The Trypes, Music for Neighbors (side A)

The 2012 reissue Music for Neighbors combines the Trypes 1984 EP The Explorers Hold with unreleased earlier recordings and a compilation track.  The Trypes are remembered for their connections to the Feelies and their associates (like Yung Wu and the Willies).  Where many of these bands clearly played rock music, the Trypes stretched much further away.  Historical antecedents might include things like the United States of America album, Cale / Riley Church of Anthrax, or God Bless the Red Crayola.  All of these artists, like the Trypes, took a rigorously intellectual look at what it meant to play rock music, but it's hard to know if the Trypes had encountered any of these albums.  They covered the Beatles and the liner notes namedrop the Velvet Underground, whose weirder late-era moments like "Ocean" and "Murder Mystery" do feel like influences here.  The Trypes' shambling primitivism would grow fashionable with the increasing popularity of indie rock, but few bands have brought it so little of rock's primal energy — Trypes songs float more than propel.  The reissue sounds impressively clean given the source material, but the frequency distribution sits heavily in the high-mids.  It might reflect their love of the Beatles, who used a similar balance (and a cover of "Love You To" is included here), but it strikes me as sonically surprising.  The beautiful packaging features letterpressed text on thick cardboard, a photo (which I'm assuming is actually a collage) attached to the front cover, and a nice booklet with old photos and new writing.