Less a Greatest Misses than a series of acute growing pains, this compilation plots Red (C/K)rayola’s evolution with considerable panache. With Mayo Thompson as its constant?the earliest incarnation goes back to Texas ’66?their idea of kinetic noise collages and schizophrenic time signatures still sounds exhilaratingly fresh today, not least 1978’s “Wives In Orbit” (with Pere Ubu) and 1980’s “Born In Flames” (with The Raincoats’ Gina Birch and Epic Soundtracks). And though sometimes guilty of disappearing up his own avant-garde, Thompson’s mid-’90s line-up?Jim O’Rourke, David Grubbs and John McEntire included?delivered tersely textural delights?like “Chemistry” and “Farewell To Arms”?that foreshadowed post-rock.
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