Show Review: Wild Nothing @ The Mohawk (05/16)

Wild Nothing, or the project of Jack Tatum, is a genre band. What I mean to say is that each of his studio albums explores a different sub genre of indie rock. Gemini saw Tatum trying his hand at jangly guitars and bedroom synths, Nocturne was a 70s disco piece with plenty to dance to. His latest effort, Life of Pause, which came out earlier this year, was a wall-of-sound piece that combined the past genres into a more straightforward rock sound. Going into Monday night, I was interested in seeing how the band would weave these sounds into a their live setting, and I was far from disappointed. Read on after the jump.

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Wild Nothing – Life of Pause

lifeofpawz
Rating: ★★★½☆

When you hit the ball out of the park on your musical debut and sophomore album, I imagine its somewhat of a daunting task to try and create something that will repeat your success and move into different musical territory. Whether or not this was on Jack Tatums mind when he was working on his third full-length record remains to be known. Regardless, Life of Pause strikes a balance musically between the straightforward dream pop of Gemini and the well-orchestrated synth heavy pop of Nocturne.

Reichpop, begins the album in classic Wild Nothing fashionboiling electronic elements create the undercurrent of the instrumentation as the song heats up. About a minute and a half of build up later, the song coming into itself, the guitars and bass join the mix, adding their lush influence to the simmering track. This song in its easy and steady coolness sets the tone for the rest of the album.

The key to understanding this record comes in the title track, which marks the center point of your listening journey. Synths soar and bubble into the groovy beat, Tatum sings repeatedly at the crux of the chorus, How can we want love? and the synths stutter coldly in the background as he questions human desire for affection honestly and openly. Herein lies the detached emotion that the entire album is entrenched in. On the first few listens, its easy to mistake this for a lack of emotional accessibility, but upon further investigation, Tatum comes through quite vulnerably as searching for something and narrowly skirting jadedness. This is where Ive found the album to be quite raw and not the icy-cool sleek collection of eleven tracks that it may sound like at first.

While the album becomes more accessible with this in mind, the vulnerability is still subtle, hidden under those loud synths and danceable 70s grooves. Life of Pause has immediate hits that will grab you upfront, but there are some slow burning gems that take a bit of time for you to gravitate towards, like Lady Blue, which ends in a switch in rhythm that is simply impossible not to turn up loud and jam out to. Of course there are those reach out tracks like TV Queen and To Know You, that are wonderful examples of Tatums skills at crafting solid tunes that bridge the gap between dream and synth pop.

At the end of Life of Pause, theres a bit of a longing for more; while theres no denying the artful skill that Jack Tatum has poured into the record, you sort of wish that there was more of a fire within the tracks on here. Still a remarkable and worthwhile listen nonetheless.

 

Are You Stoked For Wild Nothing’s Life of Pause Yet?

11958077_970211316378664_2723550751892443815_o-2No? Really? It seems almost impossible that you could have missed out on the excellent singles that Jack Tatum’s Wild Nothing has been doling out over the past few months in anticipation ofLife of Pause, but if you’ve been under a rock or something, you’re in luck. Today, we’ve got yet another single from the upcoming record with its title track, which you should immediately press play on below. This song is perhaps the single most resonant of Wild Nothing’s past collection of synth drenched pop tracks, and it’s every bit as good. Pulsing synths really drive this song, and the mellow beat grounds it in a danceable rhythm. All that’s left for you to do is preorderLife of Pausehere and wait a little while longer for the February 19th release date viaBella Union.

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Two New Wild Nothing Tracks?!?!

Credit_Daniel_McMahon2The boys are back! I’m beyond excited to announce that Wild Nothing have a new album on the way called Life of Pause, which is due out shortly via Captured Tracks. After their spectacular previous release, Nocturne, it seems that this band is still moving upwards and onwards with their sound; these two new tracks still showcase that lush dream pop, but with more hints of synths laced into the sound. While I like both of the new tunes, I think the second track, “TV Queen” strikes closer along the lines of what we’ve heard before from the band.  Take a listen to the tracks below and rejoice that there is yet more new music to come from Wild Nothing.

[youtube]https://youtu.be/2XVwA4XCDeM[/youtube]

ACL Weekend 2 Highlights: Friday (10.11)

Walking into the park this past Friday, I should have seen the warning signs; there was a light drizzling rain as I made my way over to the Samsung Stage to catch Wild Nothing.  It would rain off and on throughout the day, though the weather remained clear until the evening sets. We saw some jams, we did things to our livers.

Read on for my highlights of the day and some snap shots of our man, B.Gray.

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ACL Interviews: Wild Nothing

Today officially marks the beginning of the 2nd weekend at ACL festival here in Austin.  I’m sure many of you rocked out last weekend and will be nursing your wounds this weekend at home.  For those of you heading out to Zilker, good luck in the rain!  For those of you staying indoors, check out this fancy interview we put together this week with Jack Tatum of Wild Nothing.  It’s pretty rad.  Click read more for interview.

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ACL Spotlight: Early Bird Specials

When taking the first look at the ACL Schedule for each weekend, I tend to first see the conflicts in headliners. Luckily, we are fairly conflict free this year, we’ll get into that more soon enough. How about we take a look at a few of the artists put in the early spots? The cool morning grass, the wide expanses to roam and the vendors still relaxed before the dude-bro crush all add up to a child-like wonderment with the scale of the empty festival giving you the this all-for-me feeling. This year’s ATH Approved Early Bird Artists will create the soundtrack for your barefoot dance party.

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Top Songs of 2012: 1-100

Our year end lists are wrapping up at this point, but we wouldn’t be a legitimate music site without a list of the top songs from 2012.  Personally, I feel like this list is a thousand times more difficult to compose than an albums list because we’re dealing with close to 400-500 songs in the running.  It’s been a long process trying to narrow that iTunes playlist down to 100, and I know some incredible tunes from this year are missing, but we hope you enjoy.  Ladies and gentlemen, follow the jump for the ATH version of top 2012 songs.

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Top Albums of 2012: 50-1

Here it is.  I know you’ll hate it; I know you’ll disagree, but that’s not the point in making an arbitrary list.  We here at ATH worked really hard to fit in the tastes of the four of us, and when we decided upon our Top 50, it really boied down to simple math.  What albums did we love when they came out?  Do we still enjoy spinning those records months later? If they’re in the Top 50, then the asnwer is probably yes.  I mean, our Top 2 records came out in January, and still play a vital part in my weekly listening.  There’s no disclaimer here.  We are who we are, we like what we like, and we hope that’s okay with you. If not, drop us a line and let us know where we went wrong.

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