“This monolithic thing that’s literally scratching the sky as the sky is going by me. To me, that’s the sound, of a guitar moaning with feedback floating in the air cracking the air open as it’s sweeping through... Yeah, that’s what I think of when I think of IDAHO.” – Alan Sparhawk of LOW
The groundbreaking legacy of slowcore pioneers IDAHO will be celebrated with The Devil You Know [1992-1996], a landmark four-album five-disc Deluxe Limited-Edition Box Set featuring vinyl reissues of the band’s long-out-of-print and highly sought-after first three records (originally released on Caroline/Capitol) with an exclusive bonus disc of hard-to-find material comprised of EPs and 7”s from this seminal era. The Devil You Know [1992-1996] arrives via Arts & Crafts on Friday, October 25. Pre-orders are available now.
PRE-ORDER THE DEVIL YOU KNOW [1992-1996]
Led by Laurel Canyon-based singer-songwriter Jeff Martin, IDAHO are the unsung cult heroes of 90s slowcore. Though they are often grouped amongst post-grunge indie rock pioneers like Low, Songs: Ohia, and Codeine, IDAHO is distinguished by the desert atmospherics of Martin’s four-string guitar, echoing out his elegant songcraft in a canyon of alien tones and melancholic feedback.
The Devil You Know [1992-1996] now arrives at an apex moment for IDAHO, following the recent premiere of the career-spanning feature documentary, Traces of Glory: The Musical Journey of Idaho (available now via Good Deed Entertainment exclusively on Prime Video and Apple TV) and the acclaimed arrival of Lapse, the band’s first new album in 13 years. The Devil You Know [1992-1996] preserves an era of a band poised to defy the constricts of expectation, laying the groundwork for rebelliously slow and beautiful music entirely their own, sustaining IDAHO’s everlasting interplay with their particular muse, as they churned out album after album (after album) of singular grit and guttural beauty.
Founded in Los Angeles by singer/songwriter Jeff Martin and the late John Berry, IDAHO exemplified an adventurous and original take on the American underground, fusing fuzzed-chord grunge rock, pedal-pushing shoegaze, and post-hardcore experimentalism with an overall ambiance of beautiful despondency. A series of singles and EPs – much of which is included on The Devil You Know [1992-1996] exclusive bonus LP – heralded their matchless approach, with songs like “Creep” and “Star” showcasing what proved to be the band’s career-defining sense of longing, mystery, grace, and dreamy-yet-edgy nuance.
1993’s Year After Year saw IDAHO pushing their exceptional sound to its natural limit, an album that takes the band’s demos (reworked and remixed in most cases) to the next plane, one more haunting and yet also blisteringly intense. “God’s Green Earth” sets the scene, a clear mood changer no matter what state the listener may have been in before hitting play. Year After Year is the sound of IDAHO trying to find themselves, with such sublime moments as the hopeful “God’s Green Earth” and “Save” paired alongside the edgy despair and pain of “Gone” and “The Only Road.”
Year After Year proved a capstone on IDAHO’s first era, with Berry’s departure from the band leaving Martin to fully take the reins on his own. Recorded in Martin’s Brentwood home studio, Piercing Sound, with GRAMMY® Award-nominated producer Martin Brumbach (Leonard Cohen, Laurie Anderson, Rufus Wainwright), 1994’s This Way Out boasts a more clear and textured sound than anything in the prior IDAHO canon, underlying a striking increase in the strength of Martin’s idiosyncratic songcraft. From the soaring “Weird Wood” and imperfectly expressive “Still” to the triumphant “Drive It,” he begins to express his sweet melancholia with more spirited confidence than desperation, still intimate and elegantly sad but updated with loud guitars and driving drums.
Martin recreated IDAHO as a full band to tour This Way Out and that expanded approach pointed to the direction he would take on 1996’s Three Sheets To The Wind. Working once again with Brumbach, IDAHO took advantage of a slightly higher recording budget to make the album at the famed Burbank Studios, its spacious live room proving ideal to capture the band’s increased dynamic power. IDAHO’s most musically varied and liveliest album to this point in their career, Three Sheets To The Wind bears the fruit of the band’s consistent touring in the back-and-forth interplay and jamming prowess found on the Zen-like meditation of “Stare At The Sky” and rising-and-falling-and-rising roller coaster ride that is “No One’s Watching.” But the album’s centerpiece is the declamatory “A Sound Awake,” which rides a gently propelled rhythmic pulse with fuzzed-out guitars until an explosive coda in which the band totally lays into the chord progression and blasts towards infinity.
“I vividly recall the first time I heard Idaho, 29 years ago. I was so struck by them right from first encounter. Such a remarkable band; such a remarkable sound,” writes renowned musician, writer, and publisher/editor of The Big Takeover, Jack Rabid, in The Devil You Know [1992-1996]’s exclusive liner notes. “Right from first taste, it was clear that IDAHO had immediately likable yet not simple tunes; ample hooks; sneaky melodies; contemplative parts both loud and quiet without jarring juxtapositions (like Nirvana was then borrowing from the Pixies); subtle squalls of background feedback; singer/songwriter Jeff Martin’s laconic vocalizing that nevertheless yielded to deeper passions; and most of all, overall damn-different, surreptitiously strange guitar tones I couldn’t put my finger on…Given today’s preponderance of dreamy, atmospheric indie rock, all four LPs can justifiably be seen as pioneering discs with their own distinct niche. And it was all just a start of a beautiful musical genius fans have loved for 32 years—and still counting!”
As noted, The Devil You Know [1992-1996] follows this year’s arrival of Lapse, IDAHO’s tenth studio album and first all-new collection in more than 13 years, available everywhere now via Arts & Crafts. Recorded in 29 Palms, California, near Joshua Tree National Park, the album’s 10 new songs are engraved with IDAHO’s long-standing signature sound, his heartfelt, cinematic music delivered by Martin with bittersweet intensity. Among its highlights are such intensely evocative tracks as “On Fire,” “Across The Sky,” and “Kamikaze,” all of which are joined by official music videos streaming now at YouTube.
WATCH ”KAMIKAZE” OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO WATCH ”ON FIRE” OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO WATCH ”ACROSS THE SKY” OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO
PURCHASE/STREAM LAPSE
Tin Boat Productions’ Traces of Glory: The Musical Journey of IDAHO had its official release in June after a series of acclaimed premieres at film festivals across America. Directed, written, and produced by Mark Allen Davis, the film follows Martin as he contemplates his past, self-doubt, and the fame he was never really after. “The point of the best music documentaries is to offer unique and unseen insights into their subjects,” wrote Screen Rant. “In the case of Traces of Glory, the fact that IDAHO never reached the fame of some of its early ‘90s peers is one of the documentary’s prime focuses. In that way, not being familiar with IDAHO may make the documentary even more impactful.”
WATCH TRACES OF GLORY: THE MUSICAL JOURNEY OF IDAHO OFFICIAL TRAILER
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PRAISE FOR IDAHO + LAPSE
“A brutally beautiful return to form…Lapse lives up to IDAHO’s legacy as slowcore pioneers. Across 10 songs, the trio have truly outdone themselves with a collection of subdued elegance that makes the past come flooding back.” – PASTE (8.0)
“Martin sounds totally inspired as he dishes out his seasoned drawl, glacial-paced clean guitars, a little bit of psychedelia, and lyrical references to heroes like Ultravox, Bill Nelson, Brian Eno, Iggy Pop, and Magazine. Lapse could believably be a lost gem that IDAHO actually released during their mid ‘90s era, and it sounds just as timely in 2024 amidst the Duster revival, TikTok-viral slowcore acts like sign crushes motorist, and indie rock frontrunner Alex G. It’s great to have Idaho back in any capacity, especially with a new record that genuinely adds to their legacy.” – BROOKLYN VEGAN
“IDAHO may not have received the lofty acclaim or attention of some of their peers, but Martin still seems quietly determined to do things his way. “Break some records, break a sweat/Before you’re fuckin dead,” he almost whispers in the hushed single “On Fire.” If this is his mantra, it’s serving him well.” – UNDER THE RADAR (7.5/10)
“Listening to Lapse you get the sense that nothing has been lost in the meantime and IDAHO are again coming up with relevant music that has even matured a few steps further. Martin’s songwriting and vocals are as strong as they were and the band seems to have gained a degree in maturity that gives the 10 tracks here that substance IDAHO music always had. So glad to have them back.” – SPILL MAGAZINE (9.0)
“As always, Martin’s writing is marked by its emotional depth and the ability to convey complex feelings with simplicity. Songs like ‘On Fire’ and ‘West Side’ highlight Martin’s talent for blending personal reflection with broader existential questions.” – THE FIRE NOTE (4/5)
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