The Silver Jews will be releasing Early Times via Drag City Records on June 19^th. Comprising of long out of print recordings from the band’s first sessions together and collecting material from the Dime Map of the Reef and The Arizona Record EPs, Early Times is a rough and ready recording of three young dudes still figuring out their signature sound. These fuzzily imperfect recordings made by David Berman, Stephen Malkmus and Bob Nastanovich (the lineup that would make the band’s earliest material and the seminal SJ album Starlite Walker) just jamming together prove that three musicians with such divergent musical lives ahead of them were at one point so intuitive to each other’s playing as to seem telepathic. 

You can listen to the first released track off of Early Times here. The track, titled “Secret Knowledge of Back Roads,” is a hiss-laden track reminiscent of the work of some of their ’90s lo-fi contemporaries, but with Malkmus and Berman’s ever-distinctive vocals taking center stage. Fans of the now defunct band would do well to pick this one up.