The sound of guitars being punched. Amps humming. Bottles breaking everywhere. Strange currencies rising and dropping, creating a soundscape that suggests so much. Bunny gets paid? What?

Red Red Meat’s third and best release, Bunny Gets Paid, a record released in 1995 on Sub Pop Records and out of print for almost a decade, is secretly one of the most experimental rock albums of the '90s. It’s an album that Sub Pop’s owners have said is “easily one of the high points of the entire Sub Pop catalog.” And they’re right. Meat’s key member, singer/guitarist Tim Rutili, went on to form Califone, a band Jeff Tweedy cited as an inspiration for Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. I never personally heard too much of a Tweedy/Rutili connection until Bunny hit my ears. Now I get it. Bunny Gets Paid is a younger, drunker, meaner version of the Wilco classic. There’s a danger to this sound. Now, after years of talk, Sub Pop finally made good on their promise to remaster and reissue this wild - and largely unknown - gem. They’ve added a disc of extras, some nice packaging and a slightly tweaked sound, but that’s not the draw here. The initial set is all you need.

The first time I heard Bunny I was nightwalking through a bustling area of a big city, headphones loud. So many strange things happening - both in my ears and in front of my eyes - over a solid palate of fuzzy guitars, sonic humming and shouldn’t-be-singing-but-am post-Stipeian mumbles. At one point I heard an opera singer lingering in the background, only to later realize that I’d walked by an opera house with an intercom. Still, it wouldn’t have surprised me to hear this. This expertly produced (though still pretty lo-fi) indie rock classic is full of so many sounds that each listen promises a new discovery. Keyboards fall from the sky while an out-of-tune acoustic guitar gets assaulted and Rutili lets words stumble out of his marble mouth. Don’t clear your throat, Tim, keep on going. And don’t candle your ears, listener, it’s supposed to sound this way.

Opener “Carpet of Horses” could easily be a Wilco b-side from 2002. The song, broken and beautiful, is so subtle in its detail that it comes off as one of the best-executed audible messes you’ll find. Strange sonic humming swells and drops while distant percussion holds everything together. Rutili sings words that seem hardly connected while his band empties bottles on tape. By the time “Rosewood, Stax, Volts and Glitter” kicks in, the listener has no idea what to expect. A post-grunge band arrives, now breaking those bottles with every note, playing as if the end result matters no more than their current buzz. And that’s why it works: Red Red Meat weren’t “going for broke” on Bunny, they were broke. Poor and fractured. Talking about bunnies getting paid, or something.

By 1995, the promise of a Nirvana-like breakthrough had passed for these guys. Music was already changing and the Meat - once touted as an up-and-coming grunge outfit - was being left behind. So what did they do? They made a classic that I’m sure they figured very few folks would care to hear. This is extreme music - a dizzying collection of ideas that feels too loose to actually work. But it does work. One of the true cult classic records of the '90s, Bunny Gets Paid is a must-hear. You may not dig Rutili’s vocals or the seemingly disorganized nature of the band’s compositions, but hang in there, ears. If you can listen to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or even recent Sonic Youth, then you can listen to - and enjoy - Bunny’s madness. Four listens in and you’ll feel like someone just kicked you in the ears. If you’re lucky, you’ll never hear the same again. Any record that can do that to you is worth hearing.