Silver Jews: Starlite Walker LP

The first studio full-length from David Berman’s Silver Jews’ project, 1994’s Starlite Walker found the Virginia native’s poetry paired with languid, lived-in instrumentation provided largely by his friends in Pavement: Stephen Malkmus, Bob Nastanovich, and Steve West. The loose experimentalism that marked Berman’s earlier recordings is still there in parts (a certain attraction to the budding minds in Animal Collective, teenagers at the time of its release) but the songwriting here is a genuine wonder, an early page in what has become one of indie-rock’s most cherished songbooks.