RectanglesMusic
MoviesTVBooksMusicPodcastsGames

Loading details…

DiscoverChatSavedSettings

Album

Blonder Tongue Audio Baton

Swirlies →
192,010 listeners2,551,561 plays
shoegazeindieindie rocknoise poplo-fi

listen

S

Spotify

Listen on Spotify

→
♪

Apple Music

Listen on Apple Music

→
Y

YouTube Music

Listen on YouTube Music

→

about this album

Blonder Tongue Audio Baton (sometimes stylized Blondertongueaudiobaton) is the second studio album by American indie rock band, Swirlies, following their 1992 mini-album “What To Do About Them”. It was released on CD, LP and cassette in 1993. The band recorded the majority of the album in the summer of 1992 at Q Division Studios, Boston with engineer/co-producer Rich Costey. It is possibly their best-known and most critically praised work, with many critics citing it as a “lo-fi” answer to My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless. AllMusic would later call it “a mainstay of early-’90s indie music,” and in 2016 Pitchfork ranked the album at number 11 on its list of the 50 best shoegaze albums of all time. The album takes its name from an obscure and expensive audio graphic equalizer, made by Blonder Tongue Labs from 1959–61, which was used extensively while tracking the album. Taang! Records released the album in February 1993 and the band toured to support it. The five-song Brokedick Car EP was released later in 1993 on vinyl, CD, and cassette tape as a follow-up to Blonder Tongue Audio Baton, and featured different mixes of “Wrong Tube” and “Pancake” from the album. The EP’s final track was “House of Pancake”, an electronica remix of “Pancake” by Rich Costey and NYC electronic musician Gomi. The track comprised Swirlies’ first foray into electronic music. Two more experimental tracks, the atonal instrumental “Labrea Tarpit” and the Pavementesque art punk song “You’re Just Jealous”,

tracks

1

Untitled

Swirlies

0:12
2

Bell

Swirlies

5:28
3

Vigilant Always

Swirlies

5:10
4

His Love Just Washed Away

Swirlies

5:24
5

His Life of Academic Freedom

Swirlies

2:07
6

Pancake

Swirlies

3:15
7

Jeremy Parker

Swirlies

4:14
8

Park the Car by the Side of the Road

Swirlies

5:06
9

Tree Chopped Down

Swirlies

3:12
10

Wrong Tube

Swirlies

5:07
11

Wait Forever

Swirlies

4:18

more from Swirlies

They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days in the Glittering World of the Salons

They Spent Their Wild Youthful Days in the Glittering World of the Salons

What To Do About Them

What To Do About Them

Brokedick Car

Brokedick Car

Strictly East Coast

Strictly East Coast

Sneaky Flutes

Sneaky Flutes

Strictly East Coast Sneaky Flute Music

Strictly East Coast Sneaky Flute Music

View on Last.fm →All albums by Swirlies →