This morning, Pitchfork tapped Chris Knox for their 5-10-15-20 series, in which musicians reveal what they were listening to from age five onward. Knox, the New Zealand impresario behind the brilliant pop experimentalists the Tall Dwarfs, suffered a stroke last year. Until this moment I had heard varying accounts of his condition, but the interview makes it painfully clear that he is not recovered. The selections here follow a familiar Rolling Stone-esque path before settling into a friends-and-family pattern, and about which Knox provides monosyllabic responses to leading questions.

Knox was one of the most significant figures in underground pop music in the late eighties and nineties, and his work continued to be exploratory and compelling through a lengthy solo career. Accompanying the Pitchfork piece is “Sign The Dotted Line,” a tune from the 1990 Dwarfs record Weeville, as covered by Jeff Mangnum (Netural Milk Hotel). It appears to promote Stroke, a Merge Records fundraising tribute to Knox featuring Stephin Merritt, Yo La Tengo, Lou Barlow, Mountain Goats, The Chills, the late Jay Reatard, and many others.

Tall Dwarfs
“The Slide”
“Nothing’s Going To Happen”

Chris Knox
“Half-Man, Half-Mole”
“My Dumb Luck”