Additional personnel: Doug Easley (pedal steel guitar, whistling); Dan Mackta (Wurlitzer piano); Andra Sherman (triangle); Davis McCain (noise).

Producers: Doug Easley, Davis McCain, Silver Jews.

Engineers: Doug Easley, Davis McCain, Silver Jews.

Recorded at Easley Recording, Memphis, Tennessee in June 1994.

Personnel: David Berman (vocals, guitar, piano, percussion); Doug Easley (whistling, steel guitar); Stephen Malkmus (guitar, piano, percussion, background vocals); Dan Mackta (Wurlitzer organ); Bob Nastanovich (synthesizer, drums, percussion, background vocals); Steve West (drums, percussion, background vocals); Andra Sherman (triangle).

Recording information: Easley Recording, Memphis, TN (06/1994).

Photographer: Billy Smith .

Unknown Contributor Role: Davis McCain.

Starlite Walker is a first for the Silver Jews on many levels. Not only is it the group's first full-length album, it's also the first recorded in a full-fledged studio -- Memphis' 24-track Easley Recordings -- as well as the first collection of songs penned almost entirely by Berman. The album's lyrical and musical richness comes partly from Berman's retreat to the woods of Oxford, MS in preparation for the record, and partly from the understated, intimate production. As a result, Starlite Walker collects some of the Jews' most diverse and affecting songs. Wry lyrics like "I just got back from a dream attack" from "Trains Across the Sea" and "On the last day of your life/Don't forget to die" from "Advice to the Graduate" let Berman's easygoing charm come to the front, while jangly and crunchy guitars, Malkmus' backing vocals, and Nastanovich's steady drumming punctuate his observations.

Though Starlite Walker is a more low-key, reflective affair than the Silver Jews' EPs, the album benefits from it, combining the laid-back experimentalism of the Jews' early work with more sophisticated and expressive songwriting. "Advice to the Graduate" and "New Orleans" turn from humorous to poignant with a simple chord change; "Rebel Jew" draws on the group's affection for country music; and instrumentals like "The Moon is Number 18" and "The Silver Pageant" add to the relaxed, homespun feel of the album. Repeated listening just enhances Starlite Walker's warm, off-the-cuff appeal. ~ Heather Phares

David Berman and Stephen Malkmus, the principal Silver Jews, met at the University of Virginia in the late '80s, around the same time Malkmus was flying home to California on vacations and starting Pavement. The Silver Jews' first two EPs shared Pavement's noise-straddled, lo-fi aesthetic; on them, the Jews sounded like a scaled-back, literary Pavement. (Pavement, in turn, took on the Silver Jews' sense of lyrical exploration, and has continued traveling down that road deep into its career.) STARLITE WALKER is the Jews' first proper album, and it benefits from Pavement's concurrent emergence as an indie-rock powerhouse. Pavement boys Steve West and Bob Nastanovich come aboard with real percussion and quaint touches like pedal steel guitar and toy piano, giving the Silver Jews a wider musical scope than previously attempted (to go along with studio production that adds miles and miles of clarity).

But even as the Jews' country-rock tunage and offhanded rock references echo the "end of an era" calls of Pavement's CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED RAIN, Berman steers the songs toward thematic waters that aren't quite so pronounced. His songs have a novelistic flow, with meanings cast behind lyrical stories full of historical detail and rhymes that spin out of easy control. He seems to be playing the part of Robbie Robertson to Malkmus' Bob Dylan.