Keith Shackleton on September 19th, 2011

1

Slim Moon founded the Kill Rock Stars label in 1991 because he wanted to “put out my friends’ records because nobody was putting out my friends’ records. And to put out spoken-word 7-inch records. It grew from there.” The roster expanded into a group of outsiders who perhaps did things a little differently to the majority of alternative bands on the scene at the time. KRS bands were rule breakers, improvisers … square pegs in the indie guitar-bass-drums round hole. An itch you couldn’t scratch.

Moon introduced us, most memorably, to riotous art-pop clatterers Deerhoof, bristling alt-rock trio Sleater Kinney, cult singer-songwriter Elliott Smith and indie folk-rockers the Decemberists. These bands and a host of other worthies are present and correct on a 20-track celebration of the label’s double-decade journey to the center of the American independent music scene, from ‘New Radio’ to ‘Glowing Mouth‘.

Thanks, Kill Rock Stars.

||| Download: “20 Years of Kill Rock Stars 1991-2011”