Slint's Spiderland by Scott Tennent

have to keep pushing them as he sang — so they were going in and out of phase. We were up for trying any weird recording technique. We wanted to collaborate with Steve on the songs, and it sounds like it.”
    Many of
Tweez
’s most memorable moments and defining characteristics happened spontaneously in the studio, and the only reason they’re on the record is because Albini thought to turn his microphones on. “We didn’t have any lyrics,” Buckler explained to
Alternative Press
, “so Steve recorded Brian jabbering on a scratch track and put it in the mix. He also would secretly record all of us chatting in the snack room. This was our first recording, and Steve Albini was asuperstar. Steve saw us as this goofy math-metal band from Louisville who idolized him. He tried to capture our odd ways and put it on our recording. He was making fun of us, and it worked.”
    When Slint showed up to the studio, many of their songs were either unfinished or the band was open to manipulating them. They never rehearsed with vocals, so many of the vocal parts were written on the spot (perhaps explaining the line “I’ve got a Christmas tree inside my head”). Elsewhere Albini added incidental voices (as in “Nan Ding”) or noises (as in “Carol”) to give the songs more density.
    The first minute of “Ron,” the opening track, captures the whole aesthetic of
Tweez
. It begins with the band ill prepared — McMahan stammers “Oh, oh, all right,” as if caught off guard before the opening chord strikes. Even as the song gets going, McMahan is still not settled. “Steve, these headphones are fucked up. They’re only coming out of one side, like the . . . Should I just bear with it or what? Shit. They’re fucked.” The music keeps going and McMahan quiets down, as if considering whether or not to deal with his faulty headphones. Then: “Man, no, wait.
Please
give me some new headphones.”
    It’s probably the most classic moment on the album. No matter one’s opinion of the record — and there are a lot of Slint fans out there who hate
Tweez
— I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t at least crack a smile at this intro. That very act — smiling or laughing withSlint — might even be part of the reason why some don’t like
Tweez
. It’s not “Slint,” it’s not
Spiderland
. It’s not the anguish of “Washer” or the creepiness of “Nosferatu Man” or the anxiousness of “Don, Aman.”
Spiderland
, while not completely dark, is not a terribly
funny
album, nor is it boneheaded.
Tweez
is.
    All four guys in Slint were just finishing high school when they made
Tweez
. Speaking to
Alternative Press
, McMahan described himself and his bandmates as “very playful, with a boundless sense of optimism.” Albini, in the same article, put it this way: “They were about what you would expect from smart kids in a supportive peer group: prone to ass humor, practical jokes and absurdity on many levels.” “Ass humor” and absurdity are all over the record. Its very title is a reference to Walford’s odd collection of tweezers. A minute and a half into “Warren” the song ends abruptly and the listener is treated to thirty seconds of what sounds like someone jerking off (or, more accurately, indulging their tweezer fetish). The song is followed by “Pat,” which confirms the, uh, fixation of the jerker as an electronic Speak-and-Spell voice intones “canker loaf . . . snatch beast . . . tweezer fetish.” (How did Warren and Pat Buckler — good-hearted Unitarians, mind you — feel about being named for both of the “tweezer fetish” songs?)
    “Darlene,” while not absurd or dirty, also points to the band’s level of maturity. Musically the song is one of two on
Tweez
that hints at where Slint wereheaded — it’s the quietest song, driven by a slightly eerie guitar line of arpeggios wrapped around a tightly locked rhythm section, as McMahan leads the way (or tags along) with a monologue. Missing here is