Consuming the Tangible

You probably have a particular sound or vibe in mind when you think about your college music era. Is there a more spongeable time in our lives for music? Maybe when we’re teenagers, when the rush of a song or a riff or a harmony finds its way into the center of a gut, pulling and tugging. College for me was ’91 to roughly ’95 (I MAY have needed an extra semester…), and while grunge and hip-hop and – gulp – nu-metal were growing and dominating, there was another rush of female-fronted bands like Belly, Throwing Muses, The Breeders, and Velocity Girl defined so much of what music was for me at that time. Their mighty second album ¡Simpatico! was my soundtrack for a life viewed from a canted angle from my own. And now it’s been freshly remastered and expanded, leading me down a path of nostalgic rediscovery.

When I was growing up, dreaming of playing guitar was all about huge power chords, sheets of rippling notes tapped, bent, and swept into life in solos only slightly more ornate than the glistening leather of hair metal’s outfits. They got ALL the girls. And now here comes a whole slew of music and bands that didn’t care about how flashy they were, or how many notes they could articulate. They wore the same clothes I did, had the short hair I had, and I won’t lie: the girls congregating both around and in the bands were the kind of girls I had been chasing all my life. I still couldn’t wrap my head around the concept of someone picking up a guitar and not just going wild on it, but the repeating figure that opens the utterly wonderful “Sorry Again,” combined with the way vocalist Sarah Shannon dripped her voice all over that chorus, guitarist/bassist Archie Moore’s co-vocals dipping in and out around her. It was a wake-up call, and listening to the beefed-up remaster, the power of the performance hasn’t diminished, only solidified the magic the band came up with for their sophomore album.

I know a lot of people tend to go for Copacetic,. It was the calling card, the debut, mixed in Steve Albini’s attic by producer Bob Weston and featuring tracks that made their way to movie soundtracks and a number of indie/pop/shoegaze compilations. But it remained a blind spot for me until receiving its own expanded and remixed reissue in 2024. For me it started and ended with ¡Simpatico! and generally stayed there, overwhelmed by the strength of there songs coming one after the other. From “Sorry Again” it goes to the jangly, lovely “There’s Only One Thing Left To Say” to the propulsive choruses that line “Tripping Wires” and “I Can’t Stop Smiling.” And adhering to perfect pop parameters, only about 12 minutes elapse in the span of those four songs.

Remastered rather than remixed, the magic of ¡Simpatico! still resonates, with a clearer sound and a bevy of b-sides and assorted uncompiled tracks. The last few days spent with this album (and t-shirt, purchased at the same time as the reissue and now slept in as I write this with my third cup of coffee) have been a delight, walking me back down Quail Street where I picked up my original copy used from Last Vestige – then a small basement record shop – returned to my dorm, and played “Sorry Again” over and over on my portable Discman.

The Discman is gone, but I have zero problem doing continuing the tradition on my CD player and/or phone now again now.