Pavement’s Terror Twilight is finally being reissued
After a 13-year wait, Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal gives the expanded-and-remastered treatment to the group's final album on April 8
Aux News Pavement
Last year, Pavement announced their first tour since reuniting in 2010, which kicks off at Primavera Sound in June 2022. And it turns out it’s not the only thing Pavement has in store for fans this year. After 13 years of waiting for the final installment in a catalog-spanning reissue series that began way back in 2002, Matador Records has announced that Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal arrives on April 8.
The 45-track set contains a remastered version of Pavement’s 1999 swan song, along with “B-sides, home demos, rehearsal tapes, era-appropriate live recordings, and even the rough tracks from Pavement’s scrapped session at Sonic Youth’s Echo Canyon studio,” per the press release.
The reissue will be released on both CD and vinyl, but while the CD version keeps the original sequencing, the four-LP vinyl set will “restore producer Nigel Godrich’s suggested sequence—which foregrounds the album’s headiest songs.”
Fans can finally hear 28 unreleased tracks in the reissue, too. To celebrate the news, you can hear one of those previously-unreleased tracks today: “Be The Hook.”
And in case you’re wondering why it took so long for Matador to finally release the reissue after fans badgered the label to do so for over a decade (and after the label had reissued every other studio album by Pavement on an every-other-year basis), there’s a good explanation for it mentioned in the press release: “The truth is that we were just holding out for them to play some shows again.” Lucky for us, Pavement finally decided to tour this year, so let’s not think about what would’ve happened if they had decided to not play again.
Terror Twilight: Farewell Horizontal tracklist:
LP1 – Side A
1) Platform Blues
2) The Hexx
3) You Are a Light
4) Cream of Gold
5) Ann Don’t Cry
LP1 – Side B
1) Billie
2) Folk Jam
3) Major Leagues
4) Carrot Rope
5) Shagbag #
6) Speak, See, Remember
7) Spit On a Stranger
LP2 – Side C
1) The Porpoise and the Hand Grenade
2) Rooftop Gambler
3) Your Time to Change
4) Stub Your Toe
5) Major Leagues (Demo Version)
6) Decouvert de Soleil
LP2 – Side D
1) Carrot Rope (SM Demo) #
2) Folk Jam Moog (SM Demo) #
3) Billy (SM Demo) #
4) Terror Twilight [Speak, See, Remember] (SM Demo) #
5) You Are a Light (SM Demo) #
6) Cream of Gold Intro (Jessamine) #
7) Cream of Gold (SM Demo) #
LP3 – Side E
1) Spit On a Stranger (SM Demo) #
2) Folk Jam Guitar (SM Demo) #
3) You Are a Light (Echo Canyon) #
4) Ground Beefheart [Platform Blues] (Echo Canyon) #
5) Folk Jam (Echo Canyon) #
LP3 – Side F
1) Ann Don’t Cry (Echo Canyon) #
2) Jesus in Harlem [Cream of Gold] (Echo Canyon) #
3) The Porpoise and the Hand Grenade (Echo Canyon) #
4) Spit On a Stranger (Echo Canyon) #
5) Be the Hook #
LP4 – Side G
1) You Are a Light (Jackpot!) #
2) Terror Twilight [Speak, See, Remember] (RPM) #
3) Rooftop Gambler (Jessamine) #
4) For Sale! The Preston School of Industry (Jessamine) #
5) Frontwards (Live) #
LP4 – Side H
1) Platform Blues (Live) #
2) The Hexx (Live) #
3) You Are a Light (Live) #
4) Folk Jam (Live) #
5) Sinister Purpose (Live) #
#= previously unreleased
2xCD features 1999 album sequence
33 Comments
Oh my Lord! Talk about an endorphine rush. I’ve been praying for this. After all, this is one of my five favorite Pavement studio albums. And we get some Malkmus demos?! Holy shit. Can it be true? I can’t wait. Plus live recordings which are usually pretty worthwhile with this band.Amazing. Huge props to Tatiana for reporting on this. Did not expect that on this site. I love love love Pavement.
Tatiana sucks, but otherwise right on!
“After all, this is one of my five favorite Pavement studio albums.”Please don’t troll the Pavement threads.
Not trolling. Just using humorous rhetoric to express that I love every single one of their albums.I mean, of course I could definitely, easily make a ranking. But at the end of the day, I get great enjoyment out of all of them, and they’re all in my rotation regularly.
It actually was my second purchased after blindly buying their first. I opted for this one because of Nigel Goodrich producing.
It’s called the A/V Club, but there’s way too much V and not near enough A.
My college roommate who would never listen to any band more popular than Pavement will be thrilled!
Your college roommate is too cool for Pavement now.Also, was I your college roommate?
I doubt it, but oddly enough, his last name ended with “over” also.
You were David Lynch’s college roommate, but he kicked you out for being too weird.
Whereas I won’t listen to any band with a wider vocal range than Pavement because it impedes my ability to sing along.
Not sure I like the rearranged track listing… The Hexx was a great end-of-record/end-of-band song, with “Carrot Rope” feeling like the equivalent of a movie’s post-credits scene.Also… Fitting that one of the things that seemingly ended the band was the fact that Malkmus didn’t want any Spiral Stairs songs on this (or thought they weren’t “ready”) and there’s like one SS songs in these 45 tracks. This is definitely my least favorite Pavement record, and the fact that it was basically a malkmus solo record masquerading as a Pavement record kinda turned me off the first couple Malkmus solo records too. And yes, I HAVE INDIE ROCK CRED.
It’s my least fave too, which is about the coldest take ever. However, the semi-solo aspect has never been the problem for me; I never really felt the loss of the usual 1-2 SS songs and I think the SM self-titled is a stronger record than TT. I think it’s more of an issue of Godrich being a bad fit as producer. Which is interesting, as that new track listing appears to be Godrich’s preferred order.
Godrich was really ill-fitting. There seemed to be a trend in the late 90s where bands decided to try to mix it up with producers that didn’t really fit their style at all.
What really sank Malkmus for me for most of the early 2000s
was going to his first solo tour, seeing him playing Pavement songs, then turning around and seeing Bob Nostanovich selling
t-shirts at the merch table. I just left at that
point. Which I know is a ridiculous, wounded indie-rock kid take…
Also,
while I enjoyed seeing them on their reunion tour in 2010, watching
Malkmus literally laying down on the stage, flat on his back, during the
SS songs was kind of a bummer. Like, can you at least pretend a little
bit like you wanna be there?
Ha, yes, I can see how watching Malkmus be an asshole to the rest of the band could be a turnoff. Even if the reunions are a money thing, he could at least pretend a bit.
“ There seemed to be a trend in the late 90s where bands decided to try to mix it up with producers that didn’t really fit their style at all.”
Another example being Superchunk doing Come Pick Me Up with Jim O’Rourke.
Or Guided By Voices with Rick Ocasek (though I probably like Do the Collapse more than most GBV fans.)
Hold on Hope is a great song.
It’s funny, I have similar feelings, except about Wowee Zowee instead of TT. WZ is my least favorite because it sounds like a Malkmus solo record, and, for whatever reason, I’ve never been as fond of his solo work compared to his work with Pavement. Some of the tracks like “Rattled by the Rush” and “Brinks Job” would sound right at home on Pig Lib or Face the Truth. I do feel a somewhat similarly about TT as well, but moreso on the B-side tracks. “Spit on a Stranger” and “Major Leagues” are two of my all-time favorite Pave jams, and I really, really do love the first half of TT as a whole. Which means this reordered tracklist is going to equal a pass for me, most likely.
But Wowee Zowee also has Kennel District, probably my favorite Spiral Stairs song. I think the reason a lot of people say WZ is their favorite Pavement album is because it feels so all over the place, and thus always seems kind the “freshest.” I can run down the track listing of every other Pavement record for the most part, but WZ still remains a mystery somehow. Looking back, you can see the kernels of Malkmus’ solo work there, but doesn’t quite have the polished sound or linear story telling, I think.
Yeah…that whole ‘one guy in the band has more ego than the rest combined’ thing was a bit of a turn-off. And then Pig Lib came out and I heard “Vanessa from Queens” and…yeah. Malkmus can do (and say) whatever the hell he wants, he’s a pop music god, to me. “1% of 1″ cemented it. And the rest of that record, now that I think of it……have to go dig out the Aeon Flows and my Dragonfly and listen to it tonight, again.
I definitely don’t have the energy for whatever weird rock music grudges I had as a 20-year-old, and these days I can appreciate good songs as good songs. Plus Malkmus’ solo career has carved out a nice corner that sounds different enough from Pavement, and I can still fondly listen to “Jenny and the Ess Dog” or “Freeze the Saints” any time they come on.
“And in case you’re wondering why it took so long for Matador to finally release the reissue after fans badgered
the label to do so for over a decade (and after the label had reissued
every other studio album by Pavement on an every-other-year basis),
there’s a good explanation for it mentioned in the press release: “The
truth is that we were just holding out for them to play some shows
again.”
Well that’s bullshit because they played shows a few years ago.The real reason is that the expensive “Brighten the Corners: NC Edition” was a huge wet fart of a sales flop that sat on shelves and they even said so at the time.
Yeah, as huge as a Pavement fan as I was/am, I can’t say any of these reissues has been what I would consider to be essential listening. The live tracks on the first two are pretty good, but other than that… meh.
Agreed. I’m also a huge Pavement fan, and all the various demos and outtakes and whatnot just really aren’t that interesting or pleasant to listen to. Same goes for Westing (By Musket and Sextant); “Box Elder” is an all time great, but, other than that, the comp is mostly unlistenable IMO. It’s kind of natural, I guess, that a band famous for being full of non-musicians would have some really rough back material.
You have bad taste in music.
I disagree…”Westie Can Drum” was worth buying all of them, and only previously available in poor audio quality cheesy bootleg form.
I’m pretty sure Westie Can Drum was on the “Stereo” single CD? I’d definitely heard it before the Nicene Creedence edition. Not saying there aren’t some good tunes spread out among all the reissues, but I feel like the target audience for them (Pavement completest nerds) already had most of these tracks.
It’s too bad because the BtC reissue has some of their best b-sides and outtakes.
Pavement is comprised entirely of recently retired high school mathematics professors.
No reissue on cassette? Cowards!
Sebadoh > Pavement
Damn, FINALLY! I’m not sure I buy that explanation of why it took 14 damn years to finally give this album the deluxe reissue treatment like the previous 4 Pavement albums, but whatever, I’m ready! I agree with the general consensus that Terror Twilight is the least of their studio albums, but it’s still damn good. But I’m eager to hear all the unreleased tracks and demos – so many great ones on the previous reissues, I’m sure there’s more gold amongst these tracks.