Guided By Voices: Bee Thousand Vinyl LP

Landmark indie album from Robert Pollard and Guided By Voices. The group drew inspiration from British Invasion rock, garage and punk rock, and would go on to inspire a legion of followers. By this point in their career the band had recorded many albums, self releasing them in small runs to family and friends. They started to gain attention with the release of Propeller and Vampire on Titus in the early 90s. Building on the success of those two releases they were able to secure a distribution deal with Matador Records. Pollard was having trouble writing a followup to Vampire on Titus and chose to "deconstruct" and "reconstruct" the band's older, unused material into new songs for Bee Thousand. The band also abandoned any notion of recording in a proper studio, in favor of inexpensive recording devices due to economic constraints. This helped capture the spontaneous nature in which many of the songs came together while creating the lo-fi sound that the band became known for. With all that had gone into their previous recordings and their limited success, Bee Thousand was to be Guided By Voices' last album. Instead, the record helped to propel the band's career. The majority of the songs clock in at under 2 minutes and included are standouts "The Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory," "Hot Freaks," "Mincer Ray," and the timeless "I Am A Scientist." Essential lo-fi indie rock classic.

• music label: Scat Records 1994 / 2021

reviewed by Hank Ohs 05/2015