It’s not enough to label Cubist Blues as a cult record, even though the circumstances that surrounded it—two unscripted all-night recording sessions at a noir-ish downtown New York studio straight out of Raymond Chandler—certainly give it the requisite sheen. Maybe Henry Rollins, who originally released the project on his 2.13.61 imprint in 1996, puts it best: “Cubist Blues is such an in-the-moment, living, breathing thing, it’s almost beyond music.”

Suicide frontman Alan Vega has a lot to do with that; the entirety of his performance is improvised—scat-sung from snatches of lyrics (“Fat City”), fueled by the street scenes outside the  window (“Sister”), or inspired by his heroes (Elvis in particular on “Lover Of Love” and “Dream Baby Revisited”). Meanwhile, Alex Chilton lays into his guitar parts with a freewheeling sense of exploration—check out the sheets of distorted power on “Fly Away” or the vibrato-soaked blues riffs on “Come On Lord”—that hint at a burden unloaded. Mere weeks before, Chilton had played what was billed as the “farewell U.S. performance” of the reunited version
of Big Star; whether or not he knew this was just hype (the band would tour on and off together for the next 16 years), he still plays like a man possessed.

And then there’s Ben Vaughn, the glue amid the chaos who brings a multi-instrumentalist and producer’s ear to the sessions (as well as groaning waves of guitar feedback to “Promised Land,” for one). As usual, Light in the Attic’s reissue is reverently packaged, in this case, as an archival double-release that includes one of the group’s two live gigs (with bassist Mike Vogelmann), taped from the board at the ‘96 Trans Musicales festival in France; you can almost imagine Chilton lighting his guitar on fire during an impromptu deconstruction of Suicide’s “I Remember” to close the set. For a group that appeared ever so briefly and was gone, they left behind plenty of art-damaged, angular music to crack open and imbibe.