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Summer Teeth (1999, 53.09) ***/TT½ |
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| Can't Stand it She's a Jar A Shot in the Arm We're Just Friends I'm Always in Love Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway (Again) Pieholden Suite How to Fight Loneliness |
Via Chicago ELT My Darling When You Wake Up Feeling Old Summer Teeth In a Future Age |
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Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002, 51.56) ***/T |
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| I Am Trying to Break Your Heart Kamera Radio Cure War on War Jesus, Etc. Ashes of American Flags Heavy Metal Drummer |
I'm the Man Who Loves You Pot Kettle Black Poor Places Reservations |
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Sky Blue Sky (2007, 51.26) ***/T |
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| Either Way You Are My Face Impossible Germany Sky Blue Sky Side With the Seeds Shake it Off Please Be Patient With Me Hate it Here |
Leave Me (Like You Found Me) Walken What Light On and on and on |
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Wilco (the Album) (2009, 42.46) ***½/T½ |
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| Wilco (the Song) Deeper Down One Wing Bull Black Nova You and I You Never Know Country Disappeared Solitaire |
I'll Fight Sonny Feeling Everlasting Everything |
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The Whole Love (2011, 56.23/75.07) ***/T |
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| Art of Almost I Might Sunloathe Dawned on Me Black Moon Born Alone Open Mind Capitol City |
Standing O Rising Red Lung Whole Love One Sunday Morning (Song for Jane Smiley's Boyfriend) |
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Star Wars (2015, 33.52) ***/½ |
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| EKG More... Random Name Generator The Joke Explained You Satellite Taste the Ceiling Pickled Ginger Where Do I Begin |
Cold Slope King of You Magnetized |
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Schmilco (2016, 36.30) ***/½ |
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| Normal American Kids If I Ever Was a Child Cry All Day Common Sense Nope Someone to Lose Happiness Quarters |
Locator Shrug and Destroy We Aren't the World (Safety Girl) Just Say Goodbye |
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Cruel Country (2022, 77.18) ***/T |
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| I am My Mother Cruel Country Hints Ambulance The Empty Condor Tonight's the Day All Across the World Darkness is Cheap |
Bird Without a Tail/Base of My Skull Tired of Taking it Out on You The Universe Many Worlds Hearts Hard to Find Falling Apart (Right Now) Please Be Wrong Story to Tell |
A Lifetime to Find Country Song Upside-Down Mystery Binds Sad Kind of Way The Plains |
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Current availability:
Mellotrons/Chamberlins used:
After Illinois alt.country legends Uncle Tupelo split in 1994, all involved not called Jay Farrar (who went on to form Son Volt) became Wilco, adding an indie influence to the expected Americana over a (at the time of writing) near-thirty-year career. They've influenced many later outfits, also spawning a crop of associated acts, not least bassist John Stirratt's The Autumn Defense, who, in turn, provided Wilco with multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone.
Their third album, 1999's Summer Teeth (as in 'some are teeth... and some aren't'. Boom boom), continued the vaguely 'alt.country' feel of their first two, adding Mellotron to a few tracks. Can't Stand It features some nice strings under the chorus from Jay Bennett and Nothing'severgonnastandinmyway (Again) has an upfront string part, while both She's A Jar and ELT feature some decent pitch-bend work. No samples here... Like several other similar albums (in, of course, my humble opinion), the Mellotron tracks tend to be the best on the record (biased? moi?!) the rest of the album being a little overrated. By the way, I've been (humorously) berated for not giving this a rave review, so I gave it another shot and have decided I may've been a little unfair. It doesn't really ring my bell, but Sparklehorse et al. fans may well be into this. Not great, but certainly not bad.
After taking time out to collaborate with Billy Bragg on the two Mermaid Avenue albums (below) of unrecorded Woody Guthrie lyrics, they followed up with 2002's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (that's Chicago's Marina City towers on the sleeve), after lineup upheavals that saw founder member Bennett moving on. Far more downbeat than its predecessor, it's a good album, but one I suspect the listener will have to work at, as it's far from readily accessible, but since when was that a bad thing? Obvious Mellotron on two tracks, presumably from Bennett, despite his general lack of involvement in the recording process, with an upfront strings part on Pot Kettle Black and some muted cellos on lengthy closer Reservations. It took the band another five years to come up with another tape-replay album, 2007's Sky Blue Sky. It's roughly comparable to their earlier work, although the alt.country quotient may be down slightly. New-ish boy Pat Sansone plays (real?) Chamberlin and Mellotron, with inaudible Chamby something on the title track, Mellotron strings on Side With The Seeds and some other inaudible things on Hate It Here and Leave Me (Like You Found Me), making all of one audible tape-replay track. Hmmm.
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2009's Wilco (the Album) is definitely a Wilco album, but maybe slightly better. Why? Difficult to define, but the songs just seem to grab me a little more, along with nice touches like the amusing George Harrison pedal steel quote from My Sweet Lord on You Never Know. No-one's credited with anything, as such, but that's probably Mellotron (as against Chamberlin) flutes on One Wing and a nice string part on Everlasting Everything. 2011's The Whole Love is yet another inconsistent Wilco album, highlights (I Might, Black Moon, twelve-minute closer One Sunday Morning (Song For Jane Smiley's Boyfriend)) mildly scuppered by a raft of Wilco-by-numbers material that could/should have been pruned to improve the overall health of the album. Seemingly two Mellotron tracks, from Sansone again, with a string swell on Art Of Almost that pretty much opens the album and background strings on Open Mind, although it could well be present on anything up to three or four other tracks. For that matter, is it even real? Hard to tell, frankly.
Four years on, 2015's Star Wars is a serious conundrum of an album, from its bizarre, kitsch sleeve to its fanboy-baiting title, which is deliberately obtuse, in case you were wondering. Opening with angular instrumental EKG, other notable tracks include the propulsive, jammed-out You Satellite and the murky, fuzzy Pickled Ginger, while King Of You could be seen as a microcosm of the album as a whole. However, closer Magnetized is probably the closest we get to a 'typical' Wilco number, alt.country credentials present and correct. Scott McCaughey supposedly plays Mellotron on Taste The Ceiling, although it's completely inaudible, which leaves us with the distant strings on Magnetized, played by...? Pat Sansone?
The following year's Schmilco (referencing Nilsson Schmilsson) features vastly better sleeve art, by excellent Spanish sicko Joan Cornellà; believe me, this is tame by his usual standards... The album, sadly, is very much gentler-end-of-Wilco-by-numbers, possibly at its best on acoustic opener Normal American Kids and Quarters. Mellotron? Someone (Sansone?) adds low-in-the-mix cellos to Happiness and a brief string part to the amusingly Stooges-referencing Shrug And Destroy, but it's all a little inconsequential. 2022's Cruel Country sees the band finally embracing their much-vaunted country roots, albeit in an over-extended format; a double-disc set that would've (just) fitted onto one is rather over-egging things, I'd say. Highlights? Ambulance, Tonight's The Day, Darkness Is Cheap and The Universe, perhaps, but this set really is for the committed fan; too many songs sound tossed-off, exacerbated by their 'mostly live takes' approach. Mellotron? Sansone's credited on almost half the album, although the only obvious parts are something that may be one of the less strident horns on Hints, a variant on strings (Chamberlin violins?) on The Empty Condor, The Universe and Country Song Upside-Down and standard strings on Story To Tell.
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Mermaid Avenue Vol. II (2000, 49.55) ***/½ |
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| Airline to Heaven My Flying Saucer Feed of Man Hot Rod Hotel I Was Born Secrets of the Sea Stetson Kennedy Remember the Mountain Bed |
Blood of the Lamb Aginst th' Law All You Fascists Joe DiMaggio Done it Again Meanest Man Black Wind Blowing Someday Some Morning Sometime |
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Current availability:
Mellotron used:
In the mid-'90s, Woody Guthrie's daughter Nora approached the Bard of Barking himself, Billy Bragg, to ask him to put music to some of her father's unpublished lyrics. Bragg in turn asked Wilco for help, correctly ascertaining that their impeccable credentials would give the project an Americana edge that could've been lacking had the whole project been left to that very British of artists. '98's Mermaid Avenue is apparently excellent, leaving nearly enough material for another album, which, with a handful of newly-recorded tracks, became Mermaid Avenue Vol. II. To my ears, it's a good, if not outstanding album of semi-Americana, with several high-quality tracks, not least the guitar-heavy raunch of All You Fascists, although it's been unfavourably compared to its predecessor by some critics.
Wilco mainman Jeff Tweedy plays 'Mellotrons' on opener Airline To Heaven, although the only audible evidence is some very background, er, something; brass? Suffice to say, if it wasn't credited, you wouldn't know. So; decent enough album, in an alt.country sort of vein, but forget it on the Mellotron front.
See: Jay Bennett & Edward Burch | Tweedy | Golden Smog | Billy Bragg & Wilco | Nels Cline | Minus 5
