One of my favorite groups, Wild Nothing, just announced they’ll have a new album out next year. Life of Pause will be released on February 19th and can be pre-ordered here. It’s the follow-up to Nocturne, my second favorite album of 2012. Beautiful and jangly post-punk with a vibrant, spacy atmosphere remains as the group’s go-to, with frontman Jack Tatum continuing his consuming knack for wistful melodic hooks in both vocal inflections and emotional arrangements.
The album was recorded in LA and Stockholm with producer Thom Monahan. Peter Bjorn & John’s John Eriksson and Medicine’s Brad Laner also appear. Tatum had this to say about the release: “I desperately wanted for this to be the kind of record that would displace me. I’m terrified by the idea of being any one thing, or being of any one genre. And whether or not I accomplish that, I know that my only hope of getting there is to constantly reinvent. That reinvention doesn’t need to be drastic, but every new record has to have it’s own identity, and it has to have a separate set of goals from what came before.”
Of course, what’s an album announcement without a tease (or two)? The group showed off two album tracks, “To Know You” and “TV Queen”, via a fascinating video set in one room. Watch it above. Both tracks are excellent, the “got so lost trying to know you” hook in “TV Queen” being particularly outstanding. Look for Wild Nothing’s Life of Pause to be one of 2016’s first great albums.
Alternatively, stream them separately below:
Life of Pause
01 Reichpop
02 Lady Blue
03 A Woman’s Wisdom
04 Japanese Alice
05 Life of Pause
06 Alien
07 To Know You
08 Adore
09 TV Queen
10 Whenever I
11 Love Underneath My Thum
