RED HOUSE PAINTERS - Down Colorful Hill

re-issue of early 90ies album of the Red House Painters, who were fairly popular in the early '90s, but details on them were scarce. This was all before the Internet, so you basically had what a jewel box told you. It's hard to imagine at this point, but when I first heard them, I didn't know anything about Mark Kozelek, the frontman and mastermind behind the project. I'm not sure I knew his name, and I definitely didn't know what he looked like, or his personality outside of the songs. I also had no idea the band was a quartet, or that they lived in San Francisco (in Kozelek's case, via Ohio). At least for me, Red House Painters existed outside of a scene, too. They had a familiar record label with its own distinct aesthetic, but that was the only real touchstone. Not that any of this is bad. The songs on the first four albums—1992's Down Colorful Hill, 1993's pair of self-titled albums (the first nicknamed Rollercoaster, the second Bridge, after the photographs on their covers), and 1995's Ocean Beach (here packaged with the Shock Me EP from a year earlier)—felt personal and private enough that it was easy to get lost in your own head while listening. They featured heartbreaking, personal lyrics and were accompanied by stark, often naturalistic photographs on the covers. The package came with the crystalline, spacious production and Kozelek's clear, powerful voice, and these things merged in an almost mystical way. The material felt less composed or worked over; it was more like the songs were birthed fully formed. They could drift on for more than 10 minutes, but you kind of gave up on keeping track of this kind of thing. When old albums get reissued, which they increasingly do, the practice usually offers a chance to hear familiar songs again, sometimes with remastering, maybe a few bonuses. Some listeners are feeling nostalgic, seeking to recreate the original context in their minds, while many others are learning about the material for the first time, and aren't all that clear on the context beyond the updated liner notes. 4AD's decision to reissue Red House Painters' first four albums as a fairly spare limited-edition Record Store Day box set (on bronze vinyl) and as individual album reissues on black vinyl offers a unique angle: The band's cantankerous frontman (as we can now call him after that whole War on Drugs debacle) is much better known, and known quite differently, all these years later. Now you do know exactly who Mark Kozelek is, or at least you think you do. Record Label: 4AD/Beggars Group Style: Indie Rock