Chronicling the earliest years of 90s slowcore pioneers IDAHO, The Devil You Know [1992-1996] is a 4-Album 5-Disc Deluxe Limited Edition Box Set featuring vinyl reissues of the band's long-out-of-print and highly sought-after first three records (originally released on Caroline/Capitol), now lovingly collected by Arts & Crafts with an exclusive bonus box set-only album of hard-to-find material comprised of EPs and 7"s from this seminal era.
Arriving at an apex moment for IDAHO, with the simultaneous release of the career-spanning feature documentary Traces Of Glory – and quickly following LAPSE, IDAHO's celebrated first new album in 13 years – The Devil You Know [1992-1996] preserves an era of a band poised to defy the constricts of expectation, laying the groundwork for their own pathway of rebelliously slow and beautiful music, sustaining IDAHO's everlasting interplay with their particular muse as they churned out album after album after album of singular grit and guttural beauty.
IDAHO are the unsung cult heroes of 90s slowcore led by Laurel Canyon based singer-songwriter Jeff Martin. Though they are grouped amongst post-grunge indie rock pioneers like Low, Songs: Ohia, and Codeine, IDAHO is distinguished by the desert atmospherics of Martin's four string guitar, echoing out his elegant songcraft in a canyon of alien tones and melancholic feedback.
Featuring:
Year After Year (2LP, 1993)
This Way Out (1LP, 1994)
Three Sheets To The Wind (1LP, 1996)
The Devil You Know (Bonus 1LP)
"Because right from first taste, it was that IDAHO had immediately likable yet not simple tunes; ample hooks; sneaky melodies; contemplative parts both loud and quiet without jarring juxtaposition (like Nirvana was then borrowing from The Pixies); subtle squalls of background feedback; singer/songwriter Jeff Martin's laconic vocalizing that nevertheless yielded to deeper passions; and most of all, overall damn-near different, surreptitiously strange guitar tones I couldn't put my finger on..." – Jack Rabid (from The Devil You Know liner notes)
"This monolithic thing that's literally scratching the sky as the sky is going by me. To me, that's the sound, of a guitar moaning with feedback floating in the air cracking the air open as it's sweeping through... Yeah, that's what I think of when I think of IDAHO." – Alan Sparhawk of LOW (from Traces Of Glory documentary)
• 5LP x 180g black vinyl in hardcover slipcase w/ matte coated jackets, 12x12 inserts
• Remastered from the original tapes by Michael Graves at Osiris Studio
• Lacquers cut by Jeff Powell at Take Out Vinyl
• Reimagined album cover artwork by Jonathan Schute
• Liner notes by Brian Long and Jack Rabid