Edsel photo by Tim Owens

Next week Universal will reissue Nirvana's Nevermind to celebrate the album's 20th anniversary, which will put a nice cherry on top of the grunge-nostalgia sundae folks seem so eager to devour lately. But as anyone who lived in Seattle in the late '80s and early '90s—or anyone who spent a couple hours Googling bands after watching Hype!—could tell you, grunge was bigger than Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Sub Pop. Plenty of musicians helped build the scene and the "Seattle sound."

Edsel was one of those bands, but in Washington, D.C., not Washington state. On Monday, New Jersey label Comedy Minus One digitally reissued a couple of the band's albums: 1993's The Everlasting Belt Co. and 1994's Detroit Folly. History hasn't been so kind to the group (see Andrew Beaujon's TBD piece "Edsel will reissue its albums to prove it existed"). In Mark Andersen and Mark Jenkins' local punk history book, Dance of Days, Edsel is merely described as "former members of teen-core bands Kids for Cash and At Wit's End...[who] had moved beyond that aesthetic to create a Wire-y art-punk style with spare lyrics." Hopefully, these reissues will help flesh out that memory a little bit.

As a bonus, the music rips. As the band says in a new write-up for Everlasting Belt Co., the Edsel sound evolved beyond Wire worship to combine arty guitar licks, D.C. post-hardcore-funk, and a smattering of shoegaze. The songs on Everlasting Belt Co. are muddy, they pulse and swell in odd angles, and they're more similar to Jawbox than Wire, especially on the album's lumbering opening tune, "Checkering." Edsel cleaned things up a bit for Detroit Folly, but kept the headstrong, often molasses-paced propulsion of the first album. It's daunting to jump into both records at once—Everlasting Belt Co. alone has 18 songs—but it's easy to get immersed in them.

So what caused Edsel to slip through the cracks? It could be that, though the group's sound lends complexity to D.C.'s late 80s/early '90s scene, it never conformed to what's known as the "D.C. sound." Which is what makes these reissues feel all the more special.

Edsel – "Buckle" by comedyminusone
Edsel – "Draw Down The Moon" by comedyminusone

From Dave Malitz's interview on Post-Rock last April:

"I knew how to make a release weird and good. But I just banged out all these offers and they ended up coming out at the same time. I kind of knew the recordheads would like it. I knew made sure it was weird enough while still sitting on my ultimate full-length for a bigger label."

From Jonah Weiner's profile in the New York Times:

“I know the band is going to get real tight the more we play, but I’m nervous, man,” he said, heading backstage to tune his acoustic guitar. “I want people to be able to hear all the different dynamics.”

And in Maggie Serrota's interview in AV Club, he explains why he's been comparing his record to My Bloody Valentine's shoegaze behemoth Loveless:

I said that mainly to hype it up because I was really anxious to get it out there—so I had to say something

Which is great, actually. It seems rare that people who make sludgy, weird music are so open about actually, you know, upfront about wanting people to listen to it. And listen to it they should. The best tracks from Childish Prodigy, Vile's Matador debut, strikes a sweet spot between hermetic basement grot and the grandeur of the most transcendent Bruce Strpingsteen studio jam. Kurt Vile may not be shy about hyping his tunes, but at least he can deliver on it.

Kurt Vile & The Violators w/ Benjee Ferree, The New Flesh
@ Black Cat
$12, 8:30 pm
1811 14th St. NW