A Head Full of Wishes is a site for Galaxie 500, Luna, Damon & Naomi, Dean & Britta and Dean Wareham. With news, articles and lists of releases and past and future shows.
My record collection
[206] Galaxie 500 - This Is Our Music (Rough Trade UK LP)
It seemed like a good idea to have posts for my entire collection, but it does mean that I have to try and think of worthwhile or interesting things to write about the albums that are turning up multiple times. This is the fifth appearance of Galaxie 500’s This Is Our Music and there are five more to come!
So… what to say? Maybe I should leave it to others…
[A]bout the only thing I can compare this album to is gazing upon Sunderland Bridge, all sombre and magnificent in the winter-light, when suddenly a switch is thrown and 5,000 bulbs light up, and you're left watching a whole, far different from the everyday original; or walking home and watching the wisps of cloud in the wisps of cloud free-wheeling across the sky, knowing that a storm is on its way.
Everett True - Melody Maker (26th Septmber 1990)
However, Galaxie 500 have already reached the top of their league and are rising higher - their 'Blue Thunder EP even scratched the UK Top 100. So what progression does its successor have to offer? Well, more brilliant, inspirationally unsophisticated melodies for a start, allied to an instrumental audacity that is entirely new.
[...]
But 'This Is Our Music' is in no way Galaxie-by-numbers, because it marks a new development in the band's guitar-bass-drum bonded chemistry. The opening 'Fourth Of July' presents an unusually upbeat Galaxie, with an intense instrumental conclusion, during which Wareham (on guitar), Naomi Yang (bass) and Damon Krukowski (drums) blast solo progressions off each other in a frantic jam. Magnificent. Much the same happens elsewhere, each initial tune being transported to a wild, wordless soundscape.
Andrew Perry - Select (November 1990)
This Is Our Music, from 1990, has a few of Galaxie 500's best tunes and it also has the richest production, with greater focus on keyboards and layered guitars. "Fourth of July" is funny, "Summertime" has an almost blinding sparkle, and Yang's vocal on the cover of Yoko Ono's "Listen, the Snow Is Falling" is a pretty good argument that she should be fronting her own project.
Mark Richardson - Pitchfork (30th March 2010)
Here the band ramp up their game. The album begins with ‘Fourth of July’ and feedback that slams into a bittersweet melody, intersected with brief spoken word sections from Wareham, talking about getting drunk in New York and an ear-pleasing rhyming couplet chorus of "Maybe I should just change my style, but I feel alright when you smile". For a moment they sound like Sonic Youth.
[...]
This is Galaxie 500 at their peak, with a smattering of pop sensibility and allowance for each band member to contribute more to the project. Here are signs that they could have gone on to greatness, if they’d wanted to.
Alex Hegazy - Drowned in Sound (26th March 2010)
“it could have been twice as good” said Kramer
“half of it is good” said Dean
I know who’s side I’m on. It’s that of the people who listened to it, not the ones who made it :)
- Catalogue Number: AHFOW 12/038
- Artist: Galaxie 500
- Title: This Is Our Music
- Notes: Rough Trade UK release (1990)
- Format: LP
- Bought for the collection sometime in the intervening years
- Buy ‘This Is Our Music’ on Bandcamp
Previously in my record collection: