April 4 will mark the 25th anniversary of Guided By Voices’ 1995 album Alien Lanes, their first release on Matador Records. To celebrate, the label is reissuing the record on limited edition vinyl, on August 21. The record, of which only 2,500 will be made, is pressed on blue, green and red multicolored vinyl, and a limited edition keyring/bottle opener will also be available while supplies last. The reissue is available for pre-order now.
The band’s Bob Pollard shared a brief essay about the album in light of the rerelease, which he begins by describing the band’s mindset when they recorded the record: “We were fearless at the time we recorded Alien Lanes. That’s why it bristles with insane energy and confidence. We were still riding the high accolades of Bee Thousand and probably should have succumbed to the critical pressure of a worthy follow-up. Instead we had, in our megalomaniacal view, mastered the instant gratification machine known as the 4-track and began recording song after song with titles like ‘Cuddling Bozo’s Octopus’, ‘My Valuable Hunting Knife’, ‘Pimple Zoo’ and ‘After the Quake (Let’s Bake a Cake).’”
Additionally, Matador has also shared the hard-to-find 1996 documentary about the band, the Banks Tarver-directed Watch Me Jumpstart.
Read Pollard’s full statement below.
“We were fearless at the time we recorded Alien Lanes. That’s why it bristles with insane energy and confidence. We were still riding the high accolades of Bee Thousand and probably should have succumbed to the critical pressure of a worthy follow-up. Instead we had, in our megalomaniacal view, mastered the instant gratification machine known as the 4-track and began recording song after song with titles like ‘Cuddling Bozo’s Octopus’, ‘My Valuable Hunting Knife’, ‘Pimple Zoo’ and ‘After the Quake (Let’s Bake a Cake)’.
The door had been opened for us to throw out as many weird ass ideas as we were capable of and we did. We even thought we were starting to look cooler and decided cool enough to have the entire back cover be a photograph of us in the basement looking pseudo intellectually laid back and stoned with long hair, stars and stripe gym shoes and a box of Tide in the background.
Our friend Kim thought the album was too bombastic. Too frenetic and difficult to digest. I agreed. We were proud to be putting out our first album on Matador and cock strutted accordingly. It cost us $10 to make. It’s worth a million. I personally think it’s better than B-1000 (but not by much). There are two different camps of GBV fans to argue and debate.
God bless 1995 and open hearted record labels like Matador (and Scat before them) for allowing bands like us, with the preferred limited resources, to remove the constraints and pre-conceived notions of the more industry-minded constituents who would have much preferred we destroy the cassette master of Alien Lanes in the better interest of sound manufacturing and what’s more agriculturally consumable. It’s better to leave the farm than to continue plodding through the cow sh*t.”