Whether he likes it or not, Stephen Malkmus is one of the building blocks of indie rock, an essential strand of DNA that manifests itself in certain choices and attitudes towards music that have dominated the agenda since about 1990 or so. And since the messy dissolution of dear, departed Pavement back in 1999, he has more or less done everything he can to distance himself from that role, picking up his guitar, and soloing long into the 21st century, reinventing himself as a kind of Jerry Garcia for the post-Nirvana age. Which, it might generally be assumed, is a…