Aside from a live album recorded at Brooklyn Steel and an early January single titled “Blue Wings,” Wild Nothing had a very reserved 2019 after the release of their fifth studio album, Indigo, in the summer of 2018. Jack Tatum, the man behind the mask of Wild Nothing, did not wait long after the clock struck midnight turning over the decade to match their output of new music from all of last year.
Their new single “Foyer” along with “Blue Wings” will make up two out of five of the expected tracks on their new EP, Laughing Gas, set to be released through Captured Tracks on January 31, 2020. The album will be co-produced and mixed by Jorge Elbrecht, who has also worked with the likes of Ariel Pink and Sky Ferreira. In a sense, the album will be songs that did not quite fit the vibe of the aforementioned Indigo.
“Foyer” serves as a seamless addition into Wild Nothing’s catalog and follows the dream-pop kingpins’ formula of creating bass and synth-heavy tunes for bedroom-pop lovers alike. Lyrically, Tatum touches on the controlled chaos life throws at you and the yearning to recall an exhausted entity.
However, since the 2012 release of Nocturne, which in my eyes, is Wild Nothing’s masterpiece, I have always been left with a feeling of wanting more. It is difficult to say if this feeling will remain when listening to Laughing Gas front-to-back upon release but this single certainly does not suggest a large transformation from the pleasant yet inessential, Indigo.
Their struggle to obtain a sound to separate themselves from the always evolving genre of bedroom-pop has been, well, just that — a struggle. While releases between Nocturne and now such as Empty Estate (2013) and Life of Pause (2016) have their moments, they have lacked consistency as a full-length album.
Wild Nothing will hit the road for select shows in late Spring to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of their 2010 album, Gemini with their friends and label-mates, Beach Fossils.
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