Wow. It's a long way down from this past weekend's euphoric highs, but to help ease everyone back into the day-to-day we present to you, faithful readers, a photo-happy, interview-accented set of features, our capstone to the three-day weekend bonanza that was the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival.

From Slint to Sonic Youth, the Twilight Sad to Yoko Ono, Deerhunter to De La Soul-- and despite a few more sound problems then we'd have liked-- the event once again proved momentous, and we couldn't have done it without all of you. Thanks to everyone who came to the 2007 Pitchfork Music Festival. We hope you had a weekend to remember, and we look forward to seeing you again next year.

Thanks also once again to our Friday night partners in crime, Barry Hogan and All Tomorrow's Parties (and their Don't Look Back series), as well as all the sponsors, vendors, and volunteers whose tireless efforts and contributions help keep this festival pretty ridiculously cheap. Thanks to our photographers as well-- Jason Bergman, Jana Green, Leigh Ann Hines, Karra McDonald, Joseph Mohan, Akmal Naim, Jen Reel, Nolan Wells, and Kathryn Yu-- whose shots you'll see below.

And for even more multimedia festival coverage, check out the official Pitchfork Music Festival podcast, featuring interviews with Sonic Youth, Stephen Malkmus, Slint, Clipse, Dan Deacon, Klaxons, the Cool Kids, ATP's Barry Hogan, and Pitchfork's Ryan Schreiber. Thanks to Anders Lindall for his work on this and the all the previous Backline podcasts.

Finally, our hats go off to Mike Reed and the fine people at At Pluto and Pitchfork's associate publisher Chris Kaskie for orchestrating another landmark Pitchfork Music Festival.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Photos by Nolan Wells (L) and Leigh Ann Hines

Slint [Connector Stage; 6:30 p.m.]









Photos 1-3 by Kathryn Yu; photos 4-5 by Jen Reel

Interview: Brian McMahan of Slint | [Interview by Paul Thompson]

Pitchfork: You guys are performing Spiderland in its entirety, which you've done a few times now in Europe. How's it working? I assume you never played it all the way through live back in the day.

Brian McMahan: That's true. It's pretty cool. It moves a little slower than it does on the record, but it's all there.

Pitchfork: What is it like to be asked to play one specific album? Does it feel like a coronation of sorts?

BM: It's pretty cool. I'm into it. It does feel like [a coronation]. It took some getting used to, some revisiting the material and rehearsing. I personally felt comfortable with the idea, but I didn't know how it was going to go.

Pitchfork: You guys are doing quite a bit of touring, playing both Spiderland and other material. Does it feel like Slint is a real band again, or more like a reunion?

BM: I think it's definitely more like a reunion to me. It seemed like we had a period roughly when we were in the last year or two of high school and a couple years thereafter where we were working on music. But then there were a couple years there where we weren't a band.

Pitchfork: Are there other artists at the festival that you're looking forward to checking out?

BM: There's definitely a lot of stuff. Really looking forward to seeing Stephen Malkmus. Battles. I'd love to see Yoko Ono.

Pitchfork: Are you a fan of Liquid Swords and Daydream Nation?

BM: I don't really know Liquid Swords. Daydream Nation I definitely rocked in the car when I was a kid.

Pitchfork: I've gotta ask: Do you guys plan to do any more recording?

BM: I guess we don't really have any definite plans. We've talked about it, but we're just sort of leaving it at that.