5 out of 5

Label: VHF

Produced by: Wingtip Sloat (presumably)

Having discovered VHF in their early 30s of releases, most of the listening I sampled was in the psychedelic or outright noise vein, and most of it from Matthew Bower – Sunroof!, Total, etc.  As I began collecting the label, most of it felt like offshoots of this style.  So I had a hard time subsuming Wingtip Sloat into my understanding of VHF.  Which is ironic, since they were there from the start… ‘Add This to Rhetoric’ CD-izing some early 7″ material.  When the label kicked off it was actually a lot of this stuff – anarchic punk with dashes of noise; full-on underground abandon – and it’s interesting to view the development through this scope.  Just makes me love the label all the more.

I own those early 7″s (the VHF ones, anyway), but I admittedly don’t get to my vinyl too much.  Although I knew essentially what to expect from Wingtip at this point, I was still a little hesitant to dig in to a 30 track compilation.  Consider this the experience that finally opened my eyes to the genius of the band, and now I’m looking forward to re-hearing their albums with new ears.

If you were hanging around in underground American slacker rock in the era of the material here, or if you’ve since become a fan, you’ll probably be able to spot some “sounds like” moments – some Truman’s Water spazz, some Pavement mumblings.  But these aren’t influences.  They’re just moments Wingtip passes through while establishing – even from that first 4-song 7″, recorded on some single number of tracks to analog – that they’re their own thing, and that it’s the real frikkin’ deal.  They’re in it for the music, or they don’t give a fuck, or whatever.  The liner notes of this collection, bits contributed from each member, do a good job of summarizing the roundabout uniqueness of Sloat.  Most of the notes are rambling, gibbering memories of what the band meant and how it functioned, always dodging structure and then digging in for some pulsing bass or a rockin’ riff.  This is, essentially, what I wanted indie rock to sound like: passionate, simple but complex, noisy but tuneful, humorous but serious.  It’s loud, and the group has no problem finding a solid beat (and no problem making what must’ve been cheap recording equipment somehow sound great), nor does the collection struggle for originality from track to track.  30 songs pass with ease, literally each and every song featuring a breakdown or a sample or an oddity that makes it unskippable.

So I dunno.  It’s sloppy, three chord rock, I guess.  But these guys are forever superstars based on this material, and now I can wear my smug, indie rock bastard look like I’ve discovered the REAL progenitor of the scene or something.  Whatever man.  I’m in it for the music, or I don’t give a fuck, whatever.