In March 2014, the Numero Group unravels Rat Conspiracy, installment #2 in the label’s exhaustive 4-part Unwound reissue undertaking. This chapter intros the Olympia, Washington, noise-punk trio anew, kicking off with hi-hat thwaks on “Dragnalus” from drummer Sara Lund, whose lockstep partnership with Justin Trosper and Vern Rumsey marked the forging of a 1990s indie-rock legend. The band’s advancing threat is captured in 32 tracks, a trove of house-show b&w period photographs, and a vivid 10,000-word narrative by latter-day Unwound diarist David Wilcox.

Rat Conspiracy, its name a one-time working title for Unwound’s 1993 debut-the earliest Kill Rock Stars LP-brings the roiling, watershed Fake Train into natural integration with its sibling record, 1994’s New Plastic Ideas, on which the band “branch[ed] out into propulsive odd meters…and traumatic contrasts between loud and soft, pulling the arty riffage into much tighter focus.” [Trouser Press]. Both get exacting remasters and replica sleeve treatment, while the set’s third LP tracks Unwound’s restless work toward synthesis with the Mkultra and Negated 7″ material, previously unissued radio sessions, indie comp rarities, and the spidery Minutemen cover “Plight.”

NUM202.3 Unwound: Rat Conspiracy Track Listing

Fake Train

01. Dragnalus

02. Lucky Acid

03. Nervous Energy

04. Valentine Card

05. Kantina

06. Were, Are And Was Or is

07. Honourosis

08. Pure Pain Sugar

09. Gravity Slips

10. Star Spangled Hell

11. Ratbite

12 Feeling$ Real

New Plastic Ideas

01. Entirely Different Matters

02. What Was Wound

03. Envelope

04. Hexenszene

05. Abstraktions

06. All Soul’s Day

07. Usual Dosage

08. Arboretum

09. Fiction Friction

Rat Conspiracy 

01. Broken E-Strings

02. Totality

03. Mkultra

04. Eternalux

05. Unsympathetica

06. Negated

07. Said Serial

08. Census

09. Plight

10. Untitled 1

11. Untitled 2

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