Reissue limited to 200 copies, originally released as private press in a limited edition of 100 copies in 1977, this ia a Major historical reissue: Slit And Pre-Slit was Jim Shepard’s first ever release, privately pressed in an edition of only 100 copies in 1977 and mostly given away to friends and musical/cultural heroes like Lester Bangs, Todd Rundgren, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Brian Eno, John Cale etc. Its extreme rarity has meant that few have had the chance to wrap their ears around it, but those in the know have consistently pronounced it Shepard’s best. From out of nowhere comes this limited exact repro edition, a reissue that works to explode conventional accounts of the linear development of contemporary rock/roll. Some of the tracks were cut in 1974, which is truly mind-boggling. Like a bunch of his Columbus, Ohio compatriots, Shepard quickly osmosed the aesthetics of classic rock while intuiting the formal repercussions that would eventually cohere into the punk-primitive stance of the underground groups gathered around the Siltbreeze label. But this is Vertical Slit straight out of the garage, jamming amazing primitive progressive psych and tough guy punk cut up with Shepard’s dark, misanthropic worldview. The fidelity is basement perfect and the tracks run from creepy answering machine messages to charged sci-fi jams with tape F/X, fuzz and phasing, channelling aspects of The Velvet Underground, Hawkwind and Simply Saucer. Indeed, the atmosphere is perhaps closest to Simply Saucer’s epochal Cyborgs Revisited, that same feel of isolated experimentation in the wasteland of the early-70s. The songs are as beautifully stupe as anything on the Stalk-Forrest Group LP and the covers – Be Bop Deluxe’s “Fair Exchange”, Lou Reed’s “The Bed” – are mainlined straight from the source. It’s staggering to think that two decades later Shepard would be sharing stages and labels with The Dead C, a testament to the profound reach of his primitive psych vision. This is one of the key founding documents of modern underground music, flawlessly conceived, massively addictive and singularly fucking weird. Reissue of the year? No question. Highest possible recommendation. (Volcanic Tongue)