Dead C / Vain, Erudite And Stupid: Selected Works 1987-2005

Ba Da Bing!

There’s no “correct” way to respond to The Dead C’s music. With a catalogue that oscillates between subverting traditional song structures and stomping out and obliterating the very notion, New Zealand’s Michael Morley, Bruce Russell and Robbie Yeats have continually made the most crushing, expansive and intelligent rock noise ever to be heard. The number of their peers who are also fans — Yo La Tengo, Sonic Youth, Comets On Fire, Black Dice — shows the league in which they play. The Dead C have been creating the greatest of squalls for twenty years now, and to mark the anniversary, Ba Da Bing is proud to present this double CD retrospective, with tracks hand-picked by the band members themselves, collecting old and new faves and out-of-print rarities. All this at a price so nice, you’d think you were picking up a ten-song Supertramp greatest hits package. This release serves long-time fans and the curious alike, as chances are few people have heard everything on these discs. The band chose critical highlights as well as material they felt deserved wider exposure. While classics like “Constellation,” “Power,” and “Bitcher” are present, so are obscurities like “Mighty” from their Forced Exposure 7-inch, “All Channels Open” from the limited, double-disc DC record and “3 Years” from the Xpressway Pile-Up compilation. The real thrill is listening to the band’s development over time, from the deconstructed skeletal rock of their early output to the eventual, cosmic marriage of reason and squalor that is as crushing as it is indescribable.

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