Five no-frills 1990s albums that define lo-fi

Beautiful Rat Sunset by The Mountain Goats (1994)

John Darnielle has a degree in English and Classics from Pitzer College, and many of the songs he has written for the Mountain Goats reference literary and historical figures and events. With titles like “Itzcuintli-Totzli Days” and “Sendero Luminoso Verdadero,” they may not always make sense to the listener, but they usually give such intriguing glimpses into their stories that they tend to nonetheless suck you in.

Darnielle began recording and releasing original music on cassette when he was in college, and by the time he graduated, he had already put out a lot of songs. The 8-song Beautiful Rat Sunset came out in March of 1994, and a few months later, his first full-length album, Zipilote Machine was released on Ajax. On those earliest recordings, Darnielle didn’t even have the luxury of a 4-track home mixer. He was just strumming guitar and singing live onto a tape.

Beautiful Rat Sunset features an eye-catching cover painting of, you guessed it, a rat. One of the songs, “Song for Mark and Joel,” is dedicated to the rat's owner and to the man who painted the album cover. As near as I can tell, the lyrics have nothing to do with a rat owner or rat painter.

“Sendero Luminoso Verdadero” is about Abimael Guzman and the Shining Path in Peru. “New Star Song” is about remembering an old friend while being stuck in the middle of nowhere. “Song for Cleomenes” is about an ancient Roman praetor who was a bit of a scumbag. Darnielle could write a song about virtually anything.

I may be biased since I have lived my entire life in Maryland, but “Going to Maryland” is just a gorgeous love song – on a par with other great hometown songs like REM’s “Don’t Go Back to Rockville,” and 5 Chinese Brothers’ “Baltimore.” But I have to admit that the final track “Resonant Bell World,” is the best song on the disc.

Over time, Darnielle would work with a variety of other artists, in both the Mountain Goats and other assorted projects. But here it is pretty much all him, singing and accompanying himself on guitar. The only sounds that do not come from Darnielle are the occasional backing vocals provided by Rachel Ware, Amy Piatt, Roseanne Lindley, and Sarah Arslanian, known as the Bright Mountain Choir.

It doesn’t get much more lo-fi than that.

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