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Wilco - Cruel Country - New Album

mattboh

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Beltmann

I'm having a complicated reaction to this album that seems to be rooted in competing sensors and expectations. Most of all, I respond to Wilco's multifaceted muse; I love both chaotic and folksy

Blackberry Rust

So, thoughts on the album - it's a bit on the long side:   I'll be upfront and say that I'm simply thankful for Cruel Country because it's given us "Country Song Upside Down". When this land

Jeff M.

It's hard to express how deeply I love this new album and can't wait to hear it at Solid Sound. I've been hoping Wilco would do a "country" album for a long time, but the direction of the past three m

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Blackberry Rust

Blackberry Rust

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The hints I've seen of the new album - mostly via Glenn's beat-a-week contributions - look promising. A lot of my love for Wilco since YHF has centred around Glenn's creative drum work. Overall, I'm hoping for something a bit more dynamically variable than the last couple of albums. Less waltzes and whispery vocals would be welcome as well, though I really liked Ode To Joy and thought it was the best, cohesive work they'd produced since Sky Blue Sky or WTA.

 

On A Ghost Is Born and the drone on "Less Than You Think", personally I think it's essential to the pacing of the album and is pretty consistent with what the band was tinkering with at the time. If you've ever heard the album that accompanies the Wilco Book from 2004 with material drawn from 2002-2003, the seeds of the drone and open-ended texture stuff are all there. Having said all of that though, Jim O'Rourke cops a lot of flak for the 'weirder' stuff that Wilco indulged in around this time. What's worth remembering is that - according to Jim's anecdotes - the more outlandish stuff came largely from Jeff and it was Jim's preference to cut down the drone on "Less Than You Think", the feedback from "Handshake Drugs" and go with the earlier version of "Spiders (Kidsmoke)". If there's a justifiable criticism of Jim's involvement, then it is his preference for fairly dry production. Having said that, his production/mixing work on tracks like "Company In My Back" is up there with some of the most beautiful, perfectly paced arrangements I've heard. I just think it's stunning.  Anyway, knowing Jim's preference for brevity and space for things to breathe, that logic of keeping it simpler makes sense and it's one of the reasons that YHF sounds so spacious and open, since his mixing role largely comprised of hacking away the many, many layers of extraneous noodling.

 

Mods: maybe retitle this thread something like "new album speculation"? :)    

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Marijn

Marijn

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Someone on the Steve Hoffman forums posted this last week. Surprised that it hasn’t been mentioned here on VC yet:

 

Edit: wait, does the image work? I added it via mobile; I'll try again later when I'm home. Anyway, it's a snippet from a local Minnesota radio station that mentions a double album to be released next month.
 

987F4556-ED61-4511-AF81-F63B647D5471.webp

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  • Neuroglue changed the title to New Album Speculation
Muzzle of Dan

Muzzle of Dan

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Cruel Country? Double Album? So excited for some new Wilco and very excited to be attending Solid Sound this year with some new material coming out. Maybe they play the whole thing on Friday?

 

IMO the drone on AGIB is one of the very things that makes that album "better" than YHF (not that I intend to put any shade on YHF)

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Heart full of holes

Heart full of holes

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10 minutes ago, Muzzle of Dan said:

Cruel Country? Double Album? So excited for some new Wilco and very excited to be attending Solid Sound this year with some new material coming out. Maybe they play the whole thing on Friday?

DJ said release date is May 27.  Lines up perfectly for Friday night :dancing

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jff

jff

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Hopefully the double length means it will be a stylistically wide ranging record.  I feel their last two (and first two) were narrowly focused on the style they were working within.  That’s not a bad thing, but at this stage of their career, and especially with a double album,  I’d like to see them flex every muscle they’ve developed. 

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lost highway

lost highway

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If I had to gauge from the unfinished stuff he's shared on his newsletter (which could be misleading), I'm expecting something multi-layered and vibrant like some of the stuff on The Whole Love. Kind of the yin to  Ode to Joy's yang. A little less stark. But who knows.

 

They've been talking about doing a double album for years. I'm excited this one was made with a lot of the team all together for major portions of it.

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DiamondClaw

DiamondClaw

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21 minutes ago, lost highway said:

If I had to gauge from the unfinished stuff he's shared on his newsletter (which could be misleading), I'm expecting something multi-layered and vibrant like some of the stuff on The Whole Love. Kind of the yin to  Ode to Joy's yang. A little less stark. But who knows.

 

They've been talking about doing a double album for years. I'm excited this one was made with a lot of the team all together for major portions of it.

Me too! The fact that they all got together to record at the same time is a big factor for me. And The Whole Love is my favorite "modern" Wilco album, so if your read is right, that only adds to the excitement. Can't wait for the official announcement for all this!

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Blackberry Rust

Blackberry Rust

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5 hours ago, calvino said:

 

 

Looks like a YouTube page has been started.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_odog3e_Ks

 

I could listen to it here in Australia.

 

That's some good stuff and a genuine stylistic surprise! So much twang going on..I immediately had Merle Haggard's "Workingman's Blues" come to mind. 

 

Based on the little tidbits via Starship Casual and Glenn's Instagram, I suspect we're in for something fairly eclectic, which is really, really exciting.

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TCP

TCP

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1 hour ago, Blackberry Rust said:

 

I could listen to it here in Australia.

 

Ah SO! I'm willing to bet this will unlock for us North Americans at midnight our time.

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Blackberry Rust

Blackberry Rust

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13 minutes ago, TCP said:

 

Ah SO! I'm willing to bet this will unlock for us North Americans at midnight our time.

 

I imagine so! I checked in here around 7am (ACST) so - for the sake of precision - that's about 5:30pm (GMT-4)?

 

I'll just go on record and say that this is the most surprising single they've dropped in a long, long time. 

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Blackberry Rust

Blackberry Rust

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I am really hoping that some of the demoes that were behind the paywall at Starship Casual make it as actual cuts on this album, especially "Lou Reed Was My Babysitter" and "Soldier Child". If that's the case, it's going to be wild. 

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