On the Tundra

Anytime someone mentions the charm of Guided by Voices' early four-track days, songs like "On the Tundra" are what come to mind. The song closes Propeller, one of the band's more hi-fi early mid-period albums, on a mid-fi note. The drums are tinny, the guitars a bit compressed and Robert Pollard's vocals are even more prominent than usual in part, it seems, because he was closest to the microphone.

The song is indecipherable, and at times unintelligible, but it has a great big hook on the chorus that redeems it. And then... the song fades to nothing before picking back up again. It's as if they didn't work out how to get from the chorus and back into the verse, or perhaps they stopped the tape, reset and started again. Whatever, it's the kind of move that draws attention to the band's methods. This is as far from slick as one can get. And that is exactly what made so many people love them.