By AVA LIVERSIDGE
With six tracks and just under eighteen minutes, Wilco’s latest EP, Hot Sun Cool Shroud, stands alone in its surprising succinctness. The indie rock mainstays released their summertime-after-dark EP via dBpm records.
Wilco is an album band. Frontman Jeff Tweedy settles the group into an era with each full-length release, allowing the group to fully sink into whichever aesthetic and musical world the record meticulous crafts. EPs have usually served as afterthoughts for Wilco; recycling bins for half-baked songs or experimentation with uncharted timbres.
EP Hot Sun Cool Shroud offers an alternative impression. Not only does the collection boast an explicit thematic through-line, but the six songs are also structurally integrous, offering beginning through end to Tweedy’s gothic summer saga. The six tracks are arranged such that each half of the EP features one instrumental reprieve sandwiched by two lyrical tracks, the first a typical Wilco romp and the closers being more placid, acoustic cuts. In short, there is nothing random about this release.
Opener “Hot Sun” is searing and seeking shelter. The track embodies the nervousness that befalls a people living at the whims of untamable habitats—the peace and terror of realizing one’s own defenselessness. The lopsided twang of resonators run riot into instrumental track “Livid,” serving as a momentary release of pressure through the crossfire of competing guitars. The plaintive “Ice Cream” jerks us back to center, allowing Tweedy a moment of acoustic reflection on the fickleness of the things we hold too tightly, ice cream and lovers included.
Opening up the second half, “Annihilation” continues to ruminate on the transience of the good, but with the nonchalant optimism that Wilco typically pairs even the most despairing lyrics with. “Inside the Bell Bones,” the EP’s second instrumental track, is a Brazilian-esque guitar groove, deliciously smooth and without lingering seasonal dread. Closer “Say You Love Me” continues to reflect on mortality, offering a lasting ray of hope in the light that lingers long after its bearer has gone. After all, it was never the sun that was fickle, but us.
On Hot Sun Cool Shroud, Tweedy hones in on the dissonances of summer: How can a season so fleeting also be the object of such grand anticipation? Why is it that Tweedy’s California heat comes and goes so swiftly yet seems to hang leaden in the air as if night will never fall? And why do we hold so tightly to things, invest such hope in moments, that are as sure to leave as the sun is to set?—to reflect on transience.
The EP, in the breadth of its indie rock stylings from “Livid” to “Ice Cream,” forces its listener through a taste of the very transience that occupies Tweedy’s lyricism. Wilco’s latest Hot Sun Cool Shroud is a focused and impressive return to the EP medium.
Check out ‘Hot Sun Cool Shroud’ here:
