A Retrospective is really rather a grand title for what this is, which is simply a collection of Swedish quartet Mixtapes & Cellmates’ first two EPs, now out of print, plus a couple remixes and a previously unreleased bonus track. On the other hand, it’s also an interesting look at the early days of a band whose self-titled debut album is one of 2007′s lost gems. On these 13 songs, the band’s influences — most obviously My Bloody Valentine and the rest of the early-’90s shoegazer scene — are far more apparent than on the self-assured full-length. Guitars crackle and buzz through a haze of effects and lo-fi distortion, and singer Robert Svensson’s vocals are usually (and possibly not always intentionally) buried deep in the mixes amidst odd sounds like the synth line way in the back of “C: You, D: The Road Home” that sounds disconcertingly like a whirring dental drill. “Clean Sheets, Wintermornings” is the most overtly My Bloody Valentine-like track here, culminating in a crescendo of beautiful noise, though the well-sculpted feedback of “A: Pavement, B: Home” and the intermittent sheets of distortion that interrupt “Stockholm-Karlshamn” owe a nod to Kevin Shields as well. On the self-titled full-length, such well-intentioned homages were dialed back considerably, giving the album a much greater sense of the band’s personality, but hearing Mixtapes & Cellmates’ early work illuminates what they’ve learned from their heroes. The three bonus tracks, two widely varied dance-oriented remixes of “A Quiet Evening” and the extended bliss-out drone “The Part I Miss Most Is…,” are pleasant but inessential. – Stewart Mason
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