Aerial M - The Peel Sessions

Released: 30/08/24

Originally recorded for John Peel's Radio One on 4 February 1998, and broadcast the following month,The Peel Sessionsby Slint alum Dave Pajo's Aerial M has achieved bona fide legendary status in the 25 years since it was recorded, not least because it has never released on vinyl “ until now, courtesy of the good folks at Drag City. Over two decades ago I was lucky enough to see Aerial M at The Brudenell Social Club in Leeds (waybefore it was trendy like), and the performance, including an astonishing extended instrumental version of The Byrds' Turn, Turn, Turn', is something I will never forget. 

While for studio recordings Pajo played every instrument, live he was buoyed by some truly excellent musicians, and forThe Peel Sessionsit was no different “ Tim Furnish (guitar), Cassie Berman (bass) and Tony Bailey (drums), transmuting the already wonderful three tracks that make up the sessions into more dynamic and muscular beasts. Opener Safeless' (13'03), has much in common with Slint “ insistent, discordant, and moving lithely between minor and major keys, ecstatic and brutally heavily in equal measure, it's not unlike a Fugazi track played at half speed; track two, Vivea' (6'19), built on a woozy 5/4 time signature, over which the guitars chime in counterpoint, is both prettier and more expansive than its studio version; while final track Skrag Theme' completely outdoes the relatively tame original, the quartet imbuing it with a creeping, tightly wound menace via dampened, angular guitar stabs and harmonics, before it metamorphoses into a dark butterfly of looping, free, extended-technique guitar, and finally ends with a mesmeric third movement that is a stunning synthesis of the two, the dialectic complete.