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...tick tock, rappa tap tap, glitch bloop ’n roll — here come ol’Wand back, they’re coming down slowly. The denser they get, it appears, the simpler they fly. And now . . . five years after a Laughing Matter, baby — who are “Wand” this time? With Vertigo, what hath Wand spawned?

It’s multichromatic, that’s for sure, but its too soon to tell, we’re too close to see. The way cells are replaced and all new again? That’s it. Now they are ten and all new again (see Ganglion Reef, 2014), but in the sample set of the time between — this time/the time of the quintet Wand of late, of Plum and Laughing Matter — they’ve undergone the complex -2+1 dimensional restructure, coming out a quartet (Evan Backer, Evan Burrows, Robbie Cody, Cory Hanson). Two original members, if you’re keeping a chart. We’re not judging you!

So, new-ish, in new ways anyway. But don’t . . . the new Wand’s built upon the exalted altars of old. There’s flashes of sentiment and tension, nudity and evasion, theatrical elevation, giant pieces chunked throughout alongside little bits of things. Allowing for slippage, it’s all one: the far horizon drawn in, nearer than ever before, allowing the chance for greater integration, if you stay open. And so they did. Vertigo is the sound of feet lost, regained, lost again, equilibrium in soft focus, a swaying feeling, more automatic and associative: in time, direct.

Determining to work backwards (or at least insideout) this time, Wand recorded everything in their own studio; pieces cut from improvisations and reshaped, writing from within the performance, without the woodshed. Unconsciously, in the shadow of themselves, and turning round and round (and round), they kept finding that empty space and playing what it implied. Everybody took on a new position in addition to the old one. It was intuitive, strangely ego-less . . . going somewhere they’d never been and not knowing what they were doing, but committing and recommitting, unafraid to eject in a constant positive forward momentum.

TRACK LISTING

1. Hangman
2. Curtain Call
3. Mistletoe
4. JJ
5. Smile
6. Lifeboat
7. High Time
8. Seaweed Head