Jagjaguwar is profoundly inspired byWilderness, the unconventional band from Baltimore, Maryland. ThatWilderness have seemed to eschew the more standard paths to releasing and promoting music is beside the point, as their focus has always been on the creation and performance of their musical works.More than most,Wilderness hold true to the idealistic notion that sometimes music and art can stand for itself.Music can have its own influence or gravity, and the muddling by a shit cloud of cultural references and lazy signifiers often costs the world more than whatever value an artistic work brings to it.Whereas the world doesn’t need the music of Wilderness, it deserves no less than aWilderness without ornamentation or hyperbole.
Wilderness’s third full-length album entitled (k)no(w)here was conceived as one musical piece, and the impetus for this composition came from an invitation to collaborate with renowned visual artist Charles Long at Long’s exhibit at theWhitney Biennial in Spring of 2008. The eight identifiable parts of (k)no(w)here are not readily separated from each other, such is the flow from and into each part. Created in ways different than the previousWilderness self-titled album (2005) and theWilderness Vessel States album (2006), (k)no(w)here still retains theWilderness sound, with some evolution. On the new album, James Johnson is sometimes joined vocally by Colin McCann (aka The Lord Dog Bird, whose self-titled debut was released by Jagjaguwar in the Summer of 2008). And, as on previous albums,McCann performs on guitar, Brian Gossman on bass, andWilliam Goode on drums, but the resulting community of all these parts comes across as more dynamic, and the perceived space they inhabit seems more vast.
(k)no(w)here was recorded by Pete Lyman at Infrasonic Sound in Los Angeles, in the Spring of 2008, and mixed byWilderness and Pete Lyman shortly thereafter.
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