And What Costume Shall the Poor Girl Wear?

 

Blah  Blah Blah...compilation day.

 

 All Tomorrow's Parties UK2002 (2002)

So I'm going to just come out and say it.

I'm not really a big fan of Steve Albini.
He can get some great guitar tones, but he mixes like shit and all his recordings tend to sound kind of flat and a bit lifeless to my ears. I mean, that Stooges album he did is fucking terrible and unlistenable with the guitar kind of buried behind the vocals. On a Stooges record...

I also always found Big Black to be kind of tedious and pretentious and most Shellac kind of bores me. 

Plus the stories I've heard about him from friends who have been around him for various things always make him seem like kind of dick.
 

There. I'm glad I got that out of my system.

Now we come to this disc. It's the Shellac curated All Tomorrow's Parties from 2002.
And it seems if nothing else, Albini and I can agree that the Fall are the centerpiece of any curated lineup of bands because the Fall were the greatest band of all time.

Amen.

Shellac also included local MN heroes, Arcwelder and everybody's indie hipster namecheck, Mission of Burma on their bill. 

That's more win.

But if you were still be on the fence about this particular disc, let me just say that to my ears this is the definitive version of "Two Librans" by the Fall and above and beyond anything else it is an essential for that reason alone.

There I've said my peace and the cat is complaining in the other room.
I will feed her now.