Despite its many and varied benefits for we music obsessives, the digital age of music has also made it fairly difficult to merely stumble upon those best-kept-secrets or have a personal experience with as-yet-undiscovered music, even just for a moment. Everything feels discovered, blogged upon and the only thing new about it is you finding out. So, imagine our delight in finding — and now, presenting unto you — UK's Wolf People. The music of Wolf People comes direct to you with no precedent or connotation other than the volumes of psych-rock history it illuminates, scrambles and refracts in these mysterious songs.
Tidings (Released Feb. 23 and Feb. 22 in the UK) is the first dark and frenzied offering from London's Wolf People — an alchemistic compendium of English classic rock that has been doused in wine, its pages left red-stained, blurred and melded in the most interesting ways.
The quartet — and first UK rock band to join the Jagjaguwar inner circle — is eager to stress that Tidings is not a proper album per se. The songs found on Tidings are collected from recordings made by Jack Sharp (owner of one of the best Rock God-given names in recent memory) in Bedford, England between 2005 and 2007, first released as a series of singles by the UK's Battered Ornaments. Tidings is wild with tape hiss, feedback and background noise — a fecund broth of sounds competing for the listener's attention. Since the time of these songs' creation, members Dan Davies, Tom Watt and Joe Hollick have officially joined Sharp in his dark efforts to form a full-fledged rock band.
Stitched together in a style reminiscent of Faust or early Mothers Of Invention, the songs lay nestled in snatches of field recordings, winding tapes, squealing feedback, studio outtakes and the voices of dead relatives. The tunes themselves are full of hissing guitars, distorted blues harmonica, acid rock, mystical flutes and crackling tape, often based on updated versions of classic blues structures and half-remembered English folk songs.
Album cut "October Fires," which comes to you now as a free mp3, is a fine primer for the treasures that await the faithful listener within Tidings. While the touches of the very best of Jethro Tull are apparent, "October Fires" equally carries the punch of CCR — if they were the No. 1 blues band in all of Middle Earth.
Listen to the mp3 of "October Fires"
Wolf People - Tidings
These recordings form the prehistory of a band that have recently garnered a reputation for blistering live performances around the UK. Wolf People have supported Dinosaur Jr., Tinariwen, Witchcraft, Sleepy Sun, Malcolm Mooney and Voice Of The Seven Woods, among others.
Wolf People's sound has evolved to include the diverse influences and musicianship of Jack's three colleague, and as such, Tidings serves as an index of possibilties, whetting the appetite for the band's debut LP, which is due for release on Jagjaguwar later in 2010.
Wolf People Live Dates:
11/17 London, UK - The Garage w/ Akron/Family
