Wye Oak - Civilian

Since their inception in 2006, Baltimore duo Wye Oak have released two lushly beautiful albums that have established them as purveyors of intensely felt noise pop, drawing as much from Americana as the likes of My Bloody Valentine. Their third cements their reputation, moving deftly between subtle modulations of colour and shade, remaining sincere without ever becoming shrill.

At its foundations, Civilian is built from large slabs of interlocking textures. Jenn Wasner deals in melodically gorgeous hooks laden with just the right amount of distortion, while her partner and consummate multi-tasker Andy Stack generates some compelling propulsion with a carefully looped mixture of drums, bass and keyboards. Even at their most gargantuan the pair aren’t overly demonstrative, Wasner’s woodsmoke-laden harmonies sitting perhaps a touch too far back in the mix.

Their sound recalls groups renowned more for a sense of unassuming interiority than any overblown extroversion – the title track wouldn’t be out of place on a Calexico release. The folk-rock inflections of a track like ‘Plains’ veers more towards the dreamy melancholia of Songs: Ohia than Bright Eyes, while the feel-good waves that roll off ‘We Were Wealth’ suggest more the Do Make Say Think brand of post-rock than the guitar-fest of Explosions In The Sky. Though the sonic explosions that punctuated their previous effort The Knot are largely absent, Civilian is nonetheless studded with clusters of distortion that suddenly loom and vanish as quickly. There are some exhilarating moments here; the mesmerising tail of ‘Hot As Day’ for instance, or the frayed vulnerability of Wasner’s voice on album closer ‘Doubt’.

Never less than compelling.


First published in The Brag, Iss. 412, May 16th 2011

Down By The River - Iron & Wine

Sam Beam is a gentleman.  Softly spoken, with a light chuckle and gently self-deprecating humour, the man behind Southern indie powerhouse Iron & Wine could not be a nicer fellow to talk to.  Nor a more thoughtful one, remarking of Béla Fleck, another genre-busting trailblazer, that “it’s more about the process than the final result.  Which is like the artist’s journey to begin with, as long as you’re invested, that’s where it’s at.”

For Beam, that journey has to date been one of a gradual accumulation of texture.  The bare acoustic folk of his initial recordings was augmented with subtle electrics on the attractively pagan Woman King EP (2005).  Benefiting from lessons learnt through the Calexico collaboration In The Reins, Beam and co-producer Brian Dreck allowing the Chicano influence to infuse alongside percussive globs of rootsy Americana and African rhythms on his follow-up long player, The Shepherd’s Dog (2007), with results that attracted both critical acclaim and commercial success.

With his new record, Kiss Each Other Clean, Beam has expanded the project’s possibilities once again with some of his most creative arrangements to date, ramping up the African beats with the funk of ‘Big Burned Hand’ or the awesome groove of album closer ‘Your Fake Name Is Good Enough For Me’.  “It’s strange, I came to … it through minimalist pattern music of all things,” he remarks of the latter influence.  “Most people come to it through the blues or Paul Simon or whatever, but once I was really into Steve Reich … the African music just exploded from me, where it’s funky and has the same kinda crazy patterns and stuff, it’s just incredible.”

Also impressive is the depth of sound present on the finished record, dozens of overdubs incrementally added over dozens of hours being built up in thickly generous layers.  “You just treat it like painting,” explains Beam, “you make some marks and then you leave it, you go have a sandwich or a smoke or whatever and you come back a week later and listen to what you did and you react: either you make more marks or scrap the whole thing and start again.”

Indeed, of twenty or so songs brought to the studio, under the pressure of Beam’s incessant revisions, half ended up falling on the cutting room floor this time around.  The remainder are loosely united by the image of the river, his lyrical style lending itself well to a constantly unfolding stream of images – take the list of vivid sights that comprises opener ‘Walking Far From Home’, or the mantra-like incantation of names that concludes ‘Your Fake Name’, and the album itself, with a sense of unending change.

“I don’t sit and write records,” says Beam.  “I’m writing all the time and so when it comes time to put a record out, you look in your bag and see what songs you’ve got … all these songs treat it [the river] very differently, sometimes it’s a force of destruction and sometimes it was a force of redemption.  There’s all the religious, Christian stuff – baggage – that it has with it, so it was fun to have an image that was so participatory, it had a lot to offer.”

Kiss Each Other Clean certainly has depth.  Although Beam regularly allows songs to be used in advertisements, film and television soundtracks, and has recently signed to Warner in the US, a move seemingly at the forefront of indie commercialisation, he could never be accused of selling out – after all, a happily married father of five, the man has to put food on the table somehow.  “You can’t predict public taste and you can’t keep everybody happy – that’s impossible.  You put your nose down to the grind and make sure that you’re involved.”

First Published in The Brag, Iss. 396, January 24th 2011