“Kitchen” is utterly barren: just a lonely vocal from Stephen Immerwahr over a gentle acoustic guitar. According to the band’s guitarist, John Engle, “‘Kitchen’ is the earliest material on the box set, written not long after Stephen moved to NYC in 1987. He performed the song a couple of times before an audience, and recorded it later that year.” The song is no less powerful for its relative minimalism — the band’s seminal sad-/slow-core is as gorgeous and bleak here as it is anywhere else in their essential catalog. [Source]
New Music United 