Vinyl Record

R.E.M. - Fables Of The Reconstruction

R.E.M. - Fables Of The Reconstruction on LP vinyl. A 1985 record available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel, Ireland.

LP · 1985

Available from Kilmorna Collection in Listowel.

Buyer notes: 1985 LP, currently available from the Kilmorna Collection vinyl shelf. Pay for pickup in Listowel or ship within Ireland for EUR 5.50.

Fables Of The Reconstruction is R.E.M.'s 1985 third album, the one where the Athens jangle becomes murkier, older and more Southern-gothic in shape. Recorded in England with producer Joe Boyd, it catches the band away from home and folds that displacement into the sound. Feeling Gravitys Pull opens with a darker gravity than Murmur or Reckoning had suggested; Maps And Legends, Driver 8, Life And How To Live It, Old Man Kensey and Green Grow The Rushes turn fragments of character, region, rumour and travel into songs that feel half-remembered and half-invented. The album has often been heard as difficult because it refuses the clean lift of Reckoning, but that difficulty is exactly why it matters. In 1985, R.E.M. were becoming one of the key American underground bands, and Fables gave that rise a shadowed mythos rather than a simple escalation. It sounds like rail lines, humid rooms, local legends and homesickness filtered through post-punk restraint. The title's reversible logic fits the music: reconstruction and fable keep changing places.

Fables Of The Reconstruction matters because it complicated R.E.M.'s early identity before the band moved toward louder clarity on Lifes Rich Pageant. It made their Southern sense of place stranger, darker and more narrative, deepening the mythology around the I.R.S. years.

For collectors, Fables Of The Reconstruction is a key early R.E.M. title precisely because it is not the easiest one. It belongs beside Murmur, Reckoning and Lifes Rich Pageant as the brooding middle chapter where the band's folk, post-punk and regional imagination became more mysterious.

Murkier early R.E.M. with tangled guitars, folk-rock undertow, Southern-gothic imagery, post-punk restraint, train-song motion, homesick vocals and shadowed melodic pull.

Recommended for: Collectors building the I.R.S.-era R.E.M. run; Listeners drawn to darker college-rock records with regional atmosphere; Fans of Driver 8, Feeling Gravitys Pull and Maps And Legends.

When was Fables Of The Reconstruction released? Fables Of The Reconstruction was released in 1985 as R.E.M.'s third studio album. Who produced Fables Of The Reconstruction? The album was produced by Joe Boyd, and its sessions away from Athens helped shape its darker, displaced mood. Which songs are central to Fables Of The Reconstruction? Feeling Gravitys Pull, Maps And Legends, Driver 8, Life And How To Live It and Old Man Kensey are central to the album's character.