Wilco-Star Wars (2015)

Wilco-Star Wars (2015)

“Something comes along and you have to jump on and do it. You can't stop until it's done.”

Neil Young

By: Ghost Writer

The truth is that I must start to believe more in my psychic powers, last Saturday I was listening to Wilco's The Whole Love and wondering when the band would come back with another album, and Oh surprise! I just found out that on Thursday they issued Star Wars for free on their band page.

Star Wars is their ninth album and it keeps showing that Wilco is still America's number one avant rock merchants, just as in the sixties, when the also experimental The Byrds were one of the only bands who could face the British invasion, Wilco this days plays a similar role, upping up the ante in front of amazing British bands like Radiohead and Muse, and just like the Byrds, no matter what way the band are inclined to experiment, they keep their Americana stance just like good old Neil Young has done all his career, just as Radiohead sound British, Wilco sounds American.

The thing with this Star Wars, apart from the quirky title and quirky cover, in touch again, with the quirky esthetics of the Melvins, is that Wilco are releasing it for free, is a courageous move, but one that is slowly going to become a trend, in an age of digital downloading, the recording becomes no more than a presentation card for a band willing to make some bucks on the road, gone are the times when a band like the Beatles could be successful just by record sales alone, without touring, whether we like it or not, with the huge amounts of records we can download this days, the persistence of them in our life is becoming lesser, and in order to survive a band has to depend not on the sales, but in the distribution of the recording and their ability to capitalize the momentum performing live.

From the weirdo start on the equally weird titled instrumental EKG, Wilco sets the bar high with their Sonic Youthesque approach to guitars and near krautrock rhythms.

Tweedy vocals on More... remind me immediately of the late great Marc Bolan with a little Lennon tossed in for sarcastic effect, More..., with its textural and near psychedelic effects and almost tribal beats is a type of song not far removed from the music Lennon did with his Plastic Ono Band.

But before everything, Wilco is a guitar band, one that developed its sound by admiring the amazing, almost telepathic interplay of musicians like Television or Neil Young with the legendary Crazy Horse and the great Random Name Generation is a proof of that with intense drumming and crunchy guitars to complement.

The record gets a little loose on the fractured near Lou Reedesque the Joke Explained a theme that wouldn't have sounded out of place on the mighty Transformer, while You Satellite recalls bell ringing guitars like the ones that existed on Sonic Youth early records.

I previously wrote somewhere about Jeff Tweedy being so lucky to work with some of his idols, in Taste the Ceiling although he is by himself he manages to sounds too close to the great Bob Dylan, in a tune the could have been tailor made for a duet between Bob and Jeff, and then going into the intense almost militant punk in Pickled Ginger featuring ferocious bass and guitars.

In the end, Star Wars is a fun record without the ambition of The Whole Love, is more compact, less dense and more accessible, it’s obvious the fun Tweedy and company had while the making and it shows in their will to share it for free, after all this is art and fun combined in an admirable way, how wrong could it be to share it with everyone willing to listen?