After amicably departing Merge Records after 4 albums in two years, Robert Pollard Is Off To Business will be Robert Pollard’s only proper "Robert Pollard" full-length for 2008, released on Robert Pollard’s new Guided By Voices Inc. label. At 10 songs in 35 minutes, it’s an extraordinary rock tour de force. Robert Pollard Is Off To Business sports Todd Tobias’ cleanest and meanest production yet, giant songs and riffs that pack a wallop, and arguably Pollard’s finest singing ever captured on record. For Pollard, whose albums normally run 15-25 songs, this 10-song work (the majority 3:30 or longer) is a departure from form. Since freeing himself of a band in 2004, his albums have each had very distinct and varied flavors, and his creativity has flowered.
Extraordinarily influential, Pollard is not just a founding father of indie rock, but in the long run will prove to be an important part of rock history, with a significant oeuvre that branches from The Who, Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, Wire and The Clean.
In stores: June 2, 2008. The release coincides with Fantagraphics’ Town Of Mirrors: The Reassembled Imagery of Robert Pollard, a lavish coffee-table book retrospective of Pollard’s collage art and lyrics, as well as several Pollard art exhibits.
