Release Date: Aug 31, 2018
Genre(s): Pop/Rock
Record label: Captured Tracks
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After making the epically lush Life of Pause, which was recorded in three studios with different producers and collaborators, Wild Nothing's Jack Tatum wanted to do something different on the band's next record. For 2018's Indigo, he first made detailed demos, then took a small band into the studio and spent four days recording the songs live. These recordings were then built up by Tatum and producer Jorge Elbrecht as the duo added new parts and reused sounds from the original demos.
For Wild Nothing's Jack Tatum, maintaining a balance between high fidelity production and an organic sound— one reminiscent of his early recordings— is a constant battle. His first full-length, Gemini (2010), was recorded in his home in Virginia but sounds remarkably polished, ostensibly tailored to perfection. On his new album, Indigo, the development of such a hi-fi/lo-fi balance has reached new levels.
Jack Tatum's dream pop project Wild Nothing puts a unique harmonic spin on '80s synth-pop with new record Indigo, a record defined by rich production and hypnotic beats. Indigo is done with a lot of sincerity, and it shows. The attention in sticking to the original blueprint of retro synth-pop and keeping the sounds soft and the structure easy going makes this record endlessly playable. Faster tracks like "Letting Go" hook you with cooing vocals and liberal guitar strumming, while major highlight "Partners in Motion" sports a new ….
"I'd rather live in dreams," Jack Tatum sighed, one minute into his Wild Nothing debut, and as one of the great philosophers of our time would say, who can relate? As long as a functional definition of "dream pop" exists, its adherents looking to opt out of reality will find Gemini to be a readily accessible escape hatch. But in the time since, Tatum appears to be the only guy who's taken the message of "Live in Dreams" literally: Indigo opener "Letting Go" is basically a rewrite of 2010's "Golden Haze," and the lo-fi limitations of his early solo set-up--synth-string drizzles, low-res drum-machine patter, and fuzzy evocations of transcendent romance--have all been replaced by the real thing. In all senses, Tatum's fourth LP is his "Los Angeles" album: It presents him as another New York indie-rock transplant flipping LA's "Welcome to the Jungle" stereotype and relocating after becoming successful, settling down, and starting to say "synergy.
Jack Tatum has been making music as Wild Nothing for almost a decade now. His fourth full-length 'Letting Go' is a record that carries on with more of the bouncy dream pop that he's become known for, only it sounds more refined and opens itself up to more experimental possibilities. Opening track 'Letting Go' clocks in at the poppier end of the scale, awash with upbeat guitars and sweeping synth, whereas there's a slower funk-groove running through 'Partners in Motion'.
Singer-songwriter Jack Tatum seeks tranquility amid the disorienting thrum of a chaotic world on Wild Nothing's fourth album, Indigo. The band eschews the forays into shoegaze and '60s psych-rock that marked 2016's Life on Pause in favor of synth-pop and yacht rock that vividly evokes the lazy days of summer. Jaunty basslines, shimmering guitar, bright synth washes, and sultry sax seamlessly gel into soundscapes that are alternatingly meditative and kinetic.
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