{"title":"Robert Pollard","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"grand-rapids-ep","title":"Grand Rapids EP","description":"\u003cp\u003eBesides Guided By Voices, Robert Pollard has released music under a stunning number of aliases and band names. Today he adds another one. As Brooklyn Vegan points out, Rip Van Winkle, Pollard’s latest alter ego, releases their debut EP, The Grand Rapids. It’s unclear who’s playing with Pollard on this one, but lead single “Prose Kaiser” nicely laces Uncle Bob’s usual style with a glowing neon post-punk vibe.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Splendid Research","offers":[{"title":"Black 12\" - 2178591","offer_id":50382771814731,"sku":"2178591","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"CD.","offer_id":50382771421515,"sku":"2178590","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/SR1__RIP_VAN_WINKLE_0dac1a99_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726258869"},{"product_id":"from-a-compound-eye","title":"From a Compound Eye","description":"\u003cp\u003eDouble-vinyl gatefold reissue of Guided By Voices frontman’s most celebrated solo album, previously released in 2006 on Merge Records. \u003ci\u003eFrom A Compound Eye\u003c\/i\u003e was Robert Pollard’s first solo album after dissolving Guided By Voices in 2004. When things came to an end for GBV, Pollard promised that this would not mean the end of his songwriting and recording career. It actually provided a fresh start. Leaving his band (and Matador Records) behind allowed him to record when he wanted and what he wanted, with whomever he wanted. Chock full of fantastic songs including “Dancing Girls and Dancing Men”, “I’m a Widow”, “Love Is Stronger Than Witchcraft”, and “I’m A Strong Lion”. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Guided By Voices Inc","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP | x2","offer_id":50403109044555,"sku":"1137432","price":37.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/68ad2be8-7e63-4868-ae73-961448925a46_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726557742"},{"product_id":"eat-16-soundtrack-from-planet-cake","title":"Eat 16: Soundtrack From Planet Cake","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe latest volume of Robert Pollard’s art \/ collage journal is a pseudo-film with an accompanying 7” vinyl soundtrack (7 tracks). 238 pages full colour. Breathtaking. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Guided By Voices Inc","offers":[{"title":"Black | 7\"","offer_id":50466161754443,"sku":"1095031","price":32.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/abed212d-f499-44d9-9c44-53694e719fd2_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727307424"},{"product_id":"eat-18","title":"Eat 18","description":"\u003cp\u003e235 pages of Robert Pollard's fantastic collage art in a perfect bound book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Guided By Voices Inc","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":50466315665739,"sku":"2001415","price":34.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/CS908767-01A-BIG_ef423a94_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727311482"},{"product_id":"our-gaze","title":"Our Gaze","description":"\u003cp\u003eOn Oct 9, 2007, Robert Pollard simultaneously released two albums on Merge Records: \u003ci\u003eStandard Gargoyle Decisions\u003c\/i\u003e and\u003ci\u003e Coast To Coast Carpet Of Love\u003c\/i\u003e. Both now out of print, Pollard has reimagined and condensed the two as \u003ci\u003eOur Gaze\u003c\/i\u003e, a single fifteen song album. Because it’s better. \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Guided By Voices Inc","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50483616448843,"sku":"1150713","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50483616907595,"sku":"1150711","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/eaf1ec88-5c0b-4f05-b6ac-3e8e1b75be67_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727570474"},{"product_id":"eat-17","title":"Eat 17","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eEat 17\u003c\/i\u003e is a beautiful 237 page, perfect bound book filled with the brilliant collage art of Robert Pollard.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Guided By Voices Inc","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50483700629835,"sku":"1140802","price":32.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/4d4dc6fd-0ca2-47d8-a69b-da54ab995295_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727571661"},{"product_id":"eat-19","title":"Eat 19","description":"\u003cp\u003eEat Volume 19: 240 page full color journal of Robert Pollard's gorgeous collage art.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GBV Inc","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":50490898383179,"sku":"2174921","price":34.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/image001_1_9ad2e62a_thumbnail_4096.png?v=1727678758"},{"product_id":"blazing-gentlemen","title":"Blazing Gentlemen","description":"\u003cp\u003eBlazing Gentlemen is the last Robert Pollard record. That will be released in 2013. It is also the finest Pollard-related record to come out in this or several years, aural evidence of a rock mage reinvigorated by the fact, according to the man himself, that he's \"finally figured out how to write a song after 55 years.\" Which may come as a surprise even to casual fans of Pollard's thousands-strong catalogue, and fair enough, Bob's certainly hip to the irony, but it's no joke. While he's explored pretty much every highway, toll road and dark alley of song craft in his long career, including spontaneous \"drum contests\" where every member of Guided By Voices would be given the opportunity to come up with a drumbeat, over which he would then improvise a spontaneous melody based on semi-random lyrics from his ever-present notebook (for example), he's never before applied one consistent approach over the course of even one record\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fire Records","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50491777089867,"sku":"369729","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":50491779547467,"sku":"369728","price":6.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/6d38c5f1-2aa6-47cd-80b9-56421e8e14fc_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727688965"},{"product_id":"faulty-superheroes","title":"Faulty Superheroes","description":"\u003cp\u003eNeither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays Robert Pollard from the swift completion of his latest brilliant record. Faulty Superheroes jets off Pollard's vinyl-grooved runway like the prototype for some new super-sonic power pop fighter jet, and at this point in his career is anyone surprised that the twelve tracks on his latest effort are uniformly awesome? The answer is no. Exactly no one is surprised. The biggest thing Pollard has to contend is his own miraculously consistent greatness. That he rarely if ever stumbles is some kind of marvel, and perhaps implies superpowers of his own. If you see what we did there. Faulty Superheroes has a tossed-off, effortless magnificence that the rash of indie-whatevers trailing in his wake from Bee Thousand to the present constantly strive for, and fail to achieve. The constant sense of surprise, of wonder, of discovery that you routinely find in superbly-structured instant bomp classics like \"Faster The Great\" is not something that can be taught, or learned, or imparted, or copied. Pollard pretty much abandoned the four-track for twenty years now and still gets tagged as \"lo-fi,\" which is a word that makes even less sense now in the days of digital recording than it did then in the days of occasionally tape-hiss smothered coulda-shoulda- been hits. \"Take Me To Yolita\" in lesser hands could have been not much more than a bad one-liner stretched to fit a pop song, but Pollard reverse-engineers the titular pun to build a Kinks-like mini-epic that elevates the raw material of the song to transcendent heights. \"She walks to him but that's not him.\" Damn. And so it goes. Are there bum notes here and there? Recording accidents-on-purpose left in like crushed empty beer cans strewn around the miniature, glimmering pop\/ rock\/ psych\/ prog construction sites left standing in the wake of each of Faulty Superheroes' finished\/unfinished songs? You betcha. The Guided By Voices aesthetic was formed and developed and continues to be improved by Pollard, which makes all the more puzzling the hand-wringing that accompanies every announcement of a so-called GBV \"break-up\" (or for that matter, \"reunion.\"). \"You only need one,\" he sings on the song of that title. As long as we have Bob, we need nothing else. And we have Bob. If you're counting your blessings, don't forget that one. It's kinda crucial.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fire Records","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50493203874123,"sku":"387740","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/503d0a0d-77f4-4a43-bf14-7a8d2bbcbf03_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727696073"},{"product_id":"of-course-you-are","title":"Of Course You Are","description":"\u003cp\u003e'Of Course You Are' is solo album number twenty four by the tireless Guided By Voices auteur. Meticulously constructed, 'Of Course You Are' is overstuffed with hooky tunes, riffs aplenty and skewed \/ skewering lyrics. Pity the poor rock critic who tries to keep up with Robert Pollard. If your magnificent-opus-listening time is circumscribed, play track 6, \"I Can Illustrate\" three times in a row. The wizardry of Pollard's craft is easy to overlook on a cursory spin. Three listens and you'll be hooked, lined, and sinkered. To some extent, the new solo album is a natural outgrowth of Pollard's 2015 work with Ricked Wicky; and to some extent it's a return to early-2000s Guided By Voices, with its combination of instrumental virtuosity and Pollard's uniquely oblique approach to songwriting. All of the instruments on 'Of Course You Are' were played by Ricked Wicky's Nick Mitchell, who also recorded\/produced the record, and Mitchell's evident musicianship lifts the material to another sonic level without over-polishing. The instrumental palette has been broadened — discreet flourishes of strings, horns, piano (etc.) occasionally bring to mind baroque rock classics by the likes of Love and Cardinal. Which is not to say this is chamber pop. These songs are all determinedly guitar-driven, however textured, and rock as hard as anything Pollard's done to date. Mitchell's occasional virtuosic solos are concise, but the guy can shred, and when he does, he does. Mitchell is a heretofore hidden gem discovered by Pollard in their mutual Dayton, OH hometown.  As tuneful as you'd expect from anything issuing from Pollard's pen, 'Of Course You Are' runs the usual gamut of Pop, Prog, Psych, and even Punk-oriented tracks. His vocals are impeccable, his phrasing as sharp as ever - he seems invigorated by the collaborative juice provided by Mitchell, who himself has clearly been liberated by the opportunity to take the reins in the studio, and delivers in (aces of) spades.  Taking nothing away from any of Pollard's previous co-conspirators, Mitchell's inspired, unmuddied production and precise playing on 'Of Course You Are' hits all the right marks - underlining the direct emotional tug of \"That's The Way You Gave It To Me\" with melancholic Court of the Crimson King-era mellotron, providing a swirling psychedelic backdrop not too far removed from Mr. Blue Sky-era ELO on \"Losing It,\" and punching up the album's rock-hard opener \"My Daughter Yes She Knows.\" 'Long Live Instant Pandemonium's\" classic rock riffs contrast the poignant strings on 'Come And Listen,' while 'Contemporary Man (He's Our Age)' foregrounds Pollard's vocal musings over kinetic percussion and electronics (and more strings). Taken altogether, the twelve concise song-slabs on Pollard's first album of 2016 (you and I both know it won't be his last) make for both an auspicious start to the New Year of Bob and a welcome harbinger of great things to come. Don't sleep. Seriously. Don't.LP - With Download.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fire Records","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50494158373195,"sku":"398188","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"LP","offer_id":50494160306507,"sku":"398187","price":22.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/a23613ae-25a9-478f-94b2-3ee887c903f5_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727703802"},{"product_id":"eat-20-2","title":"EAT 20","description":"\u003cp\u003eRobert Pollard’s amazing collages in a full-colour 238-page book.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GBV Inc","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50751545672011,"sku":"2231142","price":34.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Screenshot_2024-11-01_at_4.47.50PM_e7223bd0_thumbnail_4_84a02e5d_thumbnail.webp?v=1730714290"},{"product_id":"silverfish-trivia","title":"Silverfish Trivia","description":"\u003cp\u003ethe new bob is a phrase often heard from fans of robert pollard. as in, have you heard the new bob? it usually refers to the latest project that pollard has recorded and released. but in this case the new bob has a new meaning. prom is coming is pollard's new label (replacing the fading captain series but not his deal with merge.) 'silverfish trivia' finds pollard once again in the studio with producer and musical partner todd tobias. the results sound different from anything they've done before. seven songs in twenty-two minutes 'silverfish trivia' is lush with the beautiful string arrangements courtesy of chris george of nyc-based string quartet invert.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"No Label","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50915915497803,"sku":"281321","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/2bad984c-8128-4661-a8c4-9cb037d99bab_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1733023123"},{"product_id":"eat-21","title":"Eat 21","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eVolume 21 of Robert Pollard's masterful and recognizable collage work, reproduced in full color.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Guided By Voices Inc","offers":[{"title":"Magazine","offer_id":53581259604299,"sku":"R7007-2487","price":28.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/getImage.php_48700b56-7696-4a32-9cb9-fc5a01d17423.jpg?v=1760248135"},{"product_id":"eat-22","title":"Eat 22","description":"\u003cp\u003eVolume 22 of Robert Pollard's collage work, 237 pages in full color.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Guided By Voices Inc","offers":[{"title":"Magazine","offer_id":57514969694539,"sku":"R1915-6069","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/getImage_24.jpg?v=1780646752"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/fr\/collections\/robert-pollard.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}