It’s a crazy story: Over two nights in 1994, Alan Vega (vocals), Alex Chilton (guitars, keyboards, drums) and Ben Vaughn (guitars, keyboards, drums) came together in Lower Manhattan, rolled tape and improvised 12 songs from nothing. Two years later, after Henry Rollins released the sessions as Cubist Blues, the trio reunited for a couple of gigs, played completely di fferent versions of these songs, and never touched them again. Now, blowing o decades of accumulated dust, the album is rereleased with the expected hype about “alchemy,” “magic” and “supergroup,” blah blah blah. The only surprise is that it’s true. For all its roughness—the LP is very, very rough—it’s also astonishingly listenable. Chilton and Vaughn set the perfect tone, multi-tracking a middle ground between ’50s rockabilly and ’80s synth-grunge that frees Vega to do whatever the hell comes to mind. So, he ri ffs lyrics off that day’s New York Post, describes the street scene outside his window or free-associates about freedom, casting a spell with all the power of Suicide and none of the hangover headache. Just like it says in the liner notes: brilliant.
—Kenny Berkowitz
