Television – Marquee Moon – MoFi Ultradisc 180g 45RPM 2LP Box Set

Television’s Marquee Moon reimagines guitar rock in such original, pioneering ways that critics and fans still struggle to describe its essence five decades after its original release. Made after the band cut its teeth for four years amid New York’s thriving arts scene, the 1977 album blends the inimitable interplay of guitarists Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd; spontaneous and precise approaches; and winding arrangements that draw as much from classical, jazz, and psychedelia as the punk ethos to which the album is often linked.

Available as a 45RPM edition for the first time, Marquee Moon reaches a new sonic pinnacle on Mobile Fidelity’s UltraDisc One-Step 180g 2LP box set. Strictly limited to 3,000 numbered copies and pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing in California, this deluxe reissue of the effort Pitchfork named the third greatest of the entire 1970s plays with incredible detail, dynamics, and definition. The presence, emotionalism, warmth, and dimensionality of the textures alone make this premium reissue a treat for both listeners who know the record inside-out and for audiophiles embarking on Television’s incomparable journeys for perhaps the first time.

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab’s deluxe, industry-leading packaging adds to the set’s desirability and collectibility. Housed in a gorgeous slipcase, it features foil-stamped jackets and faithful-to-the-original graphics. This keepsake is for those who want to immerse themselves in everything involved with the Marquee Moon — from the now-iconic front cover depicting a Xeroxed color print of a Robert Mapplethorpe photo of the quartet to the rear image showcasing what Verlaine described as a “weird spirally shape” that visually captures the inertia, vibe, and patterns of the songs.

So distinctive are Television’s styles, arrangements, and chemistry that producer Andy Johns repeatedly had to ask Verlaine and company about their aesthetic. Recording in a small room at A & R Studios, a space selected due to its resemblance to what the band used to rehearse, Johns initially recoiled from the retro setup complete with an all-tube board. Johns also misread Television’s desire for a dry sound at odds with the big, meaty acoustic that carried the day. He spent a day working on the drum kit to engineer effects in line with those he’d achieved with Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. Only to tear it apart once Television expressed a desire for a basic, reverb-free perspective.

You can hear that direct, focused, straight-line sound like never before here, and how it illustrates the clean contours, tones, and shapes of every note committed to tape. And how it relates to the relatively minimal overdubs (piano, vocals) the band laid down after barely a week of main sessions with Johns, whose fanciest implementation involved swinging a vintage microphone like a lasso over his head as Lloyd double-tracked the solo to “Elevation.”

Johns returned a few months later to mix. By that point, his take on Marquee Moon had shifted from arms-length curiosity to wholesale adoration. His change of heart is easy to understand. It would dovetail with the opinions of nearly everyone who spent time with the strange, beautiful, seemingly contradictory record shortly after it hit in early 1977. Few albums of that era — as well as any before or since — combine such high-wire technical prowess, back-to-basics architecture, jam-band improvisation, narrative mysticism, delicate finesse, hook-laden catchiness, and excess-free exploration.

Another principal reason Marquee Moon remains distinctive? Verlaine’s playing and lyrics, sure, but also his interests and background. Unlike archetypal guitar heroes, let alone first-wave punk practitioners, he first fell in love with classical music before gravitating to jazz and the saxophone. Having changed his last name to honor that of the 19th century French poet, Verlaine prized responsiveness and intricacy over density, speed, and volume. He recognized that fills, harmonics, and accents allowed for as many if not more opportunities for communicative colors and commentaries as solos do.

Verlaine’s incisive ingenuity, discipline, and feel emerge throughout Marquee Moon, and are part and parcel of the impressionistic six-string dialogues with Lloyd. Their push-and-pull subverts expectations and creates new, hard-to-decipher languages strung together with vocabularies comprised of wondrous melodies, modes, bridges, scales, vamps, and tunings. Lloyd would aptly describe the duo’s results as analogous to putting together pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. The pair’s exploratory vision and economical nature further accounts for why Marquee Moon defies age and trends.

As do the hands-off, syncopated rhythms generated by bassist Fred Smith and jazz-based drummer Billy Ficca. Akin to their mates, each are dialed-in from the extended period of woodshedding Television enjoyed before hitting the studio. Together, the four members achieve blends of virtuosic tightness, chromatism, expressionism, and moodiness that exist in gray areas between garage rock, punk, prog, and free-jazz disciplines. No wonder Marquee Moon proved a major influence on the new wave, experimental rock, art pop, and so-called “alt rock” subgenres that followed.

Allergic to bombast, repetition, and convention, all eight songs function as individual highlight reels that simultaneously feed an inter-related, organic whole. And yet everything revolves around the epic title track, Ranked by Rolling Stone as the 173rd Greatest Song of All Time, it’s distinguished by a a double-stop guitar intro, dramatic jam section, and a climactic coda that encapsulates what makes Television unique — and Marquee Moon a landmark of conception, composition, and execution.