Wye Oak is playing at the Mill this Sunday and we hope it will be your ultimate weekend close-out. For those of you on total summer vacation cruise control, this show is just further proof that the weekend never ends - Sunday is the new Thursday, or something like that. Joining them will be the locally legendary Poison Control Center, recent Thrill Jockey signees Pontiak, and San Francisco sunshine pop aficionados the Botticellis.
Wye Oak are a duo from indie rock town-of-the-moment Baltimore whose 2007 debut record If Children just saw reissue from the peerless folks at Merge Records on April 8 (Pitchfork review). The collection of songs - eleven, to be precise - unravels like a finely woven fabric that suggests the work of a much larger group of musicians. If Children is a true work of studio art with seemingly infinite layers of instrumentation backing the slow, reverb-bathed alto of Jenn Wasner. Similarly, Wye Oak prove over and over both on record and live that they can be uncompromisingly loud (see: “Please Concrete”) - so much so, that once again one must question the ability of these two players to conjure up so much sound. The not-so-subtle parts are far outweighed by the subtle parts however, and that’s largely what makes these songs work. They exist in the middle of the Venn diagram where acoustic meets shoegaze, in a place I can only call electric slow folk. The songs themselves are largely reminiscent of some amalgamation of Beach House meets Neva Dinova - nostalgic, wistful, vividly imaginitive: “If children were wishes, my mother spent hers on impossible things / My brother was money, my sister was love, and I was world peace / My brother he spent it, my sister pregnant and all that I’m worth / Will only come true where there are no more of us left on this earth.” You can chew on that while you wait for Sunday’s show - in the meantime, download the track below and visit their download page for 4 more.
Download: Wye Oak - If Children Were Wishes
When: Sunday, June 15 - 9pm
Who: Wye Oak w. The Poison Control Center, Pontiak, the Botticellis
Where: The Mill
How Much: $7
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