Upgrade & Afterlife
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| Upgrade & Afterlife | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | June 17, 1996 | |||
| Studio |
| |||
| Genre | ||||
| Length | 49:12 | |||
| Label | Drag City | |||
| Gastr del Sol chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| AllMusic |   [1] |
| Alternative Press | 5/5[2] |
| NME | 4/10[3] |
Upgrade & Afterlife is the fourth studio album by American post-rock band Gastr del Sol, released on June 17, 1996, by Drag City.[4]
The album cover is a photograph, Wasserstiefel (Water Boots) by Swiss artist Roman Signer.[5]
Pitchfork writer Nitsuh Abebe characterized Upgrade & Afterlife as a post-rock album where "folk and avant-garde abstract each other into something warm, minimal, and slanted".[6]
"Our Exquisite Replica of "Eternity"" contains a sample of the score from the 1957 science fiction film The Incredible Shrinking Man.[7] The title of the track is derived from the name of a cheap perfume marketed in public bathroom vending machines.[7]
"Dry Bones in the Valley (I Saw the Light Come Shining 'Round and 'Round)" is a cover of a John Fahey song, and features Tony Conrad on violin. According to David Grubbs, the idea of having Conrad play on "Dry Bones in the Valley" came to fruition after a Gastr del Sol show in Atlanta, where Grubbs observed Conrad "literally dancing with excitement" while Jim O'Rourke played the song alone onstage as an encore.[8]
Several sources misidentify track 3 as "The Sea Uncertain". This title, correctly rendered, appears to refer playfully both to a track on Gastr's previous full-length release titled "The C in Cake" and to one of Gastr percussionist John McEntire's other bands, the Sea and Cake, a moniker derived from McEntire's mishearing of that title.
