Description
The climactic entry in our four-set Unwound exploration, Empirecompiles the final pair of albums by the Olympia, Washington, trio. On 1998’s Challenge For A Civilized Society, the band toyed with conventional verse/chorus form, stacking layers of noise and distraction on top of tightly constructed melodies. They”d abdicate entirely just three years later with 2001’s Leaves Turn Inside You, executing a 14-song masterclass in home recording that observed a crucial band in graceful transition from post-hardcore trio to experimental quintet. The mammoth double album was lost in the chaos of a post-9/11 media, baffling onlookers and exhilarating fans in successive breaths before it fell far out of print. At their reinvention and terminus, Unwound ultimately asked “Who Cares”? The Empire box-set teems with period singles, B-sides, unreleased studio tracks, and demos, alongside a 15,000-word essay exploring the terminal stages of the ’90s, indie rock, Unwound, and civilization as we know it.
- – Disc 1 –
- 1 Data
- 2 Laugh Track
- 3 Meet the Plastics
- 4 The World Is Flat
- 5 Sonata for Loudspeakers
- 6 No Tech!
- 7 Side Effects of Being Tired
- 8 Lifetime Achievement Award
- 9 What Went Wrong
- – Disc 2 –
- 1 We Invent You
- 2 Look a Ghost
- 3 December
- 4 Treachery
- 5 Terminus
- 6 Demons Sing Love Songs
- 7 Off This Century
- – Disc 3 –
- 1 One Lick Less
- 2 Scarlette
- 3 October All Over
- 4 Summer Freeze
- 5 Radio Gra
- 6 Below the Salt
- 7 Who Cares
- – Disc 4 –
- 1 Mile Me Deaf
- 2 The Light at the End of the Tunnel Is a Train
- 3 Solo Sonata
- 4 XLNT
- 5 Laszlo
- 6 Torch Song
- 7 Meet the Plastics
- 8 The World Is Flat
- 9 Empire
