Sunny distortion: Guided by Voices

On paper, Bee Thousand doesn't make sense. After a series of studio albums, Robert Pollard and the original gang of rotating musicians playing under the Guided By Voices moniker changed tack, recording in basements and garages, using inexpensive equipment, resulting in a mixed bag of muddy hisses and pops, abrasive and unpolished recordings. Yet, it gives the album an aural quality lost in the suave studio efforts. Although it was released in 1994 to college radio fanaticism and most tracks sound like lost b-sides of The Hollies trying to cop The Who, everything sounds new and exciting. There are 20 songs, more than half of which clock in under two minutes; some demos, some final versions, many fragments. However, the album seems whole, despite its ostensibly half-baked production. While Pollard's lyrics often follow a deliberately taciturn stream of consciousness, they definitely teeter between childlike wonderment and deep introspection, highlighting that the two aren't particularly disparate. For every discordant, meandering turn, there's an infectious pop melody there to rescue any potential derailment.

 "Hardcore UFOs" kicks off the record, a two-minute pop nugget with a lead guitar track that drops from the recording for a few seconds before trampling into the intro of "Buzzards and Dreadful Crows," which seems capable of achieving the arena-ready freneticism of Springsteen and the E Street Band. Pollard's ear for pop guides "Echos Myron", which could just as easily have been a hit for Herman's Hermits; and "Gold Star for Robot Boy", a ridiculously catchy power pop blast that rivals Paul Westerberg's gritty best. "Smothered in Hugs" is a sonically and lyrically distorted love song: it was really such a pity/but the judges and the saints/and the textbook committee/decided you should be left out. "Queen of Cans and Jars" treads similar territory: to see the light and try but fail/on jagged seas that can't be sailed/and sought to lead but always trailed/asked questions anyway. "Her Psychology Today" is bashing post-punk, while "Kicker of Elves" is a demented children's folk ditty, which features Pollard repeating the song's title 10 times in roughly one minute. "I am a Scientist" is arguably the album's strongest track, predominated by a weirdly gripping guitar riff and lyrics that speak to the uncertainty of youth: I am a lost soul/I shoot myself with rock and roll/the hole I dig is bottomless/but nothing else can set me free. The pack of drinking buddies from Dayton, Ohio, who made Bee Thousand were set free, unencumbered by the trappings of studio polish, of schedules, of flawless performances, of any outside influence. It's a curiously insular record. As a result, each listen takes you into a world to which you feel glad just to have an invite.

LISTEN:

Guided by Voices - "Echos Myron"

Guided by Voices - "Gold Star for Robot Boy"

The original Guided By Voices play Oberlin College's Hales Gym on Sunday, October 31. Get your tickets here.