Most of Stephen Malkmus’ newest solo effort, Wig Out at Jagbags, sounds like 70s guitar-rock rendered as some kind of ergonomic desk toy: compact, brightly colored, unlikely to stir the depths of the soul but nifty nevertheless. He’s never resisted age but has never seemed younger. By now, Stephen Malkmus has released more music as a solo artist than he did with his old band wigs for women with alopecia chicago. This might surprise people like me, who given a few beers and a tolerant audience will still lapse into vague, sentimental reminiscences about seeing Pavement in late 1999, a few weeks before Malkmus got onstage in Brixton with handcuffs around his mic stand, telling the audience—in a rare moment of disclosure—that the cuffs were a symbol. This, it turns out, is how a poet breaks up a band.