5 out of 5

Label: Up Records

Producer: Calvin Johnson

Yes, historical bias: this was the first real record I “discovered” – going through the racks at Sam Goody where I worked for things that looked appealing / proved I was cool, digging the cover, knowing the label was an indie, digging the song titles, digging the “mouse” in the name (since An American Tail set forth some sorta mouse love since I was a wee’un)…  And it was also the first record that really hit me.  I recall popping it in my CD player – hooked into my car stereo via tape adapter – on the drive home from work and being blown away by ‘Never Ending Math Equation.’  I just hadn’t heard music like that before.

I still don’t get the Sonic Youth tag the band was initially saddled with, but years later and my Mouse obsession distilled, this is still an excellent album of equal impact to that first listen, and though its a singles collection, it stands shoulder to shoulder with ‘Lonesome Crowded West’ as the best albums of the groups’ career.  At a high level, two things are impressive about ‘Building’ – that the group didn’t use singles as all B-sides, and that put together, the songs play like they were always meant for sequencing as such.  To address the first point, I don’t mean to knock all singles – I’m sure all of us can name a favorite song or two that just weren’t on a major album, but on the whole, when I put on a 7″ I’m expecting average songs and not highlights.  They seem to be material recorded between sessions or that just didn’t seem to fit elsewhere, so it makes sense that such tracks don’t always come across as Best Songs Ever.  And yet even the more pot-hazed tracks from ‘Building’ – such as extensive ‘Workin’ On Leavin’ the Livin”- are incredibly emotive and strong.  But part of this is due to that second point: the sequencing.  Thought was put into this, to split up the highs and lows so that we don’t run into a dirge of slowness like the middle stretch of ‘Moon and Antarctica.’  It’s not just A-side, B-side and so on, rather each 7″ has been divided and divvied up over the compilation’s runtime so that we start strong, get carried through to emotional peaks (including one of my favorite Mouse tracks – and one that elicited my favorite “this song makes me want to stab my eardrums” comment from a dick douche Abercrombie patron at Sam Goody when I played it in store (…and the lookin’-back-on-the-past glee I get from thinking that he probably bought “Good News” and said “Modest Mouse forever” at concerts while waving his lighter and played it while doin’ his blond ladyfriend’s butt without a condom and getting her butt pregnant with babies (’cause that’s what the world does.  Trust me.)) – ‘A Life of Arctic Sounds’) and treated to an excellent range of Mouse styles – witness the grace and beauty of ‘Sleepwalking’ – and end it on a perfectly ponderous, purely Brockian exploration of space and sadness with ‘Other People’s Lives.’  The magic of sequencing allowed me to listen to this album again and again and never tire, and is certainly part of its longevity in my playlists.

It’s sad admitting that the band had a highpoint, because I always want to see groups as these evolving creatures, with each stage enjoyable for different reasons.  But the material here was recorded during the years around Lonesome Crowded, and it’s proven, thus far, to be the time of Brock’s best balance of stupid simple observational lyrics and his more aggressive, surreal word slingin’, along with the most organic incarnation of the original trio of Brock, Eric Judy, and Jeremiah Green, before Brock’s seeming obsession with pushing the band first toward Red Red Meat territory (M & A, though this was an ideal direction) and then, uh, The Smiths or something, and bloating the group with guest stars and extra musicians.You probably already own this.  If not, if you came to the Mouse club late, this might be the smoothest intro into their older material.