By Zack Swickey
Chicago's favorite indie band, Wilco, are still working hard at their hometown studio, The Loft, on their eighth studio album, but details are beginning to surface on what we should expect. Frontman Jeff Tweedy revealed to RollingStone.com that the current tentative title is Get Well Soon Everybody, and the offering (due in September) could quite possibly end up being a double-disc effort.
"If I could say anything to the world at large, that would be it," Tweedy explained of the title and revealed that the group has already recorded 20 tunes.
So, what will this new album sound like? For one, there's a little venture into prog territory. According to Spin, "Art of Almost" is a seven-minute "free-form jam" complete with electronics, haunting vocals and tribal drums. Tweedy cites Neil Young's eighth album as his inspiration for the tune, "It's a sort of atmospheric song you might hear on Tonight's the Night." But that isn't even the longest song to be expected. "Song for Jane Smiley's Boyfriend" is a 14-minute jam with 10 verses that Tweedy describes as autobiographical. Both songs' descriptions call to mind "Spiders (Kidsmoke)," one of their jammiest tracks and a perennial favorite at live shows. But then again, he told Spin that it might become a "pop record" and that many of the songs are "cinematic-sounding country music."
The group will be releasing their newest concoction on their own personal label, dBpm Records, while distribution will be handled by LA indie-label, Anti- Records, which previously released a Mavis Staples album produced by Tweedy. Following a revived trend, the first official taste of the album will be through a 7" vinyl of new song "I Might" as the A-side, with a cover of Nick Lowe's "I Love My Label" as the B-side, that will be released exclusively at this year's Solid Sound Festival in North Adams, Massachusetts, June 24-26. Celebrating its second year, Solid Sound is curated by Wilco, who will be performing the first two nights of the festival. According to their website, the song won't be available "to the rest of the world" until sometime in July. But the band hasn't shied away from playing new songs live, so maybe we will hear these tracks sooner than expected.