There’s that saying “when hell freezes over”, which is used when wanting a rather vivid way of claiming that something is never going to happen, or extremely unlikely to happen. My mom used it quite a bit growing up and I sort of caught onto using it over the years, perhaps passed down in some sort of generational way. This phrase was the one that popped into my head when I recently discovered that one of my favourite bands from my youth back in the 1990s were doing a UK/EU tour later this year, and after that announcement I promptly bought tickets from their Glasgow date on that forthcoming tour.
This band is Unwound, which were a post-hardcore/post-punk trio from Olympia WA (USA) that had a steady release of albums on the well known Kill Rock Stars label, starting in 1991 or 1992 (with Fake Train being their first “official” album) and then concluding in 2001 after the release of the band’s self-produced magnum opus, Leaves Turn Inside You, after which the band folded due a variety of interpersonal issues.
Unwound were one of those bands that all members put in their unique and recognisable contributions into their music and that’s what makes their sound. Their, um, “classic” line-up for the bulk if their initial run included guitarist/vocalist Justin Trosper, bassist Vern Rumsey (who passed away in 2020) and drummer Sarah Lund. Their contributions are unique to each player and made the band what it was. Trosper‘s use of an eclectic mix of guitars, generally preferring P90 pickups over Humbuckers, and his general style of playing added a unique touch to all sounds that would come out of strings, from feedback to dense chord structures. Vern Rumsey‘s mildly overdriven bass guitar tone and his massive style of playing made for many memorable basslines through the band’s catalogue — one of the few bass players that actually add some unique character traits to root-note basslines and then shifting to something menacing and “spider-y”. And then there’s Sarah Lund, personally one of my favourite drummers, laying out uniquely memorable drumming style in terms of metering and groove. It’s the magic that happens when particular groupings of musicians get together and start playing, and Unwound are a shining example of that.
I’ve been meaning to put in an entry for Unwound here since starting these writings but held back, mainly for the reason that I had no idea which of their tracks to write about as there’s so many of them that are still stuck in my head after all of these years. In the end, after thinking about it, I decided to select the first song that really roped me into what they were doing, and that is the track “Envelope” from their 1994 release New Plastic Ideas. This was the album I got introduced to the band with, hearing it through a group of friends I met through various all ages shows I played/attended further down Vancouver Island from where I was living, probably within a year or so after its release in the mid-1990s.
It’s the third track off the album, following the chromatic mid-tempo fingerwork and cymbal-laden sonics of the opener “Entirely Different Matters” followed by the more thrashier punk leanings of “What Was Wound”. Then, the opening feedback to “Envelope” kicks in — a type of feedback that in itself is unique to the band characterised by energetic squeals — followed by a discordant, driving passage that illustrates where the band can really hold its power, that being in more dirgier mid/slow tempo numbers. This type of approach — dense, mid-tempo dischord — is used on a few different tracks on this album, most notably on side B of the LP with “All Souls Day”.
As “Envelope” progresses out of its initial fury, it resolves into an almost meditative repetition of verses as the guitar rings out with one the band’s many memorable drum patterns and Trosper exercising more subdued vocal phrasing before busting back into more dischord. Throughout the album there is a great balance of passages of fury and feedback that segue incredibly into moodier passages.
It seem to remember it was almost like I was waiting for music like theirs to connect up with me, if that makes any sense. It was then they were a band that I really, really got into from that album onward — around the time of their follow-up to New Plastic Ideas came out, entitled The Future Of What (1995), and playing those records to death in my beat up car stereo, in my series of dodgy walkman headphones and occasionally at top volume during those fleeting times I found myself alone in the family home at the time. Then in 1996 album Repetition came out, evolving their sound from the previous albums with more precision and perhaps from a more classic, “post-punk” mindset and perhaps home to what I can only describe as one of their “memorable” singles (if such a band would be thinking about that sort of thing), that being “Corpse Pose” (see clip below). Again, another Unwound album that got played over and over again. There were a good few years that I found myself very musically and emotionally connected to their music and indeed were one of my favourite bands of the post-hardcore scene that was flourishing at the time.
By 1997 I had moved to Vancouver and although I was still listening to bands like Unwound a lot, my tastes in music were also expanding and changing as well. But even so I was still intently following the band, picking up their 1998 album Challenge For A Civilized Society which steered their sound into more angular, perhaps “no wave/new wave” influences with more abstract electronic noises, more use of keyboards and synthesizers and overall a more controlled yet still noisy sound.
I had managed to see the band live twice back in those days: one time on a visit to Vancouver before I lived there around when Repetition came out (1996? Maybe at a now long gone Vancouver venue called The Town Pump) and then in 2001 at another popular yet now gone venue, The Starfish Room when they were touring what would be the band’s last record, 2001’s Leaves Turn Inside You. I again picked up this record when it came out and listened to it quite a bit, although probably not as much as their preceding albums — despite it many years later being revered as the band’s most realised material — likely due to music I was into and where my life was at the time, moving on from the halcyon hardcore days of youth and into newer pastures so to speak.
And following that release, the band folded due to a number of reasons and the members went their separate ways, playing with different musicians and as with the case with Justin Trosper, dropped out of playing music for a while.
Despite being formed and based out of Olympia WA, at the time I just considered Unwound a post-hardcore band from the area, having more connection with developments happening on the east coast (such as Dischord Records) and what was happening in a scene like San Diego at the time by way of labels like Gravity. I never really connected them with a music movement that was physically far more closer to home to them, and that being, er, grunge. In hindsight I can see slightly more of a connection now, but that’s likely that members of Unwound were digging local bands in their area, like Melvins, Dead Moon, The Wipers, etc that someone like Kurt Cobain from Nirvana was listening to at the same time. Unwound even played with Nirvana on numerous occasions in the early nineties and in retrospect I think a band like Unwound has more sonic connections to Nirvana than other bands in the grunge scene at the time, such as Mudhoney, Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees and even Seaweed. Again, these are just some musings in my mind all of these many years later.
As said, the various members dabbled in other bands and projects but around ten years later into the 2010s an interesting development happened, and probably the first treatment I’m aware of that was given to such a band in this style of post-hardcore, and that is that the label Numero Group — originally noted for their re-issues of recordings from the 1960s and 1970s of funk, soul, guitar pop, etc — started what became an extensive archival project of Unwound‘s recordings in the form of numerous box sets and re-issues. This epic undertaking began in the early to mid 2010s and materialised into what I think became four different vinyl box sets covering all of the bands albums and peripheral 7″ releases, compilation tracks and other miscellaneous recordings all releases in a chronological order.
I sort of missed out on these when they first came out as I wasn’t really paying attention, but with the death of bass player Vern Rumsey in the summer of 2000 I sought out the No Energy boxset covering the period of the release of the albums The Future Of What and Repetition. Included in this box set are some writings from various members of the band and those close to them, which was a bit of a revelation to read as it gave insight to where the band were as a unit and individuals at the time — something that was wrapped in mystery during my teenage years in the 90s.
Another gem that has appeared with the release of the band’s boxsets on Numero during this time is a documentary film about Unwound that sort of went under the radar that I discovered a number of years ago online surprise. Entitled Do Something Exciting, it’s less of a traditional documentary film and more of a “portrait” of the band through archival live performances on video as well as incidental footage that the band had taken while touring in the 90s, all apparently edited together by guitarist/vocalist Trosper. This was an exclusive extra included in the band’s What Was Wound (long sold out now) boxset on Numero, which contained all of the band’s material across 10x CDs plus extra DVDs of music videos and a 40,000 word set of liner notes by one of the band’s former roadies, David Wilcox. The film itself is a fun watch, albeit mostly of scratchy camcorder footage from the time, as well as “behind the scenes moments” that show the band’s sense of humour that will definitely please anyone that has had an active interest in the band over the years.
Looking back on this I’m thinking this whole entry is a bit more ragged and less focussed than others, but to be honest it’s been a bit of challenge condensing thoughts on a band whose list of albums I’ve listened to so extensively, and a band with such an interesting history. Hopefully it hasn’t been too difficult to navigate!