Wilco is exciting because the band seeks to redefine our expectations for it with each record. And their new album, The Whole Love, continues that cycle to often brilliant effect.
The reason it’s constricting to pin Wilco down with definitions is because they are at their best when they pull the rug out from under themselves (and, by extension, us). Opener “Art of Almost” is as jarring as “Misunderstood” or “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart”, but it sounds like no Wilco song you’ve ever heard. It’s a clean break, a move to establish a wholly new landscape for this record, and it works. Orchestral flourishes at the start could recall their lush sound on Summerteeth if they weren’t so shadowy and alien. The song blips and squawks behind the bleary-eyed plea of Tweedy’s voice. But if it feels lost, it finds its footing in the fits and freak-outs of guitar that come in crashing squalls at the end. It’s a distinct shift from other dissonant tunes in the Wilco catalog. This doesn’t devolve; it comes together, searching for its shards and knitting them together into one sharp entity. If The Whole Love marks a change in perspective, it’s in this. Tweedy acknowledges the lonesome feeling that’s followed him around his entire musical career, but here he often debunks it. The excellent “Born Alone”, for example, may rest on the line “I was born to die alone,” but the triumphant roll of guitars that follows it belies that sentiment. This is the sound of unification, not isolation. – Pop Matters
Nirvana began their career with no illusions about their chances for mass success and ended it by seeing just how abrasive a platinum-selling band could get away with being. But when they got their chance at the brass ring, they went at it with a bubblegum band’s canniness, however much Cobain shit on the shiny final product after the fact. Andy Wallace’s radio-ready mix certainly helped sharpen this potentially no-concessions, indie-to-major leap into an obvious commercial proposition. But even if they’d settled on producer Butch Vig’s slightly less slick mixes– made as a reference for the band and identified on the super deluxe edition’s third disc as the “Devonshire mixes”– Nevermind would likely have fared well in the charts, since these early passes aren’t far from Wallace’s infamous high-gloss version. Listening in hindsight, though, they have the woozy effect of feeling just slightly off, leaving you to focus only on what’s missing.
The box set does make clear that Nirvana honed these songs over a long period. Listening to the various sessions leading up to the one that gave us the album we know– especially the nearly unlistenable “boombox” mixes of early demos– you learn very quickly that these songs didn’t arrive perfectly formed in one sustained burst of inspiration. The hours of rehearsals and the expensive time spent tinkering in the studio shaped them into classics. It helped that there are songs on Nevermind that might appeal to people who’ve never heard a hardcore album in their lives, who might have even (gasp!) kinda liked the glossier hard-rock bands whose era largely ended with the rise of grunge. Moving away from the heavy-at-all-costs sound he’d always been both enamored with and suspicious of, Cobain worked diligently on his big hooks and decided to stop smothering his natural melodic gifts under so much self-conscious sludge. – Pitchfork
Trevor Powers, the Boise-based multi-instrumentalist who dream pop-ifies his diary entries into songs as Youth Lagoon, is twenty-two years old. His age is only relevant because his grasp of melody is far beyond his years––he writes songs as timeless and effortless as though they had always existed––but his music simultaneously bears a refreshing, electrifying newness. Powers’ first record as Youth Lagoon is called The Year of Hibernation, which is on one hand rather erroneous a title for such a considered body of work and on the other a perfect match for his bright, nostalgic musical dreamscapes, somewhere at crossroads of lo-fi and chillwave, all fuzzy guitar riffs intertwined with electronic percussion and synth arpeggios.
The product is a sound as intimate as it is expansive, transcendent of Powers’ bedroom studio but never quite forgetting its humble beginnings. Powers’ singing is heavily processed and buried in enough distorted haze that it sounds like he’s calling to you from the other end of the tunnel, but his voice is so tender and fragile that every word is loaded with a confessional quality, a soft secret, a disarming honesty. His instrumentals are complex and varied; soft piano notes seem to bloom into harsher, driving guitar chords you could easily cut out of Youth Lagoon and into the repertoire of punk-influenced lo-fi bands like Cloud Nothings.
With The Year of Hibernation, Powers establishes Youth Lagoon as an innovative new voice in dream pop. His ability to directly tap his emotion and nostalgia into unique, considered, and beautiful music that’s at once sublimely cathartic, intimately confessional, and effortlessly catchy is truly stunning. – Pretty Much Amazing
Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter will perform live at The Record Exchange (1105 W. Idaho St., Downtown Boise) at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 27. As always, this Record Exchange in-store event is free and all ages.
Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter also will headline The Record Exchange Alive After Five Season Finale on Wednesday, Sept. 28, on the Grove Plaza in Downtown Boise. The free, all-ages concert kicks off at 5 p.m. Low-Fi will open.
Preview tracks from Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter’s critically-acclaimed new album Marble SonHERE.
Sykes and guitarist/vocalist Phil Wandscher took on full production duties for Marble Son, recorded entirely in and around their hometown of Seattle (engineered by Mell Dettmer and mixed by Martin Fevyear). Marble Son exemplifies a band at their creative pinnacle—heavier and more complex than previous records, the music resonates among the parallel worlds of the avant-garde and the timeless. Sykes’ voice and sometimes-mystical leanings (the former described aptly by Magnet as “sounding less like a performer and more like a sage”) and her band’s incomparable musical rapport culminate in what the New York Times has described as “spellbound music, rapt in fatalism and sorrow.” Syke’s trademark thematic darkness and acclaimed songwriting have never been more present; yet Marble Son speaks of evolution, which Sykes describes as, “a sonic mirror of the most chaotic, turbulent times of our lives, where beauty triumphed, and the tears that spilled became this record.”
The album begins with ‘Hushed By Devotion,’ an 8-minute, swelling, rock opus — reminiscent of 1960’s San Francisco inspired psychedelia, which provides Wandscher (who co-wrote more of this record then previous) the sonic space to explore the depths of his guitar genius. Characterized by an emblazoned guitar solo, ghostly layered-vocal murmurings and trademark lyrical poignancy, it’s a brilliant, ambitious statement of intent that commands attention.
The record is an extension of their previous work, influenced in part by an association with the art-metal movement centered around Los Angeles label Southern Lord. This “unlikely” musical friendship between Sykes and influential underground bands SunnO))) and Boris was immortalized on the 2006 album Altar (in which Sykes sang and co-wrote the much beloved underground classic “The Sinking Belle”) culminating in a headlining performance of Altar at the ATP festival last summer. The band has also toured with Earth, a group commonly acknowledged as one of the major progenitors of heavy-doom (and another member of the Southern Lord roster), psych-rock maestros Black Mountain and recently appeared at Holland’s Roadburn Festival, curated by SunnO))) themselves, this past April.
Their musical kinship is audible in Marble Son — an utterly unique, yet subtle genre crossover. Marble Son is a journey—a gutsy romp laced with moments of shimmering, retro beauty, underpinned by pastoral images of Syke’s interior world unfolding. Listen to the standout track ‘Pleasuring the Divine,’ a gritty roar of a song, fed by Wandscher’s frenetic riffs and sludgy feedback and combined with frantic drumming—it’s entirely unexpected and totally mesmerizing.
That’s not to say that there aren’t moments of hushed acoustic wonder amongst the 11 tracks. ‘Be It Me, Or Be It None’ is a glorious four minutes of hazy, Tim Buckley-esque folk, while album closer ‘Wooden Roses’ is an ethereal meditation on finding love only too late—guitars sparkle, strings stir and Sykes’ voice swells and creaks beautifully right up until the final second.
Marble Son is the sound of a band evolving—urgently expanding to mirror the chaos of modern culture while not forgetting the beauty of the tender and mercurial world that exists within us all—the result is more relevant than ever … and, as Jesse puts it: “We have never been closer to sounding like ‘The Sweet Hereafter’ then we do here.” What a sweet sound it is. V.K.
“I liked the idea of something beautiful that may or may not be appreciated in its own time … of course a statue comes to mind … they seem to last forever in human terms, and they still are considered beautiful and viable even as they disintegrate. Some were built so well that their dissolution is almost more powerful than the pristine form—as it disintegrates, it exposes the creative process, the bare essentials … and in the fragments left — an arm, a torso, speak volumes in their decaying state. There’s a line in the song that goes “Oh marble son, why can’t I love you more? I wish I’d found you beautiful before.” That line reflects where I’m at in life … many things I didn’t appreciate when I was young, I find beautiful now and vice versa. I think about relationships and how people can ‘miss the boat’ in their lifetime, but if we need to wait another lifetime to understand a certain kind of love, then so be it. For some, it might take many lifetimes to discover, for others—well … they luck out and have a love that transcends time! We all have our evolutionary path to understanding our capacity to love and to understand beauty. The idea or image of a marble son just spoke to me on all these levels … strong, forgotten, loved, beautiful, sad … eternal.” — Jesse Sykes
PRAISE FOR MARBLE SON
“Alternative country, no … more like alternative universe … a sprawling psych rock vision …” — Spin
“This is a complex, fascinating record that punches the shoulder for attention. As subtle as it is hypnotic, mixing delicacy with confidence and hope with fear …. unlock your senses, and wrap yourself in this intricate web of aural imagery.” — Consequence Of Sound (4-star review)
“It’s the child of some Faustian pact between Karen Dalton and Jimmy Page born at some secret southern crossroad. The counterculture furies of ‘69 reborn, eternally ‘hiding from the daylight.’ You’ll be drawn to the glow of their bluesy-country embers, but eventually you’ll find yourself miles from home, dancin’ into the flames, out of your head, covered in warpaint and doing a witchdance. It’s true, throughout its hour-long spell, I had the unmistakeable feeling I was being groomed for some devious southern death cult and what’s worse, I liked it. Come, join us.” — Matt James, PopMatters
“A country-western, psych rock, shamanic, folk masterpiece.” — The Stranger
“Flush with cavernous sonics and complex soundscapes, it’s 58 minutes of aural cinema for the ears and mind.” — TONE Audio
“Whether the sonic setting is one of doomy distortion or fragile fingerpicking, Sykes remains a truly unique vocalist whose dusky voice is capable of imparting a transcendent, almost spiritual quality to almost any tune it touches.” — All Music Guide
“Terrific … A roaring, psychedelic tempest.” — Uncut (4-star review)
Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter will headline The Record Exchange Alive After Five Season Finale on Wednesday, Sept. 28, on the Grove Plaza in Downtown Boise. The free, all-ages concert kicks off at 5 p.m. Low-Fi will open.
The band also will play a Record Exchange in-store at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 27. As always, this Record Exchange in-store event is free and all ages.
Preview tracks from Jesse Sykes and the Sweet Hereafter’s critically-acclaimed new album Marble SonHERE.
Sykes and guitarist/vocalist Phil Wandscher took on full production duties for Marble Son, recorded entirely in and around their hometown of Seattle (engineered by Mell Dettmer and mixed by Martin Fevyear). Marble Son exemplifies a band at their creative pinnacle—heavier and more complex than previous records, the music resonates among the parallel worlds of the avant-garde and the timeless. Sykes’ voice and sometimes-mystical leanings (the former described aptly by Magnet as “sounding less like a performer and more like a sage”) and her band’s incomparable musical rapport culminate in what the New York Times has described as “spellbound music, rapt in fatalism and sorrow.” Syke’s trademark thematic darkness and acclaimed songwriting have never been more present; yet Marble Son speaks of evolution, which Sykes describes as, “a sonic mirror of the most chaotic, turbulent times of our lives, where beauty triumphed, and the tears that spilled became this record.”
The album begins with ‘Hushed By Devotion,’ an 8-minute, swelling, rock opus — reminiscent of 1960’s San Francisco inspired psychedelia, which provides Wandscher (who co-wrote more of this record then previous) the sonic space to explore the depths of his guitar genius. Characterized by an emblazoned guitar solo, ghostly layered-vocal murmurings and trademark lyrical poignancy, it’s a brilliant, ambitious statement of intent that commands attention.
The record is an extension of their previous work, influenced in part by an association with the art-metal movement centered around Los Angeles label Southern Lord. This “unlikely” musical friendship between Sykes and influential underground bands SunnO))) and Boris was immortalized on the 2006 album Altar (in which Sykes sang and co-wrote the much beloved underground classic “The Sinking Belle”) culminating in a headlining performance of Altar at the ATP festival last summer. The band has also toured with Earth, a group commonly acknowledged as one of the major progenitors of heavy-doom (and another member of the Southern Lord roster), psych-rock maestros Black Mountain and recently appeared at Holland’s Roadburn Festival, curated by SunnO))) themselves, this past April.
Their musical kinship is audible in Marble Son — an utterly unique, yet subtle genre crossover. Marble Son is a journey—a gutsy romp laced with moments of shimmering, retro beauty, underpinned by pastoral images of Syke’s interior world unfolding. Listen to the standout track ‘Pleasuring the Divine,’ a gritty roar of a song, fed by Wandscher’s frenetic riffs and sludgy feedback and combined with frantic drumming—it’s entirely unexpected and totally mesmerizing.
That’s not to say that there aren’t moments of hushed acoustic wonder amongst the 11 tracks. ‘Be It Me, Or Be It None’ is a glorious four minutes of hazy, Tim Buckley-esque folk, while album closer ‘Wooden Roses’ is an ethereal meditation on finding love only too late—guitars sparkle, strings stir and Sykes’ voice swells and creaks beautifully right up until the final second.
Marble Son is the sound of a band evolving—urgently expanding to mirror the chaos of modern culture while not forgetting the beauty of the tender and mercurial world that exists within us all—the result is more relevant than ever … and, as Jesse puts it: “We have never been closer to sounding like ‘The Sweet Hereafter’ then we do here.” What a sweet sound it is. V.K.
“I liked the idea of something beautiful that may or may not be appreciated in its own time … of course a statue comes to mind … they seem to last forever in human terms, and they still are considered beautiful and viable even as they disintegrate. Some were built so well that their dissolution is almost more powerful than the pristine form—as it disintegrates, it exposes the creative process, the bare essentials … and in the fragments left — an arm, a torso, speak volumes in their decaying state. There’s a line in the song that goes “Oh marble son, why can’t I love you more? I wish I’d found you beautiful before.” That line reflects where I’m at in life … many things I didn’t appreciate when I was young, I find beautiful now and vice versa. I think about relationships and how people can ‘miss the boat’ in their lifetime, but if we need to wait another lifetime to understand a certain kind of love, then so be it. For some, it might take many lifetimes to discover, for others—well … they luck out and have a love that transcends time! We all have our evolutionary path to understanding our capacity to love and to understand beauty. The idea or image of a marble son just spoke to me on all these levels … strong, forgotten, loved, beautiful, sad … eternal.” — Jesse Sykes
PRAISE FOR MARBLE SON
“Alternative country, no … more like alternative universe … a sprawling psych rock vision …” — Spin
“This is a complex, fascinating record that punches the shoulder for attention. As subtle as it is hypnotic, mixing delicacy with confidence and hope with fear …. unlock your senses, and wrap yourself in this intricate web of aural imagery.” — Consequence Of Sound (4-star review)
“It’s the child of some Faustian pact between Karen Dalton and Jimmy Page born at some secret southern crossroad. The counterculture furies of ‘69 reborn, eternally ‘hiding from the daylight.’ You’ll be drawn to the glow of their bluesy-country embers, but eventually you’ll find yourself miles from home, dancin’ into the flames, out of your head, covered in warpaint and doing a witchdance. It’s true, throughout its hour-long spell, I had the unmistakeable feeling I was being groomed for some devious southern death cult and what’s worse, I liked it. Come, join us.” — Matt James, PopMatters
“A country-western, psych rock, shamanic, folk masterpiece.” — The Stranger
“Flush with cavernous sonics and complex soundscapes, it’s 58 minutes of aural cinema for the ears and mind.” — TONE Audio
“Whether the sonic setting is one of doomy distortion or fragile fingerpicking, Sykes remains a truly unique vocalist whose dusky voice is capable of imparting a transcendent, almost spiritual quality to almost any tune it touches.” — All Music Guide
“Terrific … A roaring, psychedelic tempest.” — Uncut (4-star review)
BUY THE VINYL HERE
