It's been about a decade since we last heard new recordings from Shudder to Think, once a jewel of the District's post-hardcore scene. But the late oughts have been pretty good to its fans: The group reformed in 2008 for some festival dates and a short tour. This September saw the release of a (frankly, quite good) live album. Frontman Craig Wedren recently uploaded to YouTube some band-shot footage of the recording sessions for Pony Express Record, Shudder for Think's 1994 major-label debut.

And now there's The Spanish Amnesian, Wedren's unreleased album of experimental songs, which he committed to seven-track (the eighth track was broken) between 1993 to 1995, but ended up shelving. Wedren is streaming the whole thing on his Web site until Jan. 2 (hat tip: Pitchfork), and he'll begin selling it digitally sometime in 2010.

Of the album, Wedren writes:

My original plan was to release The Spanish Amnesian as a solo album after Pony Express Record,  but I kept running into frustrating snags along the way, and eventually decided that The Fates were telling me to wait.

It remains one of my favorite albums I've had the pleasure/pain ever to work on, and relates directly to some of the more ambient and experimental movie music I've made since, from 'High Art' in 1998, to 'The United States Of Tara', which I'm working on now.

Piecing the record back together led me to a lot of other home recordings, many forgotten or half-remembered.  Listening to them left me with a bittersweet feeling:  so many vaulted ideas, so much ambition, and a boy's voice, high-pitched in tone, and breathy.

My original plan was to release The Spanish Amnesian as a solo album after Pony Express Record,  but I kept running into frustrating snags along the way, and eventually decided that The Fates were telling me to wait.

It remains one of my favorite albums I've had the pleasure/pain ever to work on, and relates directly to some of the more ambient and experimental movie music I've made since, from 'High Art' in 1998, to 'The United States Of Tara', which I'm working on now.

Piecing the record back together led me to a lot of other home recordings, many forgotten or half-remembered. Listening to them left me with a bittersweet feeling:  so many vaulted ideas, so much ambition, and a boy's voice, high-pitched in tone, and breathy.

Expect little of Shudder to Think's taut, high-drama aggression: The Spanish Armenian's 16 tracks range from jagged guitar improvs and deconstructed, Jandek-like electric folk to walls of noise and atmosphere. My current fave: a ragged, brassy ditty called "Secretaries' Lament," which sounds like the misunderstood cousin of a Kurt Weill operetta and probably wouldn't feel out of place in a Charlie Kaufman film.

Image courtesy of Craig Wedren's MySpace page.

Jandek–who performs Saturday at Velvet Lounge as part of the Sonic Circuits Festival–has been making inscrutable, some would even say bad, art for over two decades. Still, I've never considered him capable of advancement. His behavior–hiding his true identity, declining interviews, never appearing in public, releasing scores droney and unlistenable psych-folk records via mail order–is weird, yeah, but it's consistent. And truly advanced behavior, at least as it is defined by founder Jason Hartley, is anything but consistent.

As Chuck Klosterman put it in this Esquire article:

The key to Advancement is that Advanced artists a) do not do what is expected of them but also b) do not do the opposite of what is expected of them.

Jandek–unlike Sting, Lou Reed, or any other truly advanced artist–pretty much always does what you expect.

Or does he?

As of late, Jandek has been showing behavior suggestive of advancement. In 2004 he performed live for the first time ever, at a festival in Glasgow, Scotland. This was actually kind of overt, meaning that it's the exact opposite of his expected behavior and thus not advanced. Yet overt behavior is, confusingly, a precursor to advancement.

In 2005 he released Raining Down Diamonds, an album of songs performed solo on fretless electric bass. Fretless bass is an extremely advanced instrument.

And now this:

I would say this is a pretty solid example of not doing what is expected, yet not doing the opposite of what is expected.
As Washington City Paper editor Andrew Beaujon observed: "How reclusive can you be if you know someone who plays slap bass?"

I'm a still a little skeptical, but a case is definitely building.

Jandek
Sat., 9/26 @ Velvet Lounge
$20 (includes an entire day's worth of experimental music performances by local and international artists)
915 U St. NW
Washington DC

But yeah, I had to pinch myself just to be certain that I was awake and that the event wasn't really taking place in Baltimore.

The festival will be taking place September 25-27, 2009.

List after the jump.

2009 FESTIVAL ARTISTS:
Faust
Jandek
Andrew W.K.+Chris Grier+Ulrich Krieger
Health
Elliot Sharp
Annea Lockwood & Tom Buckner
Marvin Aryes
BLK w/BEAR
Nine Strings + Pilesar
21st Century Ensemble
This Bag is not a Toy
Even Parker & Ned Rothenberg
David Daniell
Bicameral Mind
Janel & Anthony
Pekka Airaksinen
TL741
Luigi Archetti
qfwfqduo
ayyoko confidential
ige*timer
Jeff Carey
Tim Hecker
Gunter Hampel
Fckn Bstrds
Soft Pieces
Olivia Block+Tomas Korber
Pilesar
Ergo
Never Work
Kotra
Kohoutek
Alexei Borisov & Anton Nikilla
Blue Sausage Infant
Dead Violets
Dr. Bibber
Second Land
Sean Peoples