Lee Wilder – Sound Emporium
This set gets off to a smoking start with the hardy punky vocal splash on “Rollin’” & miraculously mixes an R&R timbre with a punkier vanilla extract. Nice work. The instrumentation & added vocals have circuitry with a lasting sense of personality. The tires on this musical vehicle are filled to the max with a soulful grind & an impressive mix of genres that’s never stiff. A party in your speakers.
The 10 Sound Emporium (Drops Feb 9/Blind Owl Records/43:00) tunes on this debut by Lee Wilder was produced by Jordan Andreen with horn & string arrangements by Jesse Audelo. The material is a diversified set of gospel-tinted Americana with danceable swipes, pop yeast & grunge shavings. Plenty of energy drifts through the love & loss of old song recipes.
These performers have absorbed their rock, soul & punky lessons well. They mix the genres, stir & shake then pour it out thick with consistency & it works tastefully. “Riot,” is fairly simple but it has a Sly & the Family Stone funk, soul & rock vocal execution. Exciting. Even the effects that are added fatten the performance & make it an interesting listen as the lead guitar stabs away at the melody.
Maybe everyone in this unit listened to lots of creative ’60s melodies & performances because they have certainly loaded up their set with fluent retro material & polished it to their high sheen. Even the simple “Mess of Things,” has a steady punky vocal — never gets too grungy or aggressive. Yet, it has its vinegar. I love it.
With the inclusion of “Fever,” “Bluebird,” & “No Man’s Land,” it’s as if they plucked these from Crash Test Dummies leftovers. The vocals are perfectly in line with Brad Roberts’ deep subterranean tonality. These are cool – “Fever” stomps along with predatory charm with its hardy thick aggressive timbre & bristles with a bewitched pizzazz. Creepy? A little, but it’s an attractive creepiness. Like when you pass an accident & have to look.
Whereas “No Man’s Land,” mixes tuba notes with fiddle scratching. Quite a contrast. A segue into the sitar & piano oriented “November Gold,” & “Take Me,” – simply beautiful. They pull at the tendrils of other musical sources but only moderately & to their benefit.
Highlights – “Rollin,’” “Riot,” “Mess of Things,” “Fever,” “November Gold,” “Take Me,” “Bluebird,” “No Man’s Land” & the Celtic-stately “Cave In.”
Musicians: Don & Tina White Cervantes, Jordan Andreen, Aaron Gragg, Annabelle Terbetski, Calvin Lewis, Angela Choong, Bill Caballero, Elizabeth Brown, Wili Fleming, Brittany Wallace, Nancy Ross, Lexi, Pulido, Natasha Kozaily, Tim McNalley, Billy Edwal, Andrew Young, Jordan Morita, Bryan Smith, Batya MacAdam-Somer, Blake Dean, Misha Borisovsky, Lance Jordan, Steve Marler, Michael Evans, Chad Lee, Raymon Currie, Jessica Roberts, Megan Welsh, Jodi Bagley, Rebecca Jade & Orion Ferguson.
Color image from Lee’s Bandcamp site. CD @ https://wilder-wifi.bandcamp.com/album/sound-emporium & https://www.blindowlsd.com/shop-all-vNPIA/p/preorder-lee-wilder-sound-emporium
