We’re one week out from the deluxe reissue of My Morning Jacket’s 1999 debut album, The Tennessee Fire. The collection includes an entire disc of “previously unreleased and unheard, lost songs, demo outtakes, alternate versions, and more,” 16 songs in total. Today we get to hear the first of them.
The skeletal, noise-bombed “John Dyes Her Hair Red” demonstrates what an experimental band My Morning Jacket can be and how much their sound has evolved over the years. It’s charred lo-fi psych-pop that reminds me of Spoon and Guided By Voices — so, a far cry from the Southern arena rock heroics they’d be kicking out a few years later on It Still Moves. In his MMJ discography ranking several years back, my colleague Ryan Leas called The Tennessee Fire “a pretty lo-fi affair compared to what came later, lush in its own way but less defined than subsequent MMJ releases.” So you can imagine the outtakes are even more out there.
This one’s pretty cool, and you can hear it below.
TOUR DATES:
08/02 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre
08/03 – Morrison, CO @ Red Rocks Amphitheatre
08/09 – Port Chester, NY @ Capitol Theatre
08/10 – Queens, NY @ Forest Hills Stadium
The Tennessee Fire: Deluxe Edition is out 8/2 on Darla. Pre-order it here.
This article originally appeared in Stereogum.
