Hello Reader,
Welcome back, good to see you.
My Wilco introduction, like many that have listened to the band, was by first listening to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2001) after recommendations from friends, and I believe the album was also featured in the brilliant book, 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. After Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, I definitely didn’t listen to the band’s releases in chronological order. It brought me so much joy to discover the fantastic Billy Bragg & Wilco collab Mermaid Ave (1998), Mermaid Ave Vol. II (2000). I fell in love with what Wilco and Billy Bragg created musically with Woody Guthrie’s already beautiful song lyrics. For a while I listened to both on repeat both digitally and even more so on vinyl. The art for those albums was just a bonus. Records both my friends and I cherished. They were elated strumming guitars, performing “California Stars,” “Way Over Yonder in the Minor Key.” At times I would try to add my voice with backing vocals. Around the same time outside these memorable backyard performances, I was exploring Wilco’s 1990s and early 2000s catalog and really liking Summerteeth (1999), Being There (1996), and listening to the wonderful and influential alt-country band, Uncle Tupelo and Jay Farrar’s excellent alt-country and alt-rock band, Son Volt. And then learning there was a singular live Wilco album titled, Kicking Television: Live in Chicago (2005) I acquired the cd and listened to it a lot for a while too and soon after listening to Television: Live in Chicago, I heard A Ghost is Born (2004) for the first time as well. A couple of years later, I found out there was a new Mermaid Ave release, Mermaid Avenue: The Complete Sessions (2012) aka “Vol III” so I had to get as well. I don’t recall listening to a full Wilco album after A Ghost is Born. In addition to the studio albums listed, Wilco has also released the following studio albums: Sky Blue Sky (2007), Wilco (The Album) [2009], The Whole Love (2011), Star Wars (2015), Schmilco (2016), Ode To Joy (2019), and Cruel Country (2022).
Though I’ve had chances to see them in my area, I haven’t seen them live. Josh on the other hand, has seen Wilco and frontman Jeff Tweedy a handful of times.
On September 29th, Wilco dropped their newest album, Cousin on their own dBpm Records. “I’m cousin to the world,” Jeff Tweedy confesses. “I don’t feel like I’m a blood relation, but maybe I’m a cousin by marriage. It’s this feeling of being in it and out of it at the same time.”
photo by Peter Crosby
Recording at the band’s studio, The Loft in Chicago, started in January 2019 and ended in May of 2023. Cousin was recorded featuring the usual Wilco members, Jeff Tweedy (vocals, guitar), John Stirratt (bass guitar), Glenn Kotche (drums), Mikael Jorgensen (synth), Nels Cline (guitar) and Patrick Sansone (piano), and also features Euan Hinshelwood on saxophone, additional bass, piano, synthesizer, backing vocals by Cate Le Bon and additional percussion and backing vocals by Spencer Tweedy. Cate Le Bon, the Welsh musician responsible for creating well-regarded studio albums: Me Oh My (2009), Cryk (2012), Mug Museum (2013), Crab Day (2016), Reward (2019), Pompeii (2022) and record producer working with Deerhunter, Kurt Vile and John Grant to name a few artists. Le Bon joined in the project in 2022 and was instrumental in providing her own perspective and bringing Wilco’s extremely self-sufficient process and the existing work on this unfinished project together to create the beautiful album, Cousin. This was the first Wilco album to have an outside producer since 2007’s Sky Blue Sky. Le Bon offers an invaluable voice and the album is better for it.
To hype the album up before my review, here’s a listen to a few songs on the album.
The first song and the beautiful album cover artwork from Azuma Makoto:
(All credits and rights to Wilco)
A lyric video for the title song:
(All credits and rights to Wilco)
And the closer “Meant To Be”:
(All credits and rights to Wilco)
All that being heard, Cousin is contemplative, reflective, yearning, at times somber and at others, more upbeat, striving. Some universal human thoughts are explored in connection, family, love, time, daily existence. The musicians that compromise Wilco are a tight unit and their musicianship shows through on each track on the album. Each skilled and adding to the whole. Cousin flows well from song to song. There are catchy, refrains from Tweedy on nearly every song. Wilco made a significant number of experimental choices on this album and overall, they were positive outcomes that added to the album.
Opening song, “Infinite Surprise” kicks off Cousin with a ticking clock like beat that overwhelms the senses followed by some the instrumentation of a guitar paired with Jeff Tweedy’s vocals. Some somber strings (piano and synth) are added as well as female vocals via Cate Le Bon. Then more synth kicks in as the intensity of the strings are increased. Tweedy’s vocals are about mortality and are somber yet slightly upbeat at the end of the song as the more noise is added to create a powerful effect. Song two, “Ten Dead” features a more somber lyrical delivery contrasted with a bright piano tone with deliberate loud chord changes, and the song features a theme about a frustrated, dissatisfied person living in society existing within the news cycle.
Song three, “Levee” features a quicker melody than the previous song and seems to be about mutual loss and saving. Song four, “Evicted” immediately strikes me as a prototypical Wilco song melody and lyrical delivery. Within the album Cousin, “Evicted” stands apart from other songs as they aren’t similar to it sonically. “Evicted” is a song about distance, love lost and acceptance. Song five, “Sunlight Ends” opens with drum beat and stringed instruments, before Tweedy vocalizes about an extraordinary individual in one’s perhaps inflated perspective and a seemingly missed opportunity. The next song, “A Bowl and A Pudding” tells us a story about acceptance and the need to move forward.
The titular song, “Cousin” opens strong with jangly guitar followed by Tweedy’s lyrics of the shared experience of human existence yet maintaining differences and thus distance. Song melody fades nicely at end. Unfortunately those with Pittsburgh close to their heart, the eight song on Cousin, “Pittsburgh,” is not a Yinzer anthem, but a TSA experience that kickstarts the examination of time relative to one’s desired accomplishments. It opens with nice guitar picking that moves to strumming later in the song. Song nine, “Soldier Child” has a consistent beat, with well-placed guitars and talks about the passage of time, the desire to reconnect but also move on after revisiting bad memories. Song ten, the closer to Cousin, “Meant To Be” is more positive in tone and explores a series of emotions common to the human existence in a stressed but not frantic vocal speech.
Cousin gets 4 out of 5 Scum Drops from me. It is a very good album. There’s a lot to like about it, including but not limited to the experimental style choices that were accomplished. It fits well within their discography, strengthening it. Cate Le Bon brought a much needed outside perspective that made the album better. There is great musicianship and instrumentation throughout the album. Very good lyrics and sonic quality. If you haven’t listened to Wilco in several years, this is a good album to come back to listen to. I recommend adding Cousin to your collection.
Cousin Track list (time)
- Infinite Surprise (5:44)
- Ten Dead (3:57)
- Levee (4:08)
- Evicted [3:31]
- Sunlight Ends [3:52]
- A Bowl and A Pudding [4:04]
- Cousin [4:12]
- Pittsburgh [5:15]
- Soldier Child [4:19]
- Meant To Be [3:56]
Total run time: 42:52
Here’s a direct link to the new album: https://wilcocousin.com/
And please visit Wilco’s colorful, comprehensive site: https://wilcoworld.net/
Thanks for reading and supporting good music.
Until next time,
Alex
Scummy Water Tower Productions co-founder, reviewer, business manager, and editor. Thank you for visiting this site, scummywatertower.com, and YouTube for Water Tower Sessions and SWT Interviews. And all of our socials.
Questions, feedback, or more? Contact me: alex@scummywatertower.com
