Recordhead Records
2005
Suitcase 2
About This Album
This is the second four-disc box set of unreleased recordings by Guided by Voices, led by Robert Pollard. It also marks the first use of the Guided by Voices name in the marketplace since their principal member dissolved the unit at the end of 2004. Like the initial Suitcase, it spans nearly 30 years' worth of previously unheard demos, outtakes, jams, live excerpts, and spur-of-the-moment musical ideas from Pollard's vast vault. While the former collection didn't favor one period over another, it's notable that here there is very little attention paid to the band's peak years, 1992-1996 (not much more than a few aborted concept album tracks and a handful of songs that didn't make it on to Pollard's first solo album). Instead, there is a focus on their earliest beginnings, including songs that would've fit nicely on their debut, Forever Since Breakfast, had the decision been made to turn that 1986 EP into a full-length. And it's not like the man has stopped writing since the last box, so there's a wealth of material from 2000 and beyond (including songs written the year this compilation was released, 2005).

It's a treat for fans to get this kind of access to Pollard's development as a songwriter and to find melodies that would show up in later works: "Sacred Space" would soon become "Office of Hearts," "Daughter of the Gold Rush" begat "Volcano Divers," and there's a bit of the Bee Thousand castoff "Deathrot and Warlock Riding a Rooster" in "Beach Towers" (as well as the influence of Blue Öyster Cult).
Track List

Disc 1 (try tracks 1 and 18)

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Disc 2 (try tracks 1,9,14 and 24)

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Disc 3

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Disc 4

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