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Wow.  I'm about 12 hours late to the party here.  I've been traveling for like 48 hours.  My wife and I missed a connection in London and had to wait over night.

 

The change of time zones, jet lag, lack of sleep, album named "Star Wars".  This is like some weird freakin dream.  Whoa man.... whoa.  Commence listening.

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I so rarely post here and it's been so long, but I'm just so damn excited.

 

THANKS WILCO!

 

Top Three:  RNG, You Satellite, Magnetized. But I like them all and love the sequential album-y feel.

 

Can't wait to hear the songs live tonight. I think You Satellite is going to be a builder with total extended face melting at the end.

 

I'm hearing Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd in there, especially in Magnetized. (And that's a good thing.)  Other influences: Beatles, Early Wilco, Dylan, and something else. I'm not quite getting it. Like Love N Rockets or something, or whoever influenced them. And good call above on the Bowie in the production, I totally hear that.

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I so rarely post here and it's been so long, but I'm just so damn excited.

 

THANKS WILCO!

 

Top Three: RNG, You Satellite, Magnetized. But I like them all and love the sequential album-y feel.

 

Can't wait to hear the songs live tonight. I think You Satellite is going to be a builder with total extended face melting at the end.

 

I'm hearing Syd Barrett era Pink Floyd in there, especially in Magnetized. (And that's a good thing.) Other influences: Beatles, Early Wilco, Dylan, and something else. I'm not quite getting it. Like Love N Rockets or something, or whoever influenced them. And good call above on the Bowie in the production, I totally hear that.

Wilco influenced themselves? Didn't quite see that coming
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I wonder if they are going to play this at Pitchfork.  I guess we will find out. 

 

LouieB

 

It was mentioend in the Pitchfork fest thread that they will. I'm pretty sure that's there reasoning for releasing the album. Nice way to build up excitement for their show.

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At the Kansas City show, the night before Star Wars dropped, Tweedy was smiley the entire show. Smiley in a goofy, about to bust at the seams smiley. 

 

What a confident, gorgeous work.

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Giving it a fresh listen this morning...Joke explained was love at first audible for me and getting better each listen. Fresh sound for this group. But this whole recored on first listen brought a wave of nostalgia from my initial listen to YHF. I can only criticize the cover art. I don't get it!

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My love for this record can not be expressed. It took everything i love about wilco and married it with with the aspect of Loose Fur and Tweedy that I love so much. That confident, off-hand but complex, greasy guitars, instinctive melodies. God Damn this is good. Its been forshadowed enough (i might, LF, Tweedy) to feel right, but is enough of a departure to feel really exciting at the same time. More.., RNG, Satellite, Ceiling, Begin, Slope, King(the most loose fur of all), and magnetized all are amoung my all time favorite tweedy songs already.

Can't wait for intereviews and backstory on this.

I was REALLY worried at solid sound that there were no hints of ANY new material at all. Had me feeling like the anniversary tour was a thing on its own and then who knew what would happen... but i see now and admire that they (like Kot said this morning) were just backward focused for a period of time, and snapped back to the forward looking mode with this for sure.

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This is the most focused, leanest, energetic Wilco record in a long time.  I only listened to it a few times, and it's so tempting to go over the top with praise, but my initial reaction is that it's just great.  I love it.

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Most recoreds I truly love are ones that translate while the songs are played live. I think these tracks have a lot of potential to be even better live with the improve that goes along with that. Random Nane Generator & Cold Slopes in particular have massive guitar improv potential.

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Okay.  One and a half listens in and I'm psyched.  I agree with many of the connections:  Velvets, John Lennon, Loose Fur.  I would add there are a couple strong Thin Lizzy and T Rex moments when the guitars get a lot of swagger.

 

This is inarguably the loosest Wilco record ever.  The only thing that even comes close is the ramshackle ending of "Dreamer in my Dreams".

 

Other thoughts:

I suspect Pat played a lot more guitar and a lot less keys on this than other albums.

There's barely even organ sounds on any of this, and I haven't noticed any piano sounds.  It's all about the weird burbly synth sounds that Mikael pushed forward on The Whole Love.

 

They've continued their trend of getting better at the straight rock and roll numbers.  My least favorite thing (as much as I was defensive about people bagging on the last decade of the band) that was going on in the Wilco palette for a while were songs that "rocked".  I always felt like "Walken", and "Sonny Feeling" were rock and roll in quotation marks.  "I Might" was kind of them reclaiming the danger, swagger and energy of what Jay Bennett once called the "Easy rockers".  They've found vitality and spontaneity which is essential to making those 12-bar riff songs feel exciting and not tired, where for a while I felt they were only good at the more fancy arrangement stuff.  They've reclaimed the rock.  

 

Also, Nels doesn't stand out at all on this record.  I know where he's at most of the time, cause I've listened to his playing so much, but it's kind of cool to hear him a little more integrated in the wonky guitar noises, now that we've heard him more "featured" on SBS material etc.

 

"Random Name Generator" is going to be a total blast live.  The whole record will be.  Now I just want some interviews about it, I want to know a little more of the story. 

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This is going to make my afternoon root canal so much more bearable!  I'll be blasting Pickled Ginger alongside the sound of a dentist drill.

 

Would have loved to have heard some of these at SS15, however if they released a free album that weekend I totally would have just exploded.

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This is the most focused, leanest, energetic Wilco record in a long time.  I only listened to it a few times, and it's so tempting to go over the top with praise, but my initial reaction is that it's just great.  I love it.

 

Agreed!  It's quickly climbing the charts of my favorite Wilco albums.  :guitar

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I am gong to digest this album before I proceed with a full review, or rank, or comparison(of which I will not provide any of because I realize bands change and evolve and people often interpret that as sucking or selling out or getting their shit together creatively) but I would like to say last night was one of the most exciting musical events, outside of a live performance, that I have experienced in a long while. From the time the first text came in from a buddy, to me verifying what I thought was him fucking with me, to sitting in the dark at my computer all night with the headphones on it was pretty surreal....or as surreal as your favorite bands album release could be. This morning I woke up and after about 3 minutes and realized, "holy shit...I have a brand new Wilco record to jam out on the way to work" and I couldn't wait to get in the truck.  I predict you will see these sneaky album drops mimicked over and over here in the near future by mainstream artists. Thanks to Wilco for doing awesome shit like this and really turning my Thursday night into an epic event.

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I was driving, on the way from Rochester to Cleveland to see The Mekons, when we got the call about this sweetest of Summer surprises ("All the young dudes carry the news" indeed!). I went straight into the office, arriving around dawn (with my first patient in at 9:00) & have been listening to it all this, oh what a beautiful morning!! Still so much to digest, but Wow!!! So much to love & so many amazing twists in turns in it's 34 minute run. So excited to spend to weekend getting to know this album!!

Thanks Team Wilco for the absolute joy & fun of the surprise part & more so, for delivering this bolt out of the blue little masterpiece that can now become the soundtrack for the rest of my Summer!!!
May The Force Be With You!!!

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This is going to make my afternoon root canal so much more bearable!  I'll be blasting Pickled Ginger alongside the sound of a dentist drill.

 

 

I think i once saw Nels use a dentist drill on his guitar back when he used to beat it to shreds. Before he got his magic box that makes that structured noise we all love. :twitchsmile

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