Search Results for:

JONATHAN WILSON

Jonathan Wilson

Eat The Worm

    “A lot of this batch of songs is a reaction to the production stuff that I do,” says Jonathan Wilson of his new album Eat the Worm.

    “It began to dawn on me: a lot of my friends and people that I really admire, when they get in the studio, they get much more conservative…. Sometimes you’ve got to take chances and resist the urge to dumb things down to the kind of humdrum album we’ve all heard. It’s got to be kind of strange.”

    To that end, Wilson gave himself plenty of time to let the songs unfold over the course of the last two years. Having his own Fivestar Studios in Topanga Canyon, California also allowed him to devote as much time as he wanted to fine-tuning the tracks.

    “There's a lot of experimentation, and almost none of the songs started as me with a guitar. I really wanted something that sounded fresh and new.”

    “Sonically stunning... Like Harry Nilsson, Jack Nitzsche or Todd Rundgren, Wilson plays with tone, time and space, resulting in a lush, brainy record.” Shindig – 5 stars *****

    TRACK LISTING

    1. Marzipan
    2. Bonamossa
    3. Ol’ Father Time
    4. Hollywood Vape
    5. The Village Is Dead
    6. Wim Hof
    7. Lo And Behold
    8. Charlie Parker
    9. Hey Love
    10. B.F.F.
    11. East LA
    12. Ridin’ In A Jag

    Jonathan Wilson

    Rare Blur EP

      THIS IS A BLACK FRIDAY RELEASE AVAILABLE ONLINE ONLY ON FRIDAY NOVEMBER 27TH FROM 6PM.
      LIMITED TO ONE PER PERSON.



      Jonathan Wilson follows up his Dixie Blur album, released earlier this year via Bella Union, with a new EP ‘Rare Blur’.

      The EP continues where Dixie Blur left off with Wilson recruiting a host of Nashville musicians to deliver 6 songs of beautiful folk music.

      Pressed on 180g black vinyl.

      Jonathan Wilson had a busy 2017, producing Father John Misty's grammy nominated Pure Comedy and touring arenas around the globe as a guitarist and vocalist for Pink Floyd legend Roger Waters (for whom he also contributed to the lauded Is This The Life We Really Want? album.) Wilson also saw widespread acclaim heaped on Karen Elson’s sophomore LP Double Roses, which he recorded with her in Los Angeles in 2016.

      But it's not looking like Wilson is going to get much of a rest in 2018 either, as he'll be continuing on with the worldwide Waters tour and is set to release his own new solo album Rare Birds in the spring. The highly anticipated long player - which features backing vocals from Lana Del Rey, Josh Tillman, fellow Roger Waters bandmates Lucius and an extraordinary musical gift from otherworldly Brian Eno collaborator Laraaji - will be released through Bella Union worldwide.

      Although much of the album is comprised lyrically of meditations on a failed relationship and its aftermath, Wilson insists that Rare Birds is not really a concept album. "It's meant more as a healing affair, a rejuvenation, a reconciliation, for others, and for me. I wanted to balance personal narrative with the need I feel for calming healing music. I think we need journeys in sound, psychedelic gossamer-winged music that includes elements consciously and purposefully to incite hope, positivity, longing, reckless abandon and regret. It's all in there."

      And, for this one, music critics will need to retire the comparisons to heritage rockers and Laurel Canyon troubadours as they’re hardly useful anymore. Wilson's new sound takes a synthetic/acoustic, best-of-both-worlds analog/digital hybrid approach to achieve the complexity, sonic density and glossy hi-fi coating of Rare Birds. Heard for the first time on a Jonathan Wilson album are the sounds of synthesizers and drum machines.


      STAFF COMMENTS

      Andy says: Jonathan has eschewed the obvious Laurel Canyon trappings this time out, and the result is his best record yet. Still blissed-out, otherworldly, multi-layered and lonnnnng, but the sound is beautifully streamlined with even synths and drum machines gliding by. A headphone masterpiece.

      Jonathan Wilson

      Fanfare

        With 2011’s critically-lauded ‘Gentle Spirit’, audiences worldwide were introduced to the prodigious talents of singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer and unrivalled guitar hero Jonathan Wilson.

        The eagerly-awaited follow-up, ‘Fanfare’, is an even more ambitious production that instantly conjures thoughts of Dennis Wilson’s ‘Pacific Ocean Blue’.

        STAFF COMMENTS

        Andy says: Even better than his last one, Jonathan brings early to mid seventies West Coast vibes right back to life, this time adding Denis Wilson and Pink Floyd flavours to his heady, cosmic broth. Incredible.

        Jonathan Wilson

        Gentle Spirit

          'Gentle Spirit' is not simply the name of the debut solo album by songwriter / musician / producer Jonathan Wilson, it represents the ethos of the artist himself. Warm, supple melodies etched in layers of stringed instruments and willowy organ motifs accompany his earnest, North Carolinian drawl as he tells tales of humane values lost and found.

          Wilson’s music is steeped equally in the woodsy contours of his Blue Ridge experiences and the atmospheric guitar reveries of Neil Young and Quicksilver Messenger Service. In fact, 'Gentle Spirit' is remarkably evocative of that golden late ‘60s, early ‘70s period when rural and urban sensibilities colluded in producing some of rock’s most imperishable recordings.

          Wilson, a native of Forest City, North Carolina, has been quietly earning a reputation as a musical jack-of-all-trades. He is adept behind the recording console, possesses a luthier’s knowledge of all things strummed, and maintains the innate ability to conceptualize an instrument essential to providing the right colour to a track in need of a defining detail. Whether working with promising new acts like the band Dawes, celebrated contemporary artists such as Erykah Badu and Elvis Costello, or Rock and Roll Hall of Famers such as Jackson Browne and Robbie Robertson, Wilson provides direction and support as tasty and soulful as anyone in the business today.

          It should then come as no surprise that Wilson, so resolutely committed to “old school” musical values, began recording 'Gentle Spirit' in Los Angeles’s fabled Laurel Canyon. As a long-time student of “Canyon culture,” his ideas echo many of an earlier generation as the album embraces a unique blend of folk, country, rock and roll and pop elements, which enduringly create a sense of time and place. After leaving Laurel Canyon, Wilson relocated to the Echo Park section of L.A, home to his new recording studio, to finish tracking and mixing 'Gentle Spirit'. “I recorded everything to analog tape which I’ve always done; it’s not something I’m trying to do as a boutique kind of hip thing. Analog simply captures things better and it takes the edges off. It creates a beauty much like film.” The album was mixed by Wilson and Thom Monahan, who has worked with many artists, including Vashti Bunyan, Devendra Banhart and Vetiver.

          TRACK LISTING

          1. Gentle Spirit
          2. Can We Really Party Today?
          3. Desert Raven
          4. Canyon In The Rain
          5. Natural Rhapsody
          6. Ballad Of The Pines
          7. The Way I Feel
          8. Don’t Give Your Heart To A Rambler
          9. Woe Is Me
          10. Waters Down
          11. Rolling Universe
          12. Magic Everywhere
          13. Valley Of The Silver Moon


          Latest Pre-Sales

          113 NEW ITEMS

          E-newsletter —
          Sign up
          Back to top