Pitchfork

It seems like the late 80s and early 90s are littered with great indie/college rock bands awaiting rediscovery in the aughts.

Just last year, Matador rescued Chavez from semi-obscurity by reissuing the band's entire catalog with a few bonus tracks and videos. Next year, Merge will do much the same for Big Dipper, the Boston band that released two albums (Heavens and Craps) and an EP (Boo-Boo) on the respected Homestead label.

The Merge release is a three-CD set of remastered tunes called called Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology, and it comes out on March 18. It includes all three of the band's Homestead releases, nine bonus tracks, a video, and an entire previously unreleased album of recordings from Big Dipper's latter days titled A Very Loud Array.

All of the songs on Supercluster were remastered from the original tapes, and the set also includes liner notes with historical/biographical info from the members of Big Dipper themselves. In fact, just about the only thing that the anthology doesn't cover is the band's 1990 Epic/CBS album Slam.

To celebrate their re-entry into the indie public's consciousness, Big Dipper's original lineup will reunite for some East Coast shows in April (exact dates TBA), with the potential for Midwest gigs to follow.

Supercluster: The Big Dipper Anthology:

Disc one:

01 Faith Healer
02 San Quentin, CA
03 What in Sam Hill...?
04 Wrong in the Charts
05 Ancers
06 Loch Ness Monster
07 She's Fetching
08 Man O' War
09 Easter Eve
10 Humason
11 Lunar Module
12 All Going Out Together
13 Younger Bums
14 When Men Were Trains
15 Wet Weekend
16 Mr. Woods
17 Faith Healer [video]

Disc two:

01 Meet the Witch
02 Ron Claus Wrecked His House
03 The Insane Girl
04 Semjase
05 Stardom Because
06 Bonnie
07 Hey! Mr. Lincoln
08 Bells of Love
09 A Song to Be Beautiful
10 Golden Shame
11 Lou Gehrig's Disease
12 You're Not Patsy
13 San Quentin, CA
14 Which Would You Rather?
15 He Is God
16 Guitar Named Desire
17 Ron Klaus Demo'd His House
18 Life Inside the Cemetery

Disc three (A Very Loud Array):

01 Wake Up the King
02 Edith
03 The Beast
04 Restaurant Cloud
05 Missing Time
06 Beginning of the End
07 Lifetime Achievement Award
08 Dead River
09 Silentium
10 Approach of a Human Being
11 Mineral Man
12 The Ghost of Emily
13 Winsor Dam
14 Nowhere to Put My Love
15 Extraordinary Worm