Wilco – ‘Star Wars’
It’s been four years since Wilco last released a studio album: a relatively long amount of time for the constantly shifting age of immediacy and information in which we live.
2015 has seen numerous ‘cyber-battles’ regarding the way one purchases and listens to music. Both TIDAL and Apple Music are out to impress the digital consumer, but, whichever way you choose, the end result is the same. For Wilco to surprise-release a new album with none of the typical build-up, promotional appearances and single releases in the midst of this uncertain period within the music industry is a bold move. For the album to be available as a free download on their official website shows a band that are ultimately invested in the music above anything else.
Star Wars is a record that both defines and is defined by 2015.
A cute painting of a cat adorns the album sleeve (the internet’s fascination with cats appears to be a never-ending phenomenon), and the record is titled Star Wars. It could be referring to the period of turbulence in cyberspace in this media-saturated age; or, it could be referring to the science-fiction space opera series, the seventh film of which is to arrive in multiplexes this Christmas. We’ll probably never know. It doesn’t really matter, because despite its ‘70s throwback title and distinctly retro sound, Star Wars is a record that both defines and is defined by 2015.
Album opener, ‘EKG’, seems like a joke. After downloading your copy of the album, putting it onto your device, and sitting back to listen, you are confronted with a one-minute burst of sharp, piercing guitar notes, which eventually weave in and out of a complex drum pattern before colliding, collapsing, and concluding with nothing more than the simplistic strum of a chord. Upon first listen, the whole album feels like this – abrupt, loose and raw.
One gets the sense that, despite the group’s four year gap between albums, Star Wars could have been written, recorded, produced, and released all within the last 2 weeks; especially after the technical accomplishment and studio mastery displayed in every Wilco album since 2001’s seminal, and now iconic, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. However, like the band’s best records, Star Wars doesn’t reveal its hand on first listen, and the more time the listener puts in, the more they receive from it. It soon becomes clear that, despite the concise length (33 minutes, 47 seconds), it is the end product of much thought and consideration: each track has intricacies that lie waiting to be noticed, and there is zero filler material.
Each track has intricacies that lie waiting to be noticed, and there is zero filler material.
The unbelievably catchy and brilliantly titled ‘Random Name Generator’ is Wilco at their most playful, recalling the sounds of T-Rex and Thin Lizzy. Elsewhere on the record, you can hear what Syd Barratt’s Pink Floyd or The Kinks would have sounded like if they made it to 2015. Star Wars revolves around its epic centre-piece, the sprawling ‘You Satellite’, the only track on the album that surpasses five minutes, and a song which will soon easily make its way into the long list of the band’s masterpieces. Here Wilco sound like a cosmic Lou Reed; Nels Cline’s fuzzy guitar work beautifully contrasts with Pat Sansone’s melodic repeated riff, whilst frontman Jeff Tweedy sings words of abstraction and nothingness over the thundering crash of Glenn Kotche’s defiant drum-work. By the end of the track, the sound is so powerful and has reached such heights that it has become nothing more than white noise.
Jeff Tweedy’s lyrics, always towing the line between poetic clarity and notions of confusion, are once again fantastic. “Now you want more than we have, more than there is, more than I can give, more than exists”, he sings on ‘More…’, reflecting on society in the modern age in a way few lyricists are able to perceive as successfully. There are dark lyrical undertones throughout the album; on upbeat tracks, Tweedy will state “I kind of like it when I make you cry, a miracle every once in a while” – some emotion is better than none at all.
Love conquers all, and Star Wars has a Hollywood ending. How fitting.
It is also impossible to ignore the personal anxiety felt by Tweedy regarding his wife, Sue Miller, and her diagnosis of cancer last year. On the heartbreaking and completely perfect ‘Where Do I Begin?’ Tweedy asks “Why can’t we tell when we’re in Hell? Why can’t I say something to make you well?” The shroud of uncertainty surrounding the album is lifted in the stunning final track ‘Magnetized’ as Tweedy sings “I sleep underneath a picture that I keep, of you next to me. I realize we’re magnetized,” accompanied by his acoustic guitar and a melancholy piano. Love conquers all, and Star Wars has a Hollywood ending. How fitting.
The patience that is required of Star Wars is not in keeping with the air of instant gratification suggested by its release strategy – it is an album that wants the listener to be thoughtful of the music, whilst drawing attention to the unimportance of how one consumes the final product. An antidote to what David Fricke calls the ‘When will you be here?’ culture of the modern-day western world, Star Wars is also a lot of fun and proves that after 20 years, Wilco are still releasing some of the best music of their career.
Key Tracks: ‘Random Name Generator’, ‘You Satellite’, ‘Where Do I Begin?’, ‘Magnetized’
Available for FREE DOWNLOAD until 21st August
CD out 21st August, VINYL out 13th October
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