Pitchfork Forkcast: Old Music: Young Marble Giants: "Searching for Mr. Right" [MP3/Stream]

Old Music: Young Marble Giants: "Searching for Mr. Right" [MP3/Stream]

Young Marble Giants' vision of post-punk, like that of such present-day kindred spirits as Prinzhorn Dance School, had as much to do with what was left out as what went in. The latest reissue of the band's Colossal Youth, upon which Pitchfork's Douglas Wolk recently bestowed a 9.3, presents Alison Statton's hushed vocals, Stuart Moxham's trebly Rickenbacker palm-muting, and brother Philip's anxiously melodic bass-playing-- plus drum machine, and all that deafening empty space-- in lavish, 3-CD format. Luckily, the set still opens with "Searching for Mr. Right", which sets Stratton's plainspoken (and oft-copied) voice within steadily ticking beats and a taut arrangement always on the brink of kablooie. "How can I hope to be/ Someone for you to see?" Stratton sings, stripping traditional love-songs-for no-one of their overblown sentiment even while eschewing the grandiose sound of pop's teenage symponies. Eventually the instruments just stop abruptly, satisfyingly denying satisfaction to the end-- the perfect love song for the congenitally repressed.