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Al.Ducts

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    Wilco - Cousin - New Album

    in Just A Fan

    Posted

    Yeah I was waiting to see if they'd follow that little teaser video with another song (some folks ID'd that snippet as possibly being "Pittsburgh" using some context clues from Tweedy Show, etc.), but at this point I'd be pretty surprised if they dropped another single between now and the 29th.

    If they do, I'd put my money on this Friday or this coming Mon/Tues... That'll be approx. 2 weeks out from release day and IMO it wouldn't make much sense to share something any closer to the date. My Spidey Senses were correct about the Cate Le Bon involvement piece ;) but here I'm gonna say this is a one-single-only album rollout, probably for all the reasons mentioned in previous comments.

    Cousin Reviews!

    in Just A Fan

    Posted

    I believe the the print-only review in Uncut mag is the only full Cousin record review that's been put out so far, but there have been quite a few lovely, detailed reviews of the recent shows in the UK like the one kidsmoke shared above :) 

    • Like 1

    Wilco - Cousin - New Album

    in Just A Fan

    Posted

    Yes! Could probably assume this is that "sculpted art pop" record mentioned in the Aquarium Drunkard interview from the Cruel Country press cycle. I know Jeff is a big admirer of Cate Le Bon and I'd personally be thrilled if some of that influence found its way on to a Wilco record <3
     

    "AD: Wilco was in the midst of making another record, but changed gears to make Cruel Country. What was the other record like? 


    Jeff Tweedy: We started on a record before the pandemic and had been chipping away at it. It’s pretty sculpted art pop. It’s alien. The songs are alien shapes, maybe what people think of when they think of the element in Wilco that is “experimental” or something like that. But you know, adjectives kind of fail me. I don’t wanna say “weird” but it’s a more searching type of record, searching for something we haven’t heard before, pushing ourselves and challenging ourselves to make a record that feels worthwhile to add to the pile of records that we’ve made.


    I think that other record is gonna blow people’s minds. I’m really, really excited about putting it out. But Cruel Country just felt like the right thing to do right now. We were reestablishing a vocabulary that we have with each other, and we were just digging it. It just felt like riding a wave. Everybody’s having a great time and playing their asses off and feeling good about listening back to everything with each other. None of us felt like we wanted to slow that momentum down and really hone in on this more deliberate recording."

    • Like 3

    Wilco - Cruel Country - New Album

    in Just A Fan

    Posted

    Hey VC’ers - coming out of hibernation again because, well… It’s Album Time!

    Cruel Country, ain’t it? Some of us are just hearing the record for the first time today. Others are probably waiting for various reasons (like SSF - jealous!). I, like others yet, have been listening to this record for about a week and finally have some thoughts formed on it. It’s always tough to succinctly express the range of emotions I feel when a new Wilco record gets announced/rolled-out/released/ahem..reviewed/etc. but it’s still fun to share takeaways with people who are still deeply invested in this band <3


    I’ll start with some context - I’m one of those Wilco fans who genuinely likes the drone in Less Than You Think, vastly prefers the little-folk-ditties when they are augmented by wilder sonic landscapes + noises, and generally prefers about a 5:1 ratio of surprising/abrasive songs to the, like, comfort songs. If I had it my way, Jim O’Rourke would’ve continued engineering + mixing every Wilco record ever for all of recorded time (love that guy). I’m also a Day 1 Starship Casual subscriber and more broadly speaking, just really really grateful Jeff + the band have been healthy and happy enough to be able to continue making quality records together for this long.

    So with all that said, the prospect of a return-to-roots country record was honestly a little disappointing when I first heard the announcement. I like country music just fine, and love a lot of it — especially cosmic country, Bakersfield-y stuff, and tears-in-your-beers records from the mid-to-late 20th Century. But if I’m totally honest, after the last couple years I was really hoping to see Wilco continue the creative trajectory of OTJ, which I and many others viewed as a sort of return-to-form and raved about on this board when it first came out. The band using the studio as an instrument and playing with mood + texture as their primary tools felt exciting again and there was an intensity, drama and urgency to the compositions and production that I hadn’t felt in a long while.

    Obviously so so much has changed in the intervening years though, so I wasn’t really *expecting* much continuity I guess. The world is so fucked up that the warm blanket of simple songs makes sense to me on a lot of levels. I’ve read most all the interviews in the lead up to release day today, and so I get where this record and these songs are coming from and why they were necessary for the band at this moment in time. It also just feels pointless to talk more about what I *wish* it was, and there seems to be this weird vague feeling of disappointment hanging over this record, both from fans and professional reviewers alike (who, don’t forget, are sometimes one in the same), and I think that’s just too bad, because Cruel Country is a good record.

    It’s got some great lyrics and playing, really beautiful moments, and a ton of songs that have gotten stuck in my head - which I have been singling out and going back to. I’ve never done this before, but I did that thing where you make a playlist of what you deem to be the “essential” tracks. That maybe tells you a bit of what I think about Cruel Country as a whole. If you’re still reading + interested, here’s what I’ve got (mostly keeping the sequencing the same as the actual release):

    Cruel County (Lean & Mean Version)

    1. Cruel Country
    2. Hints
    3. The Empty Condor
    4. Tonight’s the Day
    5. Darkness is Cheap
    6. Bird Without a Tail / Base of My Skull
    7. Tired of Taking It Out On You
    8. Many Worlds
    9. Country Song Upside-down
    10. Mystery Binds
    11. Sad Kind of Way
    12. Story to Tell

    At 12 songs and 49 minutes, this playlist feels like a record’s worth of really-good-to-great songs to me, but I’ll never ever complain about having more Wilco songs so I take the actual full record for what it is :) 

    I love this band and I always will.

    • Like 5

    "Ode To Joy" Reactions

    in Just A Fan

    Posted

    Hey all, with OTJ floating out there now (and officially arriving on Friday), I'd figured we might as well kick off some reactions.

    I've been posting on here since my freshman year of college (2008), and while many of you have been following the band for much longer, you still have to admit that a lot has happened in Wilcoworld over the last decade. Not to get all apocryphal on your asses, but I think we can all agree that tales of Wilco’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. I haven’t been on here as much as I was in the heady days of tracking down and downloading every taper-recorded set I could find, but this seems as good a time as any to dive back in. I have listened to OTJ a couple times through now, bought tickets to one of the St. Paul shows, and I am, in general, feeling more fizzed-up on the band than I have in a long while. Before breaking down my thoughts on the record, I wanted to provide a little insight into my fan boi history. 100% fine to scroll to the last paragraph though, if you DGAF. I know the impulse to judge new Wilco releases against their past output can be a frustrating and broadly pointless exercise, but I think that building and sharing some sort of personal context in this way can be helpful in explaining our relationship to the music over time.

     

    The first new record cycle I was able to experience as a dyed-in-the-wool Wilco Head was (the album). I appreciated that collection for what it was, but frankly I could never fully shake the tiny, shadow-feeling of having to qualify my enjoyment of the new thing against what came before. I could make logical sense of this feeling pretty easily with what I understand about youth, nostalgia, etc. and I have more-or-less approached every album since with that same attitude: “This is Wilco. My favorite band. They have a new record out, and I’m going to like most of it quite a bit.” With the benefit of hindsight though, I think it's fair to say that Wilco (the album) represents the start of a later-era™ for the band. This period has had some great songs, and a few stinkers, but I think is fairly understood to be a period of relatively steady, if unremarkable releases. And honestly? That’s fine! But if I’m being completely honest, I have really really really been waiting for a Wilco record that feels like it approaches the “essential”-ness of of the BT-SBS era. The build-up/rollout of OTJ has definitely set the table for something that feels a little more “important” than the past couple records, and I know this idea is something JT has loosely alluded to in interviews as being sort-of intentional.

     

    Now, let me just say —  I’m not *sure* OTJ reaches those heights…but it’s pretty fucking exciting to not be sure about that. Welcome to the #NewEra folks. I don’t know if it’s the power of persuasion at play, but listening to this certainly feels like we are walking onto more hallowed musical ground than anything since, maybe, AGIB? At the very least, I think it's deserving of the "best in years" that some publications have slapped onto their reviews. The studio really seems to have been brought in as an essential instrument again, and the architecture of this record finds unique and rewarding sonic fingerprints smudging the corners of nearly every song. This being the case, my initial impulse is not to highlight any songs in particular, but rather the record as a whole - which speaks to the quality of the thing, I think. With OTJ, I don’t feel there’s any reason to look for consolation prizes. Many have written about this at length, but big blocks of bass-drum-thump and snare-crack really push this record front to back. Muscular, visceral, hypnotic. It's relentless. If Glenn’s drumming is the huge, brutalist hospital building, then the rest of the band acts as surgeons, slicing and building simple folk songs into something altogether more bewitching. Instead of honking organs, and glammed-up guitar riffs, we get something more subtle, and dare-I-say, tasteful. There is gently rumbling bass, chirping and burping electronics, fingers scraping over strings, yawning feedback, and whimsical piano and guitar accents. It’s a record that’s gentle without being slight and patient without being slow. We do get a little proper guitar freakout and it’s dropped in a great spot, sequence-wise. Would I like just *a little* more guitar tangle & skronk? Sure. Of course I would. But situated as it is here, the moment is brief and deeply satisfying. Lastly, it’s clear at this point that JT has found an approach to vocal performance that sits more comfortably with him at this stage. We know this. Call it a world-weary sigh if you want. On OTJ, it still sits in a fairly reserved space, but I found the performances to be a bit more lively than the near-whisper/talk that can be found on a couple of songs on Schmilco-Warm-Warmer. So while some of the bark has faded, I can report that the bite is still very much intact here.

     

    Okay then. Everyone will hear it Friday. I’m sure I’ll have more to say with later listens (esp. w/ full access to the lyrics), and I’m excited to see what people think!

    Schmilco Impressions.

    in Just A Fan

    Posted

    I've been hoping for another negative space-heavy Wilco album for quite some time and it looks like I got my wish with this one. There have been great songs on the last couple of records but I think what's been lacking a bit for me is that cohesive atmosphere for the songs to sit in. I like my Wilco weird, melancholy, and biting. Power pop mode is always a fun face for them to put on, and they're damn good at it, but I'm less likely to chew on those songs the way I would some of their more left of center stuff. A couple of listens in and I can echo others who've said its a really strong set of lyrics. 

    Favorite Tracks (so far): Common Sense, Locator, Quarters, We Aren't The World (Safety Girl), Just Say Goodbye

    Locator

    in Just A Fan

    Posted

    Man, I like this track as well as anything on Star Wars. The guitar tones and fragmented production remind me a lot of SW, and it seems to be pretty clearly from the same sessions. I would really like a record full of driving, dry, noise-speckled tunes like this. That's the Wilco I've always loved : )

    So cassettes are making a comeback?

    in Someone Else's Song

    Posted

    I buy cassettes, have put out a cassette, and a lot of my friends in diy music circles do the same. For younginz without much disposable income, a $5 tape is a much easier way to support a band and take home a little tangible, physical copy than a $25 vinyl record. They almost always come with a download code as well, so you can access the record digitally. Audiophiles may well poo-poo their sound quality and general fragility, but that misses the point I think. On a personal note, I also have a tape player in my car and no disc drive on my laptop, so CD's don't make that much sense for me at this point. Plus cd's are kind of dope-y (to quote a certain rock critic from a certain documentary on a certain band).

    Radiohead LP9

    in Someone Else's Song

    Posted

    I'm really digging it as well. My expectations were pretty reasonable this time around I think, and this record delivered, and then some. It feels wiiiiiide open. I think Greenwood's film score work the past decade is very evident in the scope of this thing.

    Parquet Courts

    in Someone Else's Song

    Posted

    The new record is out in a week or so and I've had a chance to give it a listen already :).

    A ton of variety in the sounds on this thing. Really excellent production (some of the tracking was done at the Wilco loft actually). 

     

    EDIT: according to this review, Jeff Tweedy actually played a bit on the record!! 

     "memorable guitar parts on Human Performance—the main riff on “Dust” and the piercing solo on the lazy strummer “Keep It Even”—are played by Jeff Tweedy, who recorded part of the album at the Wilco Loft in Chicago."
     

     

    Think Wire's Chairs Missing, the Velvet Underground's softer s/t side, and a ton of tight, scrappy tunes.

     

     

    And ICYMI, the video for "Berlin Got Blurry"

     

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv0bBjMc6FY

    Parquet Courts

    in Someone Else's Song

    Posted

    As VC's resident Parquet Courts fanboy, here's the latest: 

    A new record, teased: 

    http://www.stereogum.com/1856592/parquet-courts-tease-new-album-human-performance-with-brooklyn-mural/news/

     

    A new record, confirmed. Songs, played:

    http://www.stereogum.com/1856759/watch-parquet-courts-play-new-songs-dust-and-outside-at-wfuv/video/

     

    Also...what did ya'll think of Monastic Living? I know it sent many mainstreamindiebros running for the hills.

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