Artist: Wilco
Album: Star Wars
Bitrate: 246kbps avg
Quality: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.98.4 / -V0 / 44.100Khz
Label: Anti-
Genre: Indie
Size: 62.81 megs
PlayTime: 0h 33min 49sec total
Rip Date: 2015-08-21
Store Date: 2015-08-21
Track List:
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01. EKG 1:16
02. More... 2:43
03. Random Name Generator 3:49
04. The Joke Explained 2:33
05. You Satelitte 5:16
06. Taste The Ceiling 3:15
07. Pickled Ginger 2:29
08. Where Do I Begin 2:54
09. Cold Slope 3:11
10. King Of You 2:41
11. Magnetized 3:42
Release Notes:
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Jeff Tweedy leads a band of escape artistsù"ex-Uncle Tupelo," "alt-country,"
"dad rock" are all boxes from which Wilco has managed to break free. Their most
recent restraint has proven trickier because it essentially translates to
"Wilco". Between the self-conscious retromania of Wilco (The Album) and the
self-produced, self-released The Whole Love, their last two LPs strove for
comprehensiveness, containment, cohesion. They were rightly received as "Wilco
being Wilco" and offered "something for everyone" except potential new
listeners, drawing boundaries around their old ideas. In a concrete way, WilcoÆs
ninth studio LP Star Wars is their most accessible and least demanding, a free
download equalizing the Wilco evangelist and those who swore theyÆd never pay
one red cent for their music. Star Wars is also WilcoÆs shortest and least
agenda-driven album since their debut, two things that actually lend it a
novelty that endures beyond its instantaneous release.
For its first minute or so, Star Wars sounds like a record Wilco might have been
required to give away for free. The skronking opener "EKG" has drawn valid
comparisons to both Sonic Youth to AIDS Wolf, though itÆs one of WilcoÆs least
jarring experiments in instrumental noiseùcompare it to the 15-minute migraine
simulation of "Less Than You Think" or "Poor Places" submerging in a drowning
pool of static and "EKG" is downright charming. ItÆs the first thing you might
expect to hear from a band trying to familiarize themselves with each other
after their longest break between records. ItÆs playful rather than
confrontational, deflates any kind of self-importance projected on the band, and
aligns with the $0 asking price, lawsuit-baiting title, and feline cover
artùthis record is loose, low-stakes, and fun, adjectives that no one has used
to describe Wilco since Being There.
ThatÆs something of a feint. Star Wars bears many signifiers of an off-the-cuff
recordingùthe second-longest track is 3:50, and most are filled with all manner
of "whatÆs this pedal do?" sound effects. The topsy-turvy glam-folk of "Moreà"
becomes cemented in thick distortion, a theremin-like squeal seeps through the
otherwise subdued "Taste the Ceiling", "Where Do I Begin" backflips into a coda
of reversed drums. But think back on a decade of Wilco songs that regularly rode
triple-guitar soloing past five minutes and ask if Star Wars is really the sound
of them jamming. This is Wilco at their most concise and airtight; the frayed
edges, loose wires, and sonic pockmarks are all considered decisions coming from
a group of technical wizards with unconventional tastes that treat
post-production like a tattoo artist, engaging in very detailed and skillful
defacement.
Any discernible influence is unlikely, but Star Wars could be heard as a
long-awaited convergence with Spoon, the band who overtook Wilco as AmericaÆs
most reliable and subtly inventive band in the studio. As with Transference or
Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga, Star Wars scans as pop songwriting and rock music, though devoid
of blunt force and obsessed with tactility, right down to the word choices. As
with "War on War" and "Impossible Germany", "Random Name Generator" takes a
phonetically catchy, abstruse phrase and repeats it until it becomes an
unshakeable hook. ItÆs a veritable sonic topographic map, every single
instrument close micÆd and enlarged to show texture: TweedyÆs comforting and
disheveled vocals are audio two-day stubble, drums get dipped in bristling
flange, you can pick out exactly which pedals on Nels ClineÆs effects board are
being used.
Star Wars quickly develops its sonic character, and if it must have a label,
"mini-rock" suffices. For one thing, these are the most compact and aerodynamic
Wilco songs, aligning with a host of new-to-them glam precedents who punctured
rockÆs chest-puffing machismo. The pinched EQÆing and stylishly sheared fuzz
riffs of "Random Name Generator" tips a top hat to T. Rex; the Suicide-al
"Pickled Ginger" removes the "blues" from 12-bar blues and replaces it with
post-punk rigidity and blacked-out negative space; "You Satellite" continuously
wraps itself in seemingly endless layers of high-thread count bedsheets,
recalling the unsavory reveries of Velvet Underground.
And while nothing on Star Wars can cut you into ribbons the way "Via Chicago" or
"I Am Trying to Break Your Heart" or "At Least ThatÆs What You Said", it's
piercing and subtle enough to get under your skin. Compared to the sadsack
reflections on domestication of Sky Blue Sky, Star Wars strikes at a kind of
empty nester fatalism signified by the "separate, but together" connection of
"Where Do I Begin", or, more succinctlyù"WeÆre so alone/ WeÆre never alone." The
narrative of Star Wars is driven by a fluid mix of devotion, commitment, and
stubbornness, three qualities that are related but not synonymous. "I could
never leave behind the part of me that you refuse," is the sort of thing you
might hear from a couple who are comfortable enough to snipe at one another,
while, "Why canÆt we tell when weÆre in hell?/ Why canÆt I say something to make
you well?" speaks to the desperation underlying most prickly jokes. "Taste the
Ceiling" hard-sells the LPÆs most important lyric, the one that attests to
unusual urgency of Star Wars: "Why do our disasters always creep so slowly into
view?" Perhaps disasters are always in the frame, but judging from the
communication failures and speakers-speaking-in-code that goes on here, it's
more likely they don't get called for what they are until its too late.
While you never can really tell with a lyricist as cryptic and elliptical as
Tweedy, Star Wars hints at a congruence between his own cautious confessions and
WilcoÆs sensible risksùwhile this could just be a dry run for a conventionally
released "event", the fact that they're challenging themselves is rewarding
enough on its own. Though Sky Blue Sky was met with the coolest reception of any
Wilco album, itÆs the one that remains the most interesting since A Ghost Is
Bornùlike every record from WilcoÆs elite run that spanned the kaleidoscopic
roots-rock archive of Being There to A Ghost Is BornÆs abstract Americana, it
was fully committed to an idea Wilco hadnÆt tried before. Because Wilco sounds
about 85% committed to a truly new idea, Star Wars is their strongest record in
a decade; and if Wilco have another truly great one in them, history strongly
suggests itÆll be devoted to sounding nothing like Star Wars.