CODEINE

After a brief European tour in 2023—including sold-out shows in London and Paris—and more recent performances in South America and Japan, 90s band Codeine returns for a dozen shows in support of their lost album Dessau. Recorded in 1992 and released recently by the archival label Numero Group, Dessau comes alongside remastered vinyl of Codeine’s original Sub Pop/Glitterhouse records.

These shows mark Codeine’s first-ever appearances in Türkiye, Sweden, and Norway, as well as first-ever performances in cities in Belgium, France, Germany, and Italy.

Slowcore pioneers: Dessau and the sound of an era

With the release of Frigid Stars LP (1990), Codeine almost single-handedly invented what would later become known as “slowcore.” Predating influential albums by kindred spirits Low and Duster by half a decade, Codeine’s slow, graceful songs support lyrics described as a disturbingly gentle embodiment of depression and disassociation.

About Dessau

Dessau was recorded in June 1992 at Harold Dessau Recording studio in New York City with founding drummer/guitarist Chris Brokaw. The album consists of alternate versions of songs later re-recorded for their Barely Real EP and The White Birch—the latter featuring drummer Doug Scharin (Rex/June of 44).

Numero Group resurrected the Dessau recordings, now released with the original planned artwork: a turbulent blue-green painting by American tonalist Thomas Wilmer Dewing.

“Dessau arguably stands as the best of Codeine's three albums, a perfect snapshot of the existential anxiety that can arrive in one's late 20s, when adolescence fades far into the rearview, but the future is closing in fast.” - Grayson Haver Currin/Bandcamp

Stephen Immerwahr on returning

“I was very reluctant to play again, afraid to breathe life into these songs again. But talking to people who hadn't seen the band back then and to whom the music means a lot has absolutely changed my mind, not just about playing but also about what music is actually for. And we've been honored by the response to our shows, with even people singing along! So I want to bring that new focus and understanding to these shows now.” - Stephen Immerwahr

Press highlights

• The New Yorker (USA, 2023): “Listen to Stephen Immerwahr's dour poetry, John Engle's tolling guitars, and Chris Brokaw's glacial drumming, and picture falling snow. The sound, which typified the slowcore indie-rock sub-genre, is so chilling, precise, and beguilingly extreme -- shy, then crashing -- that it recalibrates the vast spaces around each inquisitive note. It becomes an exploration of tone and tension, and a desolate meditation.”
• Dansende Beren (BEL, 2023): “Codeine kwam van ver en overspoelde ons met verleden: dikke bassen en mooie woorden uit 1992 vonden hun weg naar fans van toen en jonge nektapijten van nu. De wijze woorden en authentieke emotie van Dessau zijn dertig jaar oud, maar kennen klaarblijkelijk geen houdbaarheidsdatum. Meer nog, ze lijken extra te resoneren bij een resem gen Z'ers, nog niet geboren toen in 1992, maar gisteren wel op de eerste rij. Leve Codeine, leve de traagheid.”
• New York Times (USA, 2012): “Codeine has some antecedents, from Pink Floyd and Neil Young --- Mr. Immerwahr shares his high-tenor register --- to the arty post-punk of bands like MX-80, but it forged its own sound. Its songs start out quiet and sparse, only to gather volume and gravity, crashing and tolling, yet somehow staying austere, even diffident. They crest and then fall away, often with a lingering instrumental coda, ending up no more fulfilled than they were as they began. The music was grunge's withdrawn, desolate cousin. The era's preferred suffix was '-core,' so Codeine was tagged 'slowcore' and 'sadcore,' mini-genres that would be continued by bands like Low and Red House Painters after Codeine disbanded.”
• Libération (FRA, 2023): “Certaines chansons vous touchent, d'autres vous ouvrent en deux, vous démolissent, vous connectent sans effort et dans une ligne pure, avec ce qu'il existe de plus vulnérable en vous. Les chansons de Codeine font partie de cette catégorie et c'est d'autant plus impressionnant qu'elles semblent ne reposer sur rien. Des complaintes vidées de tout, qui semblent surgir de mers pétrifiées, jouées dans un silence profond, comme celui d'une crevasse au fond d'un glacier. Toute l'intensité du punk comprimée et ralentie jusqu'à se désintégrer. Du hardcore dont on aurait gardé le volume et l'amplitude mais ôté toute l'agitation, réduit à un long embrasement contemplatif.”
• The Guardian (UK, 2023): “Codeine's deliberate pace suited songs freighted with Immerwahr's angst. 'My emotional state, my disassociation from others, was the core of it,' he admits. But this music was emotional without the histrionics of grunge. 'It was a reaction to that Eddie Vedder style of singing. What suited these songs, my own lived experience, was something smaller, something anti-epic.' Possessed of a simmering power, their 1990 debut album Frigid Stars LP was championed in the UK by John Peel.”