With ‘Gimme 5!’ we take a peek into the collections of artists we admire. The premise is simple: artists WE like share five records THEY love.

Last month, singer-songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Alexei Shishkin released his intriguing album Open Door Policy, his second full-length this year. Its twelve bedroom slacker pop songs are idiosyncratic and original, with compelling guitar melodies and poetic lyrics about everyday life. This is exactly the kind of music that makes you wonder what’s going on in the artist’s head, and whether the sources of inspiration you expect are the actual influences – a good reason to inquire whether a contribution to our ‘Gimme 5!’ feature would be possible. You can read the satisfactory answer below.

Alexei Shishkin: “As I pondered what to write for this feature, I had so many conflicting thoughts: “Should I just pick five albums I like? Or five artists who have influenced the album? Is that too basic? What about artists I’ve seen live who I loved? Nah, too hard to narrow down. Max picked five instrumental tracks, maybe I should do something genre-focused? Five jazz tracks? Five super-rare, newly-unearthed, international tracks from the 60s?” 💥😵‍💫

After spiraling for a few minutes, I landed on the easy solution: don’t overthink it. I’m a Pavement fanboy at heart, so why not write what I know? So here we go, folks. Here’re five Pavement tracks that are perfect from start to finish.”

1. Blue Hawaiian
“The first time I ever heard this one I remember doing a double-take. This tune embodies the effortless cool of Pavement better than any other one. You’ve got the wordplay, you’ve got the slack, you’ve got the rhythm section holding it down (but staying loose), you’ve got distortion, you’ve got noises, you’ve got twang, you’ve got (controlled) slop, you’ve got (ragged) shine… it’s everything!”

2. Texas Never Whispers
“In stark contrast to the previous tune, this one kicks off with 20 seconds of grot (albeit melodic grot). It’s Pavement at their most romantically schizophrenic with the wispy whispers, the lackadaisical la-la-la’s, and cryptic turns of phrase. It’s from Watery, Domestic, which was the last time Pavement featured the OG drummer Gray Young, whose unhinged nature (I say that lovingly) often churned the band around, sometimes soaring, and other times scuppering the ship. Watery, Domestic is, in my opinion, the best snapshot of Pavement, and although I could’ve picked any of the four songs to highlight, Texas Never Whispers is what I was feeling today.”

3. Ed Ames (John Peel Session #2)
“By this point in the feature I should let you in on a little secret, dear reader: I could write this piece every single day for the rest of my life, and I would never end up with the same five tunes. So, yes, I’m going a bit off the beaten path here, but stick with me. Ed Ames is gloomy, it’s grim, and frankly, it’s one of the most “serious” Pavement tunes that was ever made, in my opinion. It’s a study in character writing, and when you separate the words from the music, parts of it read like a Brautigan poem. I wish I could write such compelling stuff! Bravo!

4. Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence 
“Gonna keep going here with the more somber-sounding tunes, but don’t fret! The final tune will be a bit more upbeat! This one is so cool in my opinion because it’s basically an homage to R.E.M., before pivoting to a verse about General Sherman’s Atlanta campaign in the Civil War (R.E.M. of course, are from nearby Athens, GA). The final :45 or so are almost an experimental sound-collage of the aforementioned march on Atlanta. While this one is definitely an odd-ball tune, I find it endlessly inspiring that they made songs like this, where they don’t take themselves too seriously and can seamlessly weave seemingly-disparate threads.”

5. Carrot Rope
“Admittedly this is a somewhat divisive and weird one to end it with. The interplay between the different vocalists makes you sit up, the writing is surreal, and the whole tune bounces and floats, but never aimlessly. I don’t really go to Carrot Rope that often, but there’s something symbolic about it: it’s the closing track on the final Pavement album. That album was Terror Twilight from 1999, and a good chunk of fans think it’s their weakest effort. There’s a great documentary about Pavement, Slow Century by Lance Bangs (who also directed the video for Carrot Rope), which is worth watching to see how the band evolved and where they were at for this last album. In a nutshell I think they had grown sick of being in a band and tensions were high. They recorded the album with producer Nigel Godrich, and even though that sort of “overproduced” idea seems to go against the band’s entire ethos, I say: Fuck it. Terror Twilight is a great album.”

Alexei Shishkin’s Open Door Policy is out digitally and on cassette through Candlepin Records / Rue Defense.