Artist : Wheat
Album : Everyday I Said A Prayer For Kathy And Made A One Inch Square
Label : Ever
Genre : Indie
Bitrate : 192 kbps avg
Source : CD (LP)
Playtime : 00:42:59 (63.2MB)
Rls date : 2007-05-11
Store date : 2007-05-28
[Track List]
1. Closeness 5:08
2. Little White Doves 3:37
3. Move Move 4:21
4. I Had Angels Watching Over Me 3:05
5. Init 005 (Formerly A Case Of) 4:27
6. Saint In Law 2:41
7. What You Got 3:22
8. To As In Addressing The Grave 3:16
9. Round In The Corners 3:47
10.An Exhausted Fixer 4:39
11.Courting Ed Templeton 4:36
ABOUT THE NEW ALBUM: "We didn't know what the hell we were
doing," Harney laughs. "We were the least career minded
band I've ever come across. Everything was about magic.
Like children. We just let it fly, the rest be damned."
Formed by two students at the University of Massachusetts
Dartmouth û Scott Levesque (vocals, guitar) and Brendan
Harney (drums), soon afterwards joined by Ricky Brennan
(guitars, vocals) û WHEAT was originally conceived as an
art project. About the only thing that was known for sure
about their 1998 debut MEDEIROS at the time of its release
was that it was mixed with Brian Deck (Red Red Meat): the
band's official bio was little more than a chronology of
the band's various line-ups, first names only, and the
album's artwork gave away even less. Despite this,
however, the mysterious, hazy, low key debut yielded an
NME Single Of The Week, Death Car, as well as a bumper
crop of superlatives from the press on both sides of the
Atlantic.
HOPE & ADAMS, its follow-up (released in 2000), saw the
band shift up a gear, employing renowned producer Dave
Fridmann to develop their ideas whilst remaining true to
their original intentions. The response to HOPE & ADAMS
was unanimous: a truly great American indie rock band had
arrived, and in Don't I Hold You û employed to great
effect by Cameron Crowe in the movie Elizabethtown û they
had one of the most simple but heartbreaking love songs of
the year. The band, meanwhile, toured extensively,
building up an impressive reputation for both stretching
out their songs and their charismatic stage presence û
Levesque as frontman was coy but captivating, Harney as
pearl-necklaced drummer an eccentric but hypnotic force
behind the kit.
WHEAT looked all set for mainstream but unusually
uncompromised success. As so often happens, however, fate
(or perhaps poor management) conspired against them: the
band was advised to leave their European label in favor of
another that, unbeknownst to them, was about to fold. Mere
days after the deal was signed news reached them that
their album was now an asset of a company that had gone
out of business. Dense legal battles followed, and though
the band emerged intact over a year later to sign with
Aware / Sony, the record û the typically cryptically
titled PER SECOND, PER SECOND, PER SECONDà EVERY SECOND û
had not emerged so unscathed. Instead it had been remixed
and in places re-recorded, largely at the label's behest,
and was consequently rendered comparatively lifeless
(although it still went on to sell over 35,000 copies in
the US).
In the end û fortunately, some might argue û it was never
released outside of North America. Brennan quit the band
while Levesque and Harney retreated into a long silence,
exhausted and disillusioned. Rumors that WHEAT had broken
up were not too far from the truth.
"We couldn't do the monkey suits and the handshakes well
at all," Harney explains. "We were terribly unhappy so we
started to play it in a way where we could just get out
and get on with life. It didn't work out 'cause it was a
completely fucked-up fit. Scott and I started WHEAT as an
art project, and the second we let other people's opinions
slip in is when it started to come apart. We needed to
walk away from the whole thing. The things we loved, the
art of what we did, the control of what we were about
seemed to be slipping, so we had to jump."
After a while, however, Levesque and Harney began to talk
again and, restless to make music once more, they
reconvened in the summer of 2005 to try out new tracks
just to see where the songs and ideas might lead.
This time they had no label. They had no recording
schedule. They had no deadlines. But they remembered the
old rituals, and in doing so, discovered they were able to
reclaim the supernal sound, ineffable chemistry, and
music-magic of Wheat.
"We were in that great spot again," says Levesque. "We
make records in our own little world, and that's where we
went to. We really tried to get back into the flow with
this music, the abstract nature of communicating with
depth and detail, communicating what we all feel when we
love. We work hard at keeping the spirit of the original
thought alive, which is why we try not to "perfect"
anything. We wanted to challenge the idea of a
professional record. Everything today is made as perfectly
as possible, and we wanted to have this feel as real and
as human as possible. I think we did that, and we did it
without sacrificing the power of the music."
With EVERYDAY I SAID A PRAYER FOR KATHY AND MADE A ONE
INCH SQUARE, WHEAT are back amongst us in our world, right
where they belong. What began 10 years ago as a brilliant
art project in sound has now been restored to its
beginnings, original luster restored. From the celestial
shimmer of Closeness, which opens the new album, to the
pastoral instrumental poem, Courting Ed Templeton, which
closes it, EVERYDAY I SAID A PRAYERà marks a splendid
return to the incandescent form that yielded 1997's
delicious MEDEIROS and 1999's indie-pop gem HOPE AND
ADAMS.
And the album's curious title? "It's about remembering
through a ritual", Harney clarifies. "We lose things we
love, sometimes, in life. People turn corners and things
change, and we try to remember. We make art, but art
becomes stylized. Then we decide to make a square, simply
to remember. Or hope, maybe."
WHEAT still don't know what the hell they are doing. They
are still the least career minded band you'll ever come
across. Everything remains about magic. Like children.
They just let it fly, the rest be damned.
*Deluxe LP version on colored vinyl with bonus tracks will
be released on 8/21/07 along with the first single "I Had
Angels Watching Over Me" (track 4 on the album - single
will be released on CD with 2 exclusive bonus tracks and a
video)