When I was fifteen, my sister finally got sick of me stealing her stuff and forced me to start buying my own books and records, even if she already owned them herself. One of the first things I picked up under her new regime was the Thurston Moore-curated book Mix Tape: The Art of Cassette Culture; shaped like a cassette, it’s a collection of peoples’ favourite mixtapes. The tracklists were full of bands I’d never heard of, compiled by people I’d never heard of (and Mike Watt, who I swear is turning into the US indie scene’s equivalent of Stuart Maconie). The main thing that caught my eye, though, was a tape made by a guy named Dean Wareham for his two bandmates, as “a recipe of ingredients for Galaxie 500.” On it were tracks by Jonathan Richman, Moe Tucker from the Velvet Underground, the Soft Boys, Joy Division and Mission of Burma, amongst others ”“ it looked painfully cool, the backstory that went with it was fascinating, and it inspired me to compulsively make mixtapes any time I formed a band.Anyway, this being a review and not an autobiography, I’ll get down to business. Galaxie 500’s music was minimalist in all respects ”“ simple drums, winding basslines that followed their own path through the songs, guitars that adopted the mantra “three chords good, two chords better” ”“ but somehow manages to inhabit its own territory. These three albums are too restrained and calm to be shoegaze, too straight to be psychedelic, too together to be sit alongside Beat Happening; I personally hear shades of Low and Yo La Tengo, but that could be down to my narrow mind, and all three bands’ boy/boy/girl line-up.If you need some kind of breakdown, here it is: Today is the pop one, Thurston Moore’s favourite guitar album of 1988, and less a collection of songs than dreamy jingles. There are barely any choruses, but the tracks on this album are the ones most likely to get stuck in your head. ‘Tugboat’ and the stupid-ass anthem ‘King of Spain’ are still stone cold classics, and ‘Oblivious’ pretty much invents Hefner. Though, occasionally, the band’s variations on the chords G, D and C get somewhat dull. Their gifted way with other people’s material took an early peak with their definitive version of the Modern Lovers’ ‘Don’t Let Our Youth Go to Waste’ ”“ seven minutes, one chord and one of the most captivatingly unpredictable vocal melodies ever committed to tape. Put it on a mixtape for the girl/boy of your dreams and watch them melt in a puddle at your feet.Second album On Fire doesn’t stray too far from Today’s blueprint, and consequently finds the band treading water. The falsetto chorus of ‘Tell Me’ is still one of the band’s most haunting hooks, and the slow-building anthemics of ‘Another Day’ are nothing short of breathtaking, but generally the pace rarely moves beyond sluggish. Still, the image on ‘Strange’ of Wareham eating a Twinkie remains one of their most endearing moments.This Is Our Music mixes humour (try the opening line of ‘Fourth of July’ ”“ “I wrote a poem on a dog biscuit...and your dog refused to look at it”) and bluster, as on the mock-guitar-heroics which close Yoko Ono cover ‘Listen, the Snow Is Falling’, while unofficial fourth Galaxie member Kramer’s production flourishes ”“ strings! flutes! atmospheric synth type stuff! ”“ serve the songs far better than they should. It’s the epic one, the album where they seem to know exactly what they’re doing here, for what might have been the first time in their career. Unfortunately, it would also be their last record, but what a way to go.Although none of these three albums quite merit classic status, those yet to subject themselves to the Galaxie 500 experience should definitely investigate these reissues. So kudos to my sister for making me buy my own stuff; and, more importantly, kudos to the good folks at Domino for giving everyone else an excuse to rediscover a band whose music still sounds as precautious and precocious as ever.