New album news!

[jff]

if they had this creative spurt, why not fly out the the lead guitarist and keyboardist?

 

Because by the time they got there it'd be two or three days later, and they'd be severely jet-lagged and the creative spurt may have passed. Anyway, they're more than capable of getting ecxellent results when they record their albums piecemeal.

[Smokestack Joe]

right i agree. when i initially read the article, i just wondered if the other two felt "left out" but again, probably not a big deal.

[jff]

right i agree. when i initially read the article, i just wondered if the other two felt "left out" but again, probably not a big deal.

 

It is odd that the full band wasn't in NZ, but I'm sure they appreciated having some much needed time away from Wilco to work on their other projects.

[jakobnicholas]

"Master guitarist Nels Cline, and keyboard wiz Mikael Jorgensen added tasty overdubs at the Loft."

 

 

 

Anyone a TAD nervous about what "tasty" sounds Nels might add to the record? I like most of his additions to songs (Impossible Germany), but sometimes live, he gets a bit much.

 

 

Overdubs in the studio, in general, is VERY exciting...it worked out quite well on Summerteeth and YHF.

[jff]

"Master guitarist Nels Cline, and keyboard wiz Mikael Jorgensen added tasty overdubs at the Loft."

 

 

 

Anyone a TAD nervous about what "tasty" sounds Nels might add to the record? .

 

No, but I am concerned about what some RS mook considers "tasty". With RS's recent track record, if they like it it's probably pretty lame.

[Three dollars and 63 cents]

Considering Nels relies heavily on overdubs on his new album, I'm not worried at all. I am worried about the use of the word "tasty." It reminds me why I let my RS subscription lapse.

 

I wonder if they're finally big enough for a RS cover story? And if they are if we'll get a cover of "Cover of the Rolling Stone" this summer?

[fatheadfred]

Anyone a TAD nervous about what "tasty" sounds Nels might add to the record? I like most of his additions to songs (Impossible Germany), but sometimes live, he gets a bit much.

 

poop

[stagerug]

I wonder if they're finally big enough for a RS cover story? And if they are if we'll get a cover of "Cover of the Rolling Stone" this summer?

 

 

That would be awesome if they covered that song! Dr. Hook rocks (yeah, I said it). Normally, overdubs are the rule in studio work, not the exception. SBS was the exception. Playing live together in the same room for a studio record is a rare happening.

 

I wouldn't worry about Nels and Mike's feelings being hurt, I'm sure they are more than fine with it, and were busy with their side projects at the time, so it may a have almost been a bit disrespectful to try to force them out to New Zealand to record. Plus, they do, and will continue to spend A LOT of time together touring...I'm sure that a change of pace once in a while is healthy. Hell, I try to get away from my wife whenever the opportunity presents itself

[Wendy]

I was still working on WTF this post means ...

 

It is an exciting time to be homeless.

 

 

when this one came along:

 

poop

 

 

[lamradio]

That would be awesome if they covered that song! Dr. Hook rocks (yeah, I said it). Normally, overdubs are the rule in studio work, not the exception. SBS was the exception. Playing live together in the same room for a studio record is a rare happening.

 

I wouldn't worry about Nels and Mike's feelings being hurt, I'm sure they are more than fine with it, and were busy with their side projects at the time, so it may a have almost been a bit disrespectful to try to force them out to New Zealand to record. Plus, they do, and will continue to spend A LOT of time together touring...I'm sure that a change of pace once in a while is healthy. Hell, I try to get away from my wife whenever the opportunity presents itself

 

Agreed.. I've been in bands my whole life, played on many records, and it's actually rare for the whole band to be together when recording individual parts. Most of the time, all of the parts have been worked out ahead of time, and everyone knows exactly what they are going to be recording before they do it. The only time it's important for everyone to be there is during mixing, and even then not everyone is always together.

 

I was still working on WTF this post means ...

 

 

 

 

when this one came along:

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, there must be some really good weed going around or something..

[Analogman]

Playing live together in the same room for a studio record is a rare happening.

 

Some people actually prefer that sort of sound. I do, anyhow.

[mountain bed]

Some people actually prefer that sort of sound. I do, anyhow.

I'll second that.

[Analogman]

Of course, it depends on what band we are talking about I suppose.

[mpolak21]

Some people actually prefer that sort of sound. I do, anyhow.

 

Yeah, it tends to give the songs a fresher sound to my ears. Even the basic tracks of YHF were recorded "live" in the studio, and the overdubs/sonic weight was added later in the process.

 

Haven't really heard enough of the new songs enough times to have much of an opinion yet, but I am naturally looking forward to Wilco The Album, and hope I will share the Rolling Stone writer's enthusiasm. A really good Wilco record will certainly make my summer more enjoyable.

 

--Mike.

[bleedorange]

Some people actually prefer that sort of sound. I do, anyhow.

 

 

I'll second that.

 

 

Isn't that the approach that provided us with the fairly listless Sky Blue Sky.

[Sir Stewart]

Isn't that the approach that provided us with the fairly listless Sky Blue Sky.

 

But Sky Blue Sky is terrific.

I thought A Ghost Is Born was recorded like that too. I recall Tweedy saying he wanted to capture the sound of a band in a room just playing.

[Analogman]

I like it -

 

On another point -

 

I don't know why people expect them to make Summerteeth Part 2 or whatever, seems to me every Wilco album is different from the one that came before it.

 

Wilco

Sky Blue Sky

 

This is how Wilco made their sixth studio album, Sky Blue Sky, according to the band's leader, singer-guitarist-songwriter Jeff Tweedy: "Six people in a room, playing one song all day for six or seven hours, and everyone reaching a consensus on how it should sound." Tweedy laughs, marveling at that simplicity and how long it took him to get it. "After so many configurations of the band, I guess one of them's bound to get it right."

 

Tweedy is quick to point out he doesn't want to be negative about earlier lineups, but Sky Blue Sky -- released by Nonesuch on May 15th -- is the work that he claims he wanted all along. "I always liked the Band as a model -- a bunch of guys sitting around with a typewriter, drinking coffee, writing. That seemed the most fun -- a collective thing. And somehow we ended up being that."

 

Bassist John Stirratt, the only other survivor of the original Wilco from the band's 1995 debut, A.M., puts it another way: "This was definitely the most civilized record Wilco has ever made."

 

Its twelve songs are also a startling turnaround from the scarring distortion of Wilco's commercial breakthrough, 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and 2004's follow-up, A Ghost Is Born. There is a vocal clarity and wide-open space to Sky Blue Sky -- in the tender lysergic whirl of "Either Way" and the mix of Dixie-soul balladry and Badfinger-style pop crunch in "Hate It Here" -- that echoes the Grateful Dead's honing of their early acid rock into the warm detail of 1970's Workingman's Dead.

 

Drummer Glenn Kotche credits guitarist Nels Cline, who joined in 2004 after the release of A Ghost Is Born, with bringing some of that psychedelic sparkle. "People think Nels is this avant-garde guitarist stuck on Jazz Island," Kotche says. "But he loves Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds."

 

Tweedy, in turn, says the mix of Pacific-sunset romance and freak-out funk in "You Are My Face" was partly inspired by the lone eponymous album by an early-Seventies California band, Relatively Clean Rivers. "It's pretty fucking obscure," Tweedy says. "It sounds like the Dead, but it also has these hip-hop beats, years before there was such a thing. I was digging that record a lot while we were messing with the groove in that song."

 

Tweedy, Stirratt, Kotche, Cline, guitar-keyboard player Pat Sansone and keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen rehearsed and recorded Sky Blue Sky at Wilco's studio in Chicago, the Loft, starting in August 2005. The band worked in two- and three-week spurts. "We would make these minirecords," Stirratt says, "working on things that tended to sound alike." Wilco also tested a few songs onstage, like the jaunty "Walken," while touring between sessions. But Tweedy's guiding principle for Sky Blue Sky was something he mentioned to Stirratt during recording -- "about being able to put a song in your pocket," the bassist recalls, "and take it with you."

 

"I got nervous about the technology on Yankee Hotel Foxtrot," Tweedy confesses. "If you need a certain amp or pedal to make a song what it is, it isn't a song."

 

But Tweedy is also a different songwriter now. "I went through some well-documented miserable times," he admits, referring to the personnel dramas and record-label tumult at the time of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot and his 2004 spell in rehab to beat an addiction to prescription medicine. "When you're in a place with a lot of denial, it's hard to be direct about yourself. You need to encode things, because you're hiding a lot."

 

On Sky Blue Sky, he says, "I had no interest in being complex" -- which explains the optimism right up front in the final songs, "What Light" and "On and On and On." "I'm more hopeful than I used to be," Tweedy insists. "It's just easier to hear now -- there's less static."

[Synthesizer Patel]

I wish I'd never read that Rolling Stones pap. It's made me think this is just going to end up being Sky Blue Sky Pt. II

 

If all they can say about it is that they've gone in a 'new direction', that's virtually a signed declaration from the ink shites at Rolling Stone that they haven't got a blind bollock what's different about this new album and the one that went before.

 

Never mind, I'm young, I've still got time for them to get better again.

[MattZ]

Never mind, I'm young, I've still got time for them to get better again.

 

You've also still got time before the album leaks/gets released and you actually hear it and form your own opinion.

[rareair]

You've also still got time before the album leaks/gets released and you actually hear it and form your own opinion.

 

i thought he was talking about rolling stone's ink-stained bollocks.

[fatheadfred]

Isn't that the approach that provided us with the fairly listless Sky Blue Sky.

 

poop, again

[Sparky speaks]

It's made me think this is just going to end up being Sky Blue Sky Pt. II

 

Nothing wrong with that.........I'll take A.M. Part II for that matter.........

[Synthesizer Patel]

You've also still got time before the album leaks/gets released and you actually hear it and form your own opinion.

 

nope. sorry, i've made my mind up already and it's not going to change.

 

Nothing wrong with that.........I'll take A.M. Part II for that matter.........

 

Nothing wrong with it. I thought Sky Blue Sky was good and a few of the songs were great, but the 2 albums before are a couple of my favourites of all time, so I'd much rather it was as good as them instead.

[Wilco LP #7]

At some point I know I know I'll be dying to hear the mixes pre-Nels and Mike. I'm a bit weary of the way this was recorded, those two doing overdubs way after the fact.

[cryptique]

I'm a bit weary of the way this was recorded

You find it tiring?