Drunken Spree

David Pajo has spent decades in the background of other people's great records — as Slint's guitarist on Spiderland, as a touring member of Zwan and others. Papa M is where he stepped forward alone, making some of the most quietly devastating American guitar music of the past thirty years.

Drunken Spree, from his 2001 live album, captures Pajo at his most elemental: fingerpicked acoustic guitar, voice, and space. The song is unhurried and unguarded in a way most music never allows itself to be. It rewards patience the way the best folk music does — by meaning more the quieter you listen.

Pajo's output under the Papa M name remains underseen outside committed indie rock circles. Live From a Shark Cage is the kind of record people discover and then press into the hands of everyone they love.