#Woodsist

[dustedmagazine]

Woods — Perennial (Woodsist)

PERENNIAL by WOODS

Though Woods has been a band for nearly 20 years now, their discography has been surprisingly consistent. With vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Earl at the helm, plus long-time bandmates Jarvis Taviniere and John Andrews, Woods seamlessly interweave a range of folk, rock and psych elements into an appealing tapestry with a wide spectrum of hues. Built out from a series of loops created by Earl, upon which the band would jam and develop their ideas, Perennial is an easy-flowing new collection of songs, including a number of dynamic instrumentals, which showcase the chemistry among the players.

Perennial opens with the airy, surfy “The Seed,” an instrumental overture featuring lovely horn textures and some juicy filtered guitar lines. “Between the Past,” the first song proper, is as close as Woods get to being anthemic, pairing a winning psych-folk swing with Earl’s sticky refrain of “Can you see?” Things take a turn for the darker on “Another Side,” which initially feels it might be another weaving instrumental until Earl’s vocals enter the fray. From there, lyrics are soon cast aside to make way for droning organ and fuzzy guitar leads. The sun breaks through the murk on “White Winter Melody,” a mellow instrumental with some jazzy guitar runs and aching pedal steel from Connor Gallaher. It proves a welcome shot of sunshine before the rather bleak, piano-led “Sip of Happiness,” on which Earl confesses, “I’ve been let down, I’ve been depressed.” 

At the album’s mid-point, “Little Black Flowers” is a decent-enough tune with a slinky shimmy, but the central lyric, “Wrap your lips around the sun,” feels incongruous. “Day Moving On” combines shuffling, brushed drums and thick beds of vintage organ tones with plaintive bass notes resonating high up the neck. “The Wind Again” is a jazz/lounge instrumental featuring vibraphone and an eerie, whistled melody, which leads into album standout “Weep,” where the rhythm section locks into a satisfying groove full of pulse and shuffle, set against insistent guitar arpeggios. Fading in and then out again, the warbling tones of the instrumental title track bring the album to an unsettling close, suggesting the loops on which the album was built are running on and on.

Tim Clarke

[thejoyofviolentmovement]

It’s spring and y’all know what that means! Summer festival announcement time! So let’s get to it. Woodsist Festival is a collaboration between: Woodsist, an indie label founded back in 2006 by Woods‘ Jeremy Earl. Founded in Brooklyn, the label is currently based in Stone Ridge, NY. For more information on the label, check out: https://www.woodsist.com Impact Concerts, the Hudson Valley’s premiere concert and festival producer, creating carefully curated music and lifestyle events showcasing internationally renowned artists alongside local crafts, food, libations and cannabis. For more information on the production company, check out: https://www.impactconcerts.com.  Arrowood Farms, a Hudson Valley-based sustainably-minded farm, brewery, distillery, dining and event destination that regularly hosts concerts and festivals including Woodsist Festival, Dirt Farmer Festival, Felice County Fair and Follow The Arrow Festival. For more information, check out https://arrowoodfarms.com.  Ground Control Touring is a boutique booking agency based in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, offering international tour booking services to a tightly focused roster of artists. Their hands-on approach to the careers of their clients has taken the recent form of producing bespoke festival and curatorial properties alongside them, including both Woodsist Festival and Felice County Fair in the Hudson Valley and additional events elsewhere throughout North America. For additional information, check out: http://www.groundcontroltouring.com Started back in 2009, the inaugural Woodsist Festival took place in Brooklyn and featured a lineup of Thee Oh Sees, alongside acts like Beach Fossils, Real Estate, and Kurt Vile. Since then, the festival has taken place in several different locations including Big Sur, Point Reyes National Seashore and Pioneertown, CA. The festival has been presented at its current home of Arrowood Farms since 2019 in partnership with Ground Control Touring and Hudson Valley-based concert promoters Impact Concerts. The festival has played there annually since 2021. Woodsist Festival returns to Accord, NY‘s Arrowood Farms. Taking place September 21, 2024 – September 22, 2024, this year’s lineup, which was curated by Woods’ Jeremy Earl, features headliners Yo La Tengo, Real Estate and Jessica Pratt, along with Woods, Haliu Mergia, the acclaimed Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Jeff Parker, Ethan de L’Aïr, The Messthetics, 75 Dollar Bill Big Band, Rosali, Mystic 100s, Florry and Sylvia on two alternating stages. Arrowood Farms will also feature food from local Hudson Valley-based vendors and craft beer brewed directly on site. Tickets go on sale April 26, 2024 at 10:00AM ET and are available via www.woodsistfestival.com. 

[mymelodic-chapel]

Real Estate- Real Estate (Indie Rock, Indie Surf) Released: November 17, 2009 [Woodsist] Producer(s): Real Estate

[mxdwn]

Woodsist Festival Announces Fall 2023 Lineup Featuring Kevin Morby, Kurt Vile and the Violators, and Avery Tate

https://music.mxdwn.com/2023/07/02/news/woodsist-festival-announces-fall-2023-lineup-featuring-kevin-morby-kurt-vile-and-the-violators-and-avery-tate/

[clishmaclever]

Woods - “Between the Past”

PERENNIAL by WOODS

PERENNIAL by WOODS

"Woods announce their new album, Perennial, out September 15th on Woodsist, and share the double lead single, “Between The Past” b/w “White Winter Melody.” Formed in 2004, Woods have matured into a true independent institution, above and below the root, reliably emerging every few years with new music that grows towards the latest sky. Operating the Woodsist label since 2006 and curating the beloved homespun Woodsist Festival for the musical universe they’ve built, Perennial is the sound of a band on the edge of their 20th anniversary and still finding bold new ways to sound like (and challenge) themselves."

[musicollage]

Matt Kivel — Days Of Being Wild. 2014 : Woodsist.

! listen @ Bandcamp ★ buy me a coffee !

[brownwork]

We're excited to bring our 75 Dollar Bill Little Big Band back to the Woodsist Festival! A lot of great music both days. Tickets at this link.

[theovisaries]

Cindy Lee's Diamond Jubilee: Media, Mediation, and Immediacy

In early April, 2024, an eerie, recurring image landed on my social media feed: a lone cartoon woman with a blunt bob haircut, apparently weeping, and superimposed over the Alberta Terminal’s ominous grain siloes. Shortly thereafter, some of my most trusted online music buds (if you’re reading, y’all know who you are) declared the record bearing this cover—Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee—a masterpiece.

I had to hear it for myself, of course, but in order to receive this music, I needed to engage with—and, to some extent, become unwittingly interpolated by—the ways in which Cindy Lee foregrounds reception theory itself. In Immediacy: The Style of Too Late Capitalism (2024), Anna Kornbluh identifies our common compulsion “to have done with mediation” (11). With Diamond Jubilee, Cindy Lee doesn’t so much dispense with mediation (a fool’s errand), but rather endeavors to micromanage it. The album is not on a label, and is not streaming on Bandcamp, Spotify, or Apple Music. As of this writing, Diamond Jubilee is unavailable on physical media. Ostensibly, Patrick Flegel’s objective was to maximize his revenue stream and assert full creative control over the Cindy Lee project. To these ends, it’s a resounding success, but I found the listening experience strangely impoverished; I would have preferred to digest this sprawling double LP on some format untethered to the internet, screens, and devices. Luckily, the music compensates.

Wildly ambitious and clocking in at over two hours, Diamond Jubilee runs the gamut of loosely-confederated musical styles: tender, Sun Studios-inflected torch songs, glitter-rock inspired bass and drum workouts, glitchy synth interludes, and even a bit of butt rock. The  opening track “Diamond Jubilee” sets up the album’s dominant sonic palette with a slinky, pentatonic guitar figure reminiscent of Tuareg rockers Tinariwen, but by track three we’re in different, and, to these ears, more interesting territory. “Baby Blue” channels the melody to The Merseybeats 1966 hit “Sorrow” (later covered  by Bowie), and showcases the record’s signature double-tracked, echo laden vocals. It’s gentle on the ears, but impedes an easy engagement with the album’s lyrical content, for better or for worse.

Around the one hour mark, Diamond Jubilee hits its stride (how many records can you say that about?) “Dracula,” my favorite track, is a fried homage to J.J. Cale built on a syncopated bass groove and dissonant guitar (Patrick Flegel is a fine guitarist, but his deft bass playing is the record’s most arresting quality and often its saving grace.)

Overall, Diamond Jubilee’s antecedents are the early Elephant 6 sounds from bands like Of Montreal and Olivia Tremor Control, the mid-aughts Brooklyn scene carved out by labels like Captured Tracks, Sacred Bones, and Woodsist, and 2010s neo-freakbeat and psych auteurs like White Fence, Ariel Pink, and Ty Segall.

As for those listeners who hear in Diamond Jubilee a more classic set of influences, say, the Shangri-Las or the Beach Boys, well, my drugs aren’t that good—and sorry, neither is Cindy Lee.

Due to a puzzling inability and/or unwillingness on the part of otherwise articulate music critics to accurately describe Diamond Jubilee, substantive criticism of the record and its unusual release plan have been slower to emerge. Indeed, amidst the avalanche of hyperbole, both grassroots and online, writers for esteemed publications like Pitchfork, Stereogum, and Aquarium Drunkard seemed desperate to one-up each other with breathless, praise-laden, post-critique pieces. With all due respect, a lengthy self-released album by an artist from the Canadian prairie—which, last time I checked, was part of the Commonwealth—does not constitute a lost transmission from an alternative electromagnetic spectrum, or whatever other dopey cliché was bandied about in relation to Diamond Jubilee. And curiously, Cindy Lee’s most frequently referenced cultural touchstones, Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, aren’t even records at all! Yes, the work is doubtlessly strong—compelling, even—but is it a game changer? Or an index of cultural exhaustion?

These questions would never be seriously posed were it not for the record’s edgy, anti-marketing marketing plan, which has strong “I graduated from one of Canada’s top business schools with really good grades” energy. Objectively, Cindy Lee deviated from the standard way of doing business in the music industry at that level (Flegel's former band Women released records on Jagjaguar). This is the textbook definition of disruption. Stranger still, it worked, capturing the attention of an audience that, as musician and academic Franklin Bruno astutely put it on X, is “too jaded to be sold something, but supports what they 'discover,' all at once, the same week.”

But we need not scrutinize Flegel exclusively through the lenses of sour grapes and cynicism; a splashy self-release can be a practical way to seize the means of production and distribution. It’s an impulse that many musicians-turned-entrepreneurs from Ian MacKaye to Mac McCaughan have built lasting and profitable businesses on. Nor need I rehash the extreme defenses of the record, wherein an unsavory group of mostly male stans interpreted Cindy Lee’s distribution strategy as a joyous middle finger to the music industry’s normative (or “tedious,” as many put it) rollout: the album announcement three months in advance, three teaser singles that a publicist attempts to “place” on blogs that are typically ad-driven and lacking in quality control, and a big, friend-annoying push on release day. In sum, releasing a record on Geocities is a knife that cuts both ways; it enabled Cindy Lee to squeeze out the middleman, hack the attention cycle, and shroud the record in the romantic aura of mystery and solitary genius; however, it also contributed to no small amount of misunderstanding, something few artists enjoy or actively court. The decision to ride as a lone wolf reeks of a rugged individualism I do not share; I value collaborations and partnerships.

I am fairly qualified to comment on Diamond Jubilee’s rollout. Like Cindy Lee, my band Trummors began work on our latest LP four years ago, and a few of the songs were based on melodies or progressions that had been kicking around for far longer. Yet, at each step of the way—from arranging to recording, editing to sequencing, and, most crucially, outlining a release plan—we made nearly opposite decisions as Cindy Lee. This is not to say one path is unambiguously superior to the other, only time will tell, but merely to reiterate that I have some insight into the costs, benefits, and stakes of these choices, both commercially and aesthetically.

Trummors 5 was culled from about 20 songs we recorded at home using a hodgepodge of analog gear, DAWs, and flown-in drum tracks. I played most of the instruments: piano, acoustic and electric guitar, bass, and lap steel. The results were charmingly "deskilled" at best, amateurish at worst. When I sent roughs to Pete at our label, he encouraged us to follow this path, noting that he liked the intimate vibe and thought others would respond positively to it as well. Maybe he was right. At any rate, Anne and I weren’t satisfied; we recorded our previous LP Dropout City at Palomino Sound, an affordable, well-outfitted studio in L.A, so we didn’t feel too terrific about what we perceived as a lowering of our sonic standards.

In the thick of the pandemic, we booked time with producer Dan Horne at his Lone Palm Studio (now Universal Hair Farm), and called in friends to help us live track. This method may not suit everyone, but for us, there’s a certain alchemy that only comes from making records this way—after honestly assessing our record-in-progress, we realized we weren’t prepared to dispense with that. All told, over the course of two years, we spent upwards of 6k making the record, not including travel costs. We did not receive a recording advance (ask PayPal credit how we made this record!), but eventually we were paid back half of that amount upon agreeing to release the record the traditional way: on a label, with a coordinated publicity campaign, and a vinyl pressing with a limited edition colored variant. These were not decisions we took lightly; it was not driven by blind, unreconstructed faith in the status quo. Rather, as a band with a small, niche audience—far too small to reach our longtime goal of being a bookable live act in 2024—this was truly a case in which the standard practice appeared to be the best way to achieve our goal of modest audience growth. Albeit on a much smaller scale, the effect of Cindy Lee’s release was akin to proximate rollouts by megastars like Beyonce and Taylor Swift, artists whose teams are hellbent on sucking all the oxygen, and every last dollar, out of a music business increasingly circumscribed by an unhealthy monoculture.

Too, Trummors 5 eschewed the sprawling, maximalist approach that characterizes Diamond Jubilee. Instead, we did that sometimes painful thing writers and artists do: edit. We chose what we thought were the strongest ten songs from nearly two hours of music we recorded at home and shaped them into a coherent whole. I maintain the conservative position that the LP-as-unified-song-cycle is the heart and soul of the recorded music game. Moreover, as Alfred Hitchcock famously quipped, “The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.” The same can be said of albums. Still, we had a nagging sense of “if a tree falls”; the only option was to reconcile ourselves to the gaping maw of obscurity. In short, Cindy Lee showed me the folly of maintaining any sanguine hope for modest but significant audience growth in a winner-take-all world, and for that, I begrudgingly thank them for removing the scales from my eyes (Flegel’s pronouns have vacillated between they/them and he/him; I’ve used these pronouns interchangeably in this essay).

What’s left is a record full of contradictions: simultaneously an earnest and impressive artistic statement, a pragmatic (if self-serving) tweak on the music business’s notorious PR boondoggles, and, of course, a bit of a gimmick. According to Sianne Ngai (2020), the gimmick is the capitalist form par excellence. Ngai writes, “Gimmicks are fundamentally...devices that strike us as working too little (labor-saving tricks) but also as working too hard (strained efforts to get our attention)” (1). Cindy Lee's mid-fi, minimally edited recordings achieve a magical immediacy by working too little, but they also work too hard to make sure we notice. Thus, as Ngai observes,

"The gimmick [...] acquires its reputation of bad timing—being too old or too new—based on its deviation from a tacit standard of productivity. Under or overperforming with respect to this historical norm, it strikes us as technologically backward or just as problematically advanced: futuristic to the point of hubris, as in the case of Google Glass, or comically outdated, like the choreographed jerks used to simulate turbulence in television episodes of Star Trek [or Geocities]" (3).

Had Flegel released this record a few years earlier, it would have merited inclusion as a case study in Ngai’s book. Perhaps the tensions that subtend the gimmick are what makes Cindy Lee’s Diamond Jubilee so difficult to parse, and so prone to endlessly recursive debates about its merits.

Works Cited:

Kornbluh, Anna. Immediacy, or the Style of Too-Late Capitalism. Verso, 2024.

Ngai, Sianne. Theory of the Gimmick: Aesthetic Judgment and Capitalist Form. The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2022.

[daggerzine]

Woods- Perennial (Woodsist)

The Woods duo are at it again, but with many additional, outstanding musicians. Eleven songs that win the award for the most diverse tracks on one album. You’ve got pop, jazz, instrumentals, distortion; you name it, it’s on here. The album begins with “The Seed,” a flute-filled wall of distortion that builds and builds into an eerie organ, plunking piano, wah-wah guitar, and battering drum instrumental. Track 2, by far my favorite track, “Between The Past,” is a gorgeous, dreamy pop song to blast in the sunshine. Beautiful singing and a melody right out of Birdie’s songbook. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zC1ByMCNdyg 

Track 3, “Another Side,” is a catchy high-powered frenzy of sound with a Led Zeppelin Houses of The Holy era-ish organ sound. Hard to categorize, but would love to hear live. Another single, “White Winter Melody,” creates a jazzy, dreamy sound with pedal steel guitar; actually there’s a lot of intricate guitar work on this instrumental. Another mellow, beautiful one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJn5Dhvo2DU  “Sip Of Happiness” has a somber piano intro, but not for long. Another poppy, jazzy number that you’ll be singing along with in no time if you can hit those falsetto notes. 

“Little Black Flowers,” track 6, is a pretty song with echoing loops of sound.  Track 7, “Day Moving On,” is another gorgeous number, but this time with a late 60s vibe. Imagine Mercy’s “Love Can Make You Happy” with a twist.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHrCWLCSBl0  The harmony in the vocals take it to another level. Another one to blast on the beach or in your convertible.  “The Wind Again” is a whistling instrumental with pedal steel guitar and a percolating organ that almost sounds like the theme from Midnight Cowboy. “Weep” kicks in as a bouncy number that looks to be the most radio-friendly. The question is, which radio? Track 10, “Double Dream,” is a slower, softer song that is filled with beautiful harmonies. The album ends with the title track, ”Perennial.” It’s a short dreamy, meandering instrumental that again captures the abundance of unique flavors of instruments on this album.

As I said before, this album is all over the place, but that’s why it’s so good. Looks like they will be hitting the road soon. Would love to hear these songs live, but they’re just hitting the coasts this time. Catch them if you can! ERIC EGGLESON

[noloveforned]

no love for ned airs on wlur tonight from 8pm to midnight and we're sneaking a few last 90's halifax bands into our theme. you can also catch up with last week's show over on mixcloud, the setlist is below!

no love for ned on wlur – july 28th, 2023 from 8-10pm

artist // track // album // label les gluetones // reincarnated // trim crusts if desired compilation // cinnamon toast the molds // 1987 // the molds ep // (self-released) the sprouts // i want to be an idiot // eat your greens cassette // tenth court limbo district // encased // encased 7" // chunklet industries the 39 clocks // a look into you // pain it dark // no fun tuff bluff // poppies // poppies 7" // snappy little numbers cb radio gorgeous // the devil // 7" ep // thrilling living advertisement // cryin' wild // this is advertisement cassette // help yourself abi ooze // "nice" guy // julie's apartment (demos) cassette // (self-released) split system // alone again // volume two // goner rick white // doctor doctor // twenty golden hits of the sixties // (self-released) woods // be kind my love // reflections, volume one (bumble bee crown king) // woodsist alien eyelid // easy times // bronze star // tall texan connie converse // talkin' like you (two tall mountains) // how sad, how lovely // squirrel thing shannen moser // two eyes // the sun still seems to move // lame-o primitive motion // portrait i // portrait of an atmosphere // a guide to saints thomas strønen, ayumi tanaka and marthe lea // eyre // bayou // ecm alabaster deplume // child playing in the forbidden ruins // salty road dogs victory anthem ep // international anthem malcolm jiyane tree-o featuring grandmaster cap // we're not buying it (dennis bovell dub) // red hot and ra- the remixes compilation // red hot organization napoleon da legend and giallo point // soldier of truth // coup d'etat // fxck rxp phiik featuring lungs//lonesword // don quixote // another planet four // novelty el michels affair and black thought // i would never // glorious game // big crown vince howard // can't get enough // heart-soul and inspiration // tidal waves the undisputed truth // you got the love i need // the undisputed truth // gordy suep // in good health // shop ep // memorials of distinction present electric // imogene coca // present electric cassette // paisley shirt the palisades // knight in gale // a month too soon 12" // easter autocamper // never end // you look fabulous! cassingle // discontinuous innovation the oilies // touch me! change colors // (bandcamp mp3) // (unreleased) the occasional flickers // capitalism begins at home // capitalism begins at home 7" // cloudberry

[screamingforyears]

IN A MINUTE:

A NEW MUSIC ROUND_UP…

@cultleadermusic are here w/ a brand new standalone single titled “LEARN TO LOVE IT” (@deathwishinc) & it finds the SLC-based quartet of Anthony Lucero (vocals), Michael Mason (guitar), Casey Hansen (drums) & Sam Richards (bass) bringing a bludgeoned 2:14 clip of progressively_crusted Metal.

“ELEGANT DEATH” is the first taste of @cursesforever’s forthcoming LP (TBA: @italiansdoitbetter) & it finds the Berlin-based producer Luca Venezia “embracing the elegance” of death across 5+ mins of goth_poppin SynthWave.

@fuckedup are back w/ a new(ish) standalone single titled “BEING(ANNOYING)” & it finds the Toronto-based April_fooling outfit of T Leo (guitars), Slumpy (bass), G Beat (drums), Mr Damian (vocals), Jane Fair (sax) & Lauren Moses-Brettler (vox) returning their gaze back towards that guttural hXc goodness.

“TAKE IT BACK” is the lead single from @retaildrugsnyc’s forthcoming debut LP titled ‘I Love You So !’ (8/2 @candlepin_records) & it finds the DIY vet Jake Brooks’s Brooklyn-based project bringing the slacker_rawk goods across 2+ blown out mins of six-stringing AltGaze. 

“FALL AWAY FOR YEARS” is the closing track on @woods_family_band’s freshly dropped surprise EP titled ‘Five More Flowers’ (@woodsist) & it finds the NY-based duo of multi-instrumentalists/vocalists Jeremy Earl & Jarvis Taveniere bringing 5+ mins of spring-ready PsychPop.

[sonmelier]

71. Woods | Perennial

🇺🇸 Etats-Unis | Woodsist | 44 minutes | 11 morceaux

Au bout de 18 ans d’existence, le groupe pop-folk new-yorkais livre son meilleur disque. Orchestrations luxuriantes et mélodies irrésistibles irriguent des compositions aussi sophistiquées qu’accueillantes.

[chrisryanspeaks]

HEAR: Extra Psychedelic Folk Fuzz | Woods - “Another Side”

Woods are releasing a new album, Perennial, in September on the heels of their Woodsist Festival. Woods will be joined with Kevin Morby, Kurt Vile, Avey Tare, and, of course, Woods. Woods just shared two more new songs “Another Side” and “Weep.” We are excited because both are extra psychedelic-tinged folk music. Check out “Another Side” below: Read the full article

[mymelodic-chapel]

Crystal Stilts- Crystal Stilts EP (Noise Pop, Jangle Pop, Post-Punk) Released: July 14, 2008 [Woodsist]

[mxdwn]

Woodsist Festival Announces 2024 Lineup Yo La Tengo, Real Estate, Jessica Pratt & More

https://music.mxdwn.com/2024/04/24/news/woodsist-festival-announces-2024-lineup-yo-la-tengo-real-estate-jessica-pratt-more/

[audiofuzz]

HEAR: Extra Psychedelic Folk Fuzz | Woods - “Another Side”

Woods are releasing a new album, Perennial, in September on the heels of their Woodsist Festival. Woods will be joined with Kevin Morby, Kurt Vile, Avey Tare, and, of course, Woods. Woods just shared two more new songs “Another Side” and “Weep.” We are excited because both are extra psychedelic-tinged folk music. Check out “Another Side” below: Read the full article