Sunday Morning Playlist: Lo-Fi - Page 3

This might not have had radical implications, but it did have aesthetic ones, and a core audience developed. Husker Du took hardcore and turned it progressive, a feat thought impossible. Semi-madman Daniel Johnston banged around on tape. Liliput were an all-woman lo-fi unit from Switzerland. Pussy Galore was one of the important proto-lo-fi bands of the late 1980's. Becoming legendary for a cassette-only cover version of the entire Exile On Main Street album, they specialized in murky, quasi-blues submerged in low-fi murk and hiss. Beat Happening became one of America's most important lo-fi/twee pop bands, with Calvin Johnson an important figure behind the scenes.

During the indie revolution of 1992 a sizable number of willfully lo-fi bands gained sudden (and fairly unexpected) notoriety, among them Pavement and Sebadoh. Pavement became the flagship lo-fi band made good; they had a slacker image, they recorded at a dive with a hippie burn-out drummer, Stephen Malkmus had Lou Reed down cold, and they took a kitchen sink approach to production, often using whatever was handy at the time. Their 1992 Slanted and Enchanted release is often considered the true starting point for lo-fi as a movement, some of it has the general feel of the Fall's Dragnet.

Pavement's relative breakthrough made lo-fi respectable, and it was enough of a fresh sound to the mainstream that home studio artists like Beck and Liz Phair became icons of sorts. The Mountain Goats took lo-fi to its logical conclusions in the mid-late 90's, recording much of their music on a boombox. In 2001, I Am The World Trade Center released a noteworthy lo-fi electronica album recorded entirely on a laptop computer.

Although the mainstream flirtation with lo-fi proved to be short-lived, lo-fi is here with us to stay. As long as there are musicians with no money, and recording equipment (or laptops) in their house, lo-fi will always be around. What The Fall, Pussy Galore, and most of all Pavement taught us is that the limitations of lo-fi itself become part of the musicians palette; thus, there will always be the consciously lo-fi. There are also far too many examples of the genre to include in a list of 10.

Which makes it a musical expression and mission, after all.

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