VIA PRESS RELEASE | Uncollected Noise New York ’88–’90 is Galaxie 500’s first release of new archival material in nearly 30 years and is their most comprehensive collection of unreleased and rare archival material ever.
Due September 20 as a joint release via Silver Current Records and the band’s own imprint 20/20/20, its 24 tracks make up the complete Noise New York studio recordings of the band’s outtakes, b-sides and non-album output. Compiled by the band, it traces their career from among their earliest recorded moments in the studio to their last. Two never before heard tracks from the collection: “Shout You Down” from the Today album sessions and “I Wanna Live” from the On Fire album sessions have been released today and are available to stream.
”Opening up these tape boxes was like looking into an old journal or datebook. I had forgotten most of this happened at all, but it only took a few quick details to put me right back in the drum seat,” says drummer Damon Krukowski. “There are songs from all the Galaxie 500 recording sessions included here.”
Uncollected Noise New York ’88–’90 sees the restoration and inclusion of no less than eight never-before-heard studio tracks culled from sessions throughout Galaxie 500’s career, chronologically sequenced along with previously released, but rare and long out of print studio material.
”There is a sweetness in hearing the progression of us finding our own sound, our own collective voice. The Proustian power of music,” explains bassist Naomi Yang. “Listening to these early recordings I can hear myself figuring out how I wanted to play bass—finding my way up the neck to where the notes would cut through, where there could be a counter-melody to the singing. Making the bass my singing voice.”
Galaxie 500 recorded three classic albums in three years over the span of five studio sessions exclusively with the eccentric and unpredictable producer and Shimmy Disc label boss Kramer at his studio Noise New York in Manhattan. Together with those three original albums—Today, On Fire, and This Is Our Music—Uncollected Noise New York ’88–’90 makes a complete set of all Galaxie 500 recordings at Noise New York, 1988-1990.
”I can see why we left some of these songs in the vaults, but there is pleasure in hearing them today; they sound very alive, like Galaxie 500 playing in the brick-walled room that was Noise New York,” says singer and guitarist Dean Wareham.
Silver Current label owner Ethan Miller expands on the scope of the set: “It isn’t just an ‘odds and sods’ collection, it is a secret history of the band told in music. It tells an untold story of the band in full as they move steadily across the arc of their growth and creative expansion. It reveals not so much an alternate history of the band, as a different perspective of their actual history, viewed from the other side of the mirror from beginning to end.”
Uncollected Noise New York ’88–’90 is first and foremost a treasure chest of the sound and history and time and place of Galaxie 500 and Noise New York, brimming with music that is joyful and sad, unexpected yet familiar, minimal but beautiful, at times a bit raw and of-its-moment, uncollected but essential.
Uncollected Noise New York ’88–’90 releases September 20, 2024 on 2xLP, 2xCD and 2xTape on Silver Current Records and digital on 20/20/20. Pre-order available here.
