoever over the years, but it still feels surprising here, like digging up a living corpse. Polvo were and are geniuses / Ash Bowie is a hero.
My “Amazing Records that Sound Incredible” methodology mandates I only pick records that fill both criteria, and this one is more “amazing” than “incredible,” but it does sound quite excellent… and surely the TRIPLE SEVEN-INCH format gets this one in purely as an example of over the top vinyl purism. I always did dream of doing a 3×7”…
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I came to read about your experience with the LP12 Karousel upgrade and stayed for the Polvo review. One of the greatest records ever. The woozy lead line on Solitary Set is incredible. Here’s crossing fingers that Merge finally give This Eclipse the vinyl treatment. Anyway, I’m delighted to discover your blog this evening.
Thanks, Brian! It’s always nice to (a) have some evidence that people are still reading my effectively dormant hifi blog and (b) that such people also like POLVO! One for the ages, undoubtedly.