''Strand'' is the second studio album by the American

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

band

The Spinanes The Spinanes were an American indie rock band, primarily active during the 1990s. The band was founded by and consisted only of singer-songwriter/guitarist Rebecca Gates and drummer Scott Plouf. They released three albums on the Sub Pop label bef ...

, released in 1996 by

Sub Pop Sub Pop is a record label founded in 1986 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman. Sub Pop achieved fame in the early 1990s for signing Seattle bands such as Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney, central players in the grunge movement. They are oft ...

Production

The album was recorded in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the County seat, seat of Shelby County, Tennessee, Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 Uni ...

Elliott Smith Steven Paul Smith (August 6, 1969 – October 21, 2003), known professionally as Elliott Smith, was an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Smith was born in Omaha, Nebraska, raised primarily in Texas, and lived much of ...

sings on two tracks.

Release and promotion

''Strand'' was released on February 27, 1996, by

. To promote the album, the band performed with two additional musicians at

Lounge Ax The Lounge Ax was a music venue in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Chicago, located across the street from Wax Trax. It was an important venue for live rock music, especially indie rock. The club was opened in 1987 by Jennifer Fischer and Julia Ada ...

in Chicago, Illinois, on March 26, 1996.

Critical reception

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the dat ...

praised the album's variety of instruments and the addition of guest vocalists. ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

'' wrote: "With Rebecca Gates adding piano, organ and mellotron to her guitar, such hushed, atmospheric tracks as 'Madding' and 'Luminous' live up to their Cocteau Twinnish titles." ''

Magnet A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, steel, nic ...

'' wrote that the album "transcended

he band's He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' i ...

ragged Northwest-indie roots and gave Gates’ smart songwriting a dreamy, atmospheric sheen." ''

Trouser Press ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference ...

'' wrote that "the album exists on another plane, a dreamstate rooted in studio experimentation not live practicality."

Track listing

# "Madding" – 5:28 # "Azure" – 3:51 # "Lines and Lines" – 6:23 # "Meridian" – 3:53 # "Punch Line Loser" – 4:01 # "Valency" – 3:26 # "Luminous" – 6:03 # "Oceanwide" – 5:40 # "Winter On Ice" – 6:00 # "Watch Down" – 4:23 # "For No One Else" – 4:16

References

External links

* 1996 albums The Spinanes albums Sub Pop albums {{1990s-rock-album-stub