The Band Wye Oak’s Main Attraction
Mother Jones
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Wye Oak
Tween
Merge
Courtesy of Merge Records
Jenn Wasner has one of the great voices in music today, whether she works in the folk-pop duo Wye Oak, the electro-leaning Dungeonesse, or Flock of Dimes, which spans both. Increasingly, however, she’s been blurring the stylistic lines between her projects, with the difference now seeming to be her choice of collaborators rather than the sound she achieves. Collecting tracks recorded between the previous two Wye Oak albums, Tween finds Wasner and multi-instrumentalist Andy Stack in peak form, ranging from techno-dreamy (“Out of Nowhere”) to epic and muscular (“If You Should See”) to sleek and breezy (“Watching the Waiting”). As always, Wasner’s evocative singing is the main attraction. She balances stoic melancholy and hopeful resilience beautifully, and her deft vocal overdubs are breathtaking. Next, keep an eye out for a Flock of Dimes album, due in late September.
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