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Let's Go Eat The Factory

Guided By Voices

Released: 01/16/2012
Format: LP
Label: Fire Records
Catalog #: FIRELP248
Country: United Kingdom
Discs: 1
# Tracks: 21
Gatefold Cover:Yes
Images
Front Cover
Pressing Details
Vinyl Color # Pressed
Black
Comments
Release Info: Guided By Voices classic lineup to release Let's Go Eat The Factory, first album of new material in fifteen years.

After a fifteen year hiatus, the "classic line up" of Guided By Voices (Robert Pollard, Tobin Sprout, Mitch Mitchell, Greg Demos, and Kevin Fennell) finishes off its year-long reunion tour by releasing an album of 21 new songs, deliberately choosing to return to what bandleader Robert Pollard calls the "semi-collegial" approach of iconic GBV albums like Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes. Let's Go Eat The Factory is much more than a mere return, however: sprawling, variegated, heavy, melodic, and yet still recognizably and coherently Guided By Voices in both its literal and mythic senses.

"At first I said: no reunion, period," explains Pollard about the decision to revive Guided By Voices. "And definitely no record or re-formation. But the tour went so well; the response was really unexpected. I thought at some point that a lot of people would like to hear new GBV music. The chemistry was still there."

Choosing to eschew the recording studio, LGETF was instead manufactured in the living rooms, basements, and garages of various long-time bandmembers. Some tracks were recorded more-or-less live at Mitch Mitchell's garage, where the band would often practice back in the early- and mid-90s. These sessions comprised Mitch, Bob, and Jimmy Pollard, Bob's brother and long-time collaborator, who, though never a part of the touring ensemble, always played a crucial role on the classic-era releases. Some tracks were improvised over acoustic jam sessions at Greg Demos' house. Many were recorded at Tobin Sprout's place in Wherever, Michigan, and later lovingly fucked with in order to achieve the proper level of weirdness. Band members occasionally switched instruments (Bob plays drums; Mitch plays drums; Kevin plays drums; Jimmy Pollard plays bass; Greg plays lead guitar; Toby plays pretty much everything; etc.), and Bob gladly accepted input from other band members. Tobin Sprout wrote or co-wrote and sings on six out of the 21 songs.

The aesthetic is very much in keeping with Guided By Voices, but in some unexpected ways (more prevalent use of keyboards and samples, for one thing) the 21st century can't help but poke its nose into the resulting music. Devoted fans of Bee Thousand will not be disappointed in, for instance, the demonically tuneful "Chocolate Boy," or the relentless chug of "We Won't Apologize For The Human Race," which Tobin Sprout describes as "Peter Gabriel singing 'I Am The Walrus.'" Other standouts include "Doughnut For A Snowman," which Pollard calls "the goofiest, twinkliest song I've ever written," or "Spider Fighter," a Tobin Sprout number that was in fact the first song title conceived for the new album, and which features a piano coda that Pollard likens to "a Pete Townshend demo for Lifehouse."

Let's Go Eat The Factory will be released from January 1st 2012 on Fire Records.

Guided By Voices is Robert Pollard, Mitch Mitchell, Kevin Fennell, Tobin Sprout, Greg Demos with Jimmy Pollard.
Let's Go Eat The Factory
Side 1
1.   Laundry & Lasers
2.   The Head
3.   Doughnut For A Snowman
4.   Spiderfighter
5.   Hang Mr. Kite
6.   God Loves Us
7.   The Unsinkable Fats Domino
8.   Who Invented The Sun
9.   The Big Hat And Toy Show
10.  Imperial Racehorsing
Side 2
1.   How I Met My Mother
2.   Waves
3.   My Europa
4.   Chocolate Boy
5.   The Things That Never Need
6.   Either Nelson
7.   Cyclone Utilities (Remember Your Birthday)
8.   Old Bones
9.   Go Rolling Home
10.  The Room Taking Shape
11.  We Won't Apologize For The Human Race
Other Formats
Label - Catalog [Format] (Country) # Tracks
Fire Records - FIRECD248 [CD] (United Kingdom) 21
Fire Records/Bad Paintings - FBP002 [Cassette] (United Kingdom) 21
Guided By Voices Inc. - GBVI-16 [CD] (U.S.A.) 21
Guided By Voices Inc. - GBVI-16 [LP] (U.S.A.) 21

Album Credits
Artwork/Design
Role Name
Art Bob
Smoking Rabbit Tob
Production
Role Name
Mastering Roger Seibel
Producer Chief Runningmouth
Producer The Soft Spoken Trout
Management/Business
Role Name
Business Management Eric Weiss
Legal Matters Richard Grabel
Management David Newgarden
Other
Role Name
Additional Album Text A Factory Of Raw Essentials Product
Rockathon Records Kevin Poindexter
Rockathon Records Matt Davis
Rockathon Records Mike Lipps