Kevin Bronson on March 1st, 2013

0

Eleventh Dream Day’s five albums between 1988 and ’94 roared every bit as loud from my stereo as did the Pixies’ four between ’88 and ’91, and I always considered them on par with Frank Black and crew, Sonic Youth and R.E.M. – kind of a happy marriage of those three. The prolific Chicago quartet has persevered to release nine albums in all, with three of the early ones for Atlantic serving as one of those coulda-woulda-shoulda stories of critical praise and commercial disappointment. Although members Doug McCombs (Tortoise) and Janet Bean (Freakwater) went on to other things, EDD reconvened to make three albums since 2000, their last, “Riot Now!,” a deliciously raucous indie-rock affair.

Simply put, Eleventh Dream Day’s forthcoming release makes for a strange story. The band was dropped by Atlantic after 1991’s “Lived to Tell,” so they went the DIY route, recording their next batch of songs with producer Brad Wood (trivia: in the same studio at Liz Phair would record “Exile in Guyville” months later). However, when those songs found their back to the new honchos at Atlantic, the label re-acquired the band and sent them to re-record what would become 1993’s “El Moodio” with producer Jim Rodinelli. Alas, despite gems like this and this, “El Moodio” didn’t fare any better, and Eleventh Dream Day was dropped again.

For two decades, the band’s self-funded recordings with Wood gathered dust, but no longer: “New Moodio,” the band’s “lost album,” will come out May 14 via Comedy Minus One as a digital/limited edition vinyl release. Besides the material that appeared on the Atlantic release, the LP offers three never-released songs and two obscure tracks. Fans intimately familiar with “El Moodio” will find a crackling, rawboned tenacity in the parallel universe of “New Moodio” – not necessarily better, just different. And, if you’re a student of production, perhaps instructive.

The longer version of the story is here, courtesy of the label.

||| Stream: “Thinking Out Loud” (previously unreleased)

||| Stream (from 2011’s “Riot Now), “Satellite”