Bivouac is the second studio album by American punk rock band Jawbreaker, released through Tupelo Recording Company and The Communion Label on December 1, 1992. While promoting their debut album, Unfun (1990), on a ten-week tour of the United States, the band had new material that they wished to work on through their shows. They ended up breaking up after the tour's conclusion, though they later regrouped in 1991 to write new songs. From June 1991, they wrote material and practiced several times a week in the lead-up to recording sessions in October 1991. The sessions were held at Razor's Edge in San Francisco, California, with Jawbreaker, Billy Anderson, Mike Morasky, and Jonathan Burnside all getting producer credit. Categorized as an emo, punk rock, and pop-punk release, it had elements of the work of Helmet, Naked Raygun, and early Smashing Pumpkins, and took influence from the Midwestern and Washington, D.C. post-punk scenes.
Bivouac was met with favorable reviews from music critics, many of whom praised its varied sound, while others commented on the change of direction from Unfun. In the lead-up to Bivouac release, "Chesterfield King" was released in May 1992, which was promoted with a US East Coast tour. After a few months, frontman Blake Schwarzenbach started suffering from throat issues; while touring in Europe, he underwent surgery in London to remove a polyp that had formed on his vocal cords. He returned to singing five days later and had a break in his voice, which had shifted two octaves higher. Bivouac was reissued through drummer Adam Pfahler's label, Blackball Records, in 2012 and has since been re-pressed on vinyl twice. The album has been seen as an important release for the emo genre by LA Weekly and Spin, while "Chesterfield King" has been included on a list of the 100 best pop-punk songs by Cleveland.com.
Background
Jawbreaker released their debut studio album, Unfun, in May 1990 through Shredder Records, which was promoted with a ten-week tour of North America.Givony 2020, p. 29 During it, vocalist and guitarist Blake Schwarzenbach said that they had new material that they wanted to work on through their live performances. This contrasted their previous working method of recording songs as soon as they finished them. Bassist Chris Bauermeister enjoyed the touring experience but noted that it was a strain on the personal relationships between themselves. It reached a point where he was not talking to drummer Adam Pfahler and Schwarzenbach. While the tour helped establish the band on the national punk touring circuit, the tensions saw them break up upon returning home. After this, Bauermeister and Schwarzenbach returned to New York University, which was followed by several months without communication. During this period, Bauermeister attended a show at CBGB and started a conversation with an attendee. The person was disappointed that Jawbreaker had broken up, which was the first that Bauermeister had heard of this news and the first time since their tour that he had thought of the band in general. In December 1990, Bauermeister completed his bachelor's degree, with Schwarzenbach getting his some months afterwards.Givony 2020, p. 30
After coaxing from their friends, Bauermeister and Schwarzenbach reconnected and decided to work on the band again.Givony 2020, pp. 30–1 With education finished, the trio relocated to the Mission District of San Francisco, California, in mid-1991 to write new material.Givony 2020, p. 31 Upon moving, the music taste of the members revolved around Government Issue, Nirvana, and the Pixies.Boulware; Tudor 2009, p. 372 The rent in this area was low and allowed the members to immerse themselves in the location's like-minded artists and musicians. They all lived in the same building with Pfahler and Schwarzenbach in one room and Bauermeister in the room opposite with their roadie Raul Reyes and Lance Hahn of Cringer.Ozzi 2022, p. 41 Following this, they played 25 shows in local areas,Givony 2020, p. 33 alongside the likes of punk bands Econochrist, Green Day, and Samiam. Jawbreaker was soon adopted by the music scene in the Bay Area of San Francisco, making themselves known amongst the readers of punk zine Maximum Rocknroll, evolving into staples of punk venues in the area. Jawbreaker initially was placed halfway into bills upwards of six bands until the growth of their audience saw them play headlining gigs in Berkeley, Los Angeles, and Sacramento, California, in addition to Seattle, Washington.
Development and recording Journalist Dan Ozzi, in his book Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore 1994–2007 (2021), said they stood out from the local pop-punk acts and the roster of Berkeley label Lookout Records as the members were a bit "older, a little more collegiate. They had degrees in philosophy, history, English literature, whereas many in the scene were high school students or dropouts." Ozzi also said Jawbreaker's initial time in the Bay Area coincided with the conclusion of a period of integrity for independently made rock music. He explained that upon the release of Nevermind by Nirvana in September 1991, it became an immediate commercial success. As a result, the music industry's interest in independent artists was magnified considerably. Pfahler said major labels started becoming interested in Jawbreaker that year; they received letters from two labels, who wanted to hear a demo tape from them, which the members promptly ignored.Ozzi 2022, p. 42 The majority of the tracks that ended up on their next album were written between June and September 1991.
Jawbreaker practiced several times a week at a rehearsal space in Tenderloin, San Francisco, leading up to recording sessions in October 1991.Givony 2020, pp. 33–4 They recorded at Razor's Edge in San Francisco, California; they picked the studio as they were aware of other acts that had recorded there. The basic tracks of drums, bass, and guitar were recorded in a three- or four- day period. Producer Jonathan Burnside was involved in these early sessions for only a day until he left the project, leaving it mainly to producer and engineer Billy Anderson. Anderson was previously an acquaintance and a fan of the band, knowing the members from the San Francisco scene. Though Mike Morasky is credited as a producer, Anderson said he took on an engineering role. After a week's break, overdubbing commenced over two or three days. Anderson estimated that the sessions had cost the band under $5,000. They mixed the majority of the songs in the midst of the Oakland Hills fire, which they were unaware of until late in the day. "Ache" was recorded during the sessions but was ultimately left unmixed when the track listing was being finalized.Givony 2020, p. 45 The band, Anderson, Mike Morasky, and Burnside were all credited as engineers and producers. George Horn mastered the album at Fantasy Studios, located in Berkeley, California.
Composition and lyrics Overview Musically, the sound of Bivouac has been described as emo, punk rock, and pop-punk,Beaujon 1999, p. 148 with elements of the work of Helmet, Naked Raygun, and early Smashing Pumpkins. In his 33 1/3 book 24 Hour Revenge Therapy (2018) on the band, Ronen Givony said it was "slower, heavier, and gloomier in every way" compared to Unfun. He explained that Bivouac was a "set of sprawling, complex, deep-sea epics; angry, paranoid howls of despair; mournful, world-weary funeral dirges; and vivid, multipart revenge fantasies". Schwarzenbach equated the album's sound to the work of Bob Mould, Mike Ness of Social Distortion, Evan Dando of the Lemonheads, Sinéad O'Connor, Guy Picciotto of Fugazi, and Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum.Givony 2020, p. 35 Kyle Ryan of The A.V. Club wrote that the band took influence from the Midwestern and Washington, D.C. post-punk scenes with the "angular rhythms, propulsive bass, noisy guitars, and a pronounced dark streak." Schwarzenbach and Hahn talked about writing songs often; Hahn and the rest of Jawbreaker hung out and listened to music together, which Schwarzenbach said found its way into their songs.
The Free Lance–Star writer Brendan Fitzgerald said it was a lyrically "dark and aggressive" album that conveys "faithlessness and despair, punctuated with plateaus of romantic rejoicing". Andy Greenwald, author of Nothing Feels Good: Punk Rock, Teenagers, and Emo (2003), wrote that the lyrics were taken from Schwarzenbach's diaries, which saw the focus shift towards him: "The attraction then was to the songwriter; it wasn't the song that the listeners related to, it was the singer".Greenwald 2003, p. 21 In contrast to the band's later releases, which were entirely written by Schwarzenbach, Bivouac has been described as Jawbreaker's "most collaborative" album. The lyrics to "Sleep", "P.S. New York Is Burning", and "Like a Secret" were written by Bauermeister, while "Parabola" was a collaborative effort between all three band members.Givony 2020, p. 36 Narrative samples are heard in three of the album's tracks, namely "Donatello", "Like a Secret", and "Bivouac";Ryan 2002, p. 148 Pfahler said the instrumental sections that the samples were laid over were influenced by Bitch Magnet and Sonic Youth. Author Andrew Earles wrote in his book Gimme Indie Rock: 500 Essential American Underground Rock Albums 1981–1996 (2014) that the members of Jawbreaker learned this via their contemporaries in Steel Pole Bath Tub. The album's title, Bivouac, was taken from the sample used in "Bivouac", which was from a nature documentary on ant colonies.Givony 2020, p. 34 Pfahler explained that the narrator discusses bivouacs: "temporary encampments that the ants build out of their living bodies to protect the queen. We thought it apt, as our move to S.F. felt a bit like a bivouac".Givony 2020, pp. 34–5
Tracks A re-recorded version of "Shield Your Eyes" starts Bivouac, fading in after 15 seconds of droning. An earlier version of it had been included on a various-artist compilation that their previous label, Shredder Records, had released in 1989.Givony 2020, p. 23 The song describes a person choosing to stare at a sidewalk instead of looking directly at the sun to risk going blind. In the feedback-laden "Big", a wordsmith finds himself incapable of discussing his emotions. "Chesterfield King" sees the narrator contemplating loving someone; he describes an encounter with a homeless woman at a 7-Eleven. Arin Keeble, in his piece on Jawbreaker collected in The Routledge Companion to Music and Modern Literature (2022), said it delivered a short story that recalled the realistic edge of writers such as Alice Munro and Raymond Carver.Keeble 2022, p. 399 Mischa Pearlman of Louder said after this exchange, he "pits the folly and freedom of youth against the experience and wisdom of age, while also confronting the human mortality head on". With "Donatello", a creative process is employed as an analogy for a doomed relationship; it is followed by the art punk track "Face Down".