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viewing 1 To 12 of 12 items
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12"
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DC 925EP
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"Picking up the pieces of the picked-up pieces, Wand ride on, baby. Three months since they dropped the incredible mass of Vertigo upon the world, here is more, plating the pre-release single 'Help Desk' alongside 'Goldfish,' an additional cog from Vertigo's assembly, and then, in the name of the ever-expanding viewpoint (and the much-required dream-extension app), adding three remixes for good measure. 'Help Desk' and 'Goldfish' are brethren of the eight epochal vibrations that make up Vertigo -- boiled down from a tremendous volume of jams, then squeezed through the pinprick called automatic writing. Or 'riding,' as in, the groove/as far as they can see/past the horizon line/Jupiter space/the infinity room/whatever you choose to call it. The remixes delve back into the material, integrating another set of concentric thought-spirals into the radiant action. The unique perspectives of Beat Detectives, Dead Rider, and Dean Spunt become one with the Wand material, igniting inevitable further expansions. This EP's like a handshake promise that's fulfilled after the action has gone down -- the thanks you get for staying open and hanging in there. The present you get for being present! But everything has a price in time."
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LP
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DC 922LP
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"Wand, having shifted smoothly into phase IV of their star-flung efforts on the wings of the latest, Vertigo, follow upon it with an LP release of the archival In a Capsule Underground. These demos and unreleased songs from Ganglion Reef, as they're so helpfully dubbed on the front facing of the jacket, are the earliest Wand recordings that Drag City knows of, preceding everything that's come so far. It's not simply a function of time and nostalgia at this late moment that they sound invariably like magical recordings by, and for, children, is it? From the reverse end of the telescope, it's not so easy to tell. Just because someone's young doesn't mean that they are absolutely gonna sound like a souped-up baby Moody Blues crossed with a young-wave Status Quo, Barrettian Pink Floyd, Genesis-era Genesis, and transitioning Barclay James Harvest, all letting loose in the post-punk garage, does it? Yes, it happens more than sometimes in rock and roll life. But with Wand, what if their desire to sound pixieish and ethereal while mowing down with buzzing guitars and bass set to stun was simply a tactile approach to the conceptualization of phase I? Whatever the case, it can be generally agreed that in 2014-2015, they managed to pump out three distinct progressions on this theme -- Ganglion Reef, Golem, and 1000 Days -- at a trot. And now that In a Capsule Underground's spinning on a turntable eternal, come to find out, they actually did it twice with Ganglion Reef. The light, fizzy versions here have distinctive, gleaming magic energies all their own and will provide quite the breathtaking thrill ride when endeavored upon by all who haven't yet heard them."
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Cassette
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DC 865CS
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Cassette version. "Wand are back, and they're coming down slowly. With Vertigo, what hath Wand spawned? It's multichromatic, that's for sure, but it's too soon to tell. The way cells are replaced and all new again? That's it. Now they are ten and all new again, but in the sample set of the time between they've undergone the complex dimensional restructure, coming out a quartet. So, new-ish, in new ways anyway. 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. 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 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. It's like folk music for children, with synthesizers and other crap. Raw details with a lush velvet backing. Hear the articular evidence granular within the jams as it flows. Wand are funneling energy, pitching space your way -- more like to stand your hair on its toes with every verse-chorus. Pulling on segments of infinity, boiled down and resequenced, they've devised their own dream gear to drive the old moterik into wide open space, in atmospheric reverb, on perma-globular drift."
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CD
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DC 865CD
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"Wand are back, and they're coming down slowly. With Vertigo, what hath Wand spawned? It's multichromatic, that's for sure, but it's too soon to tell. The way cells are replaced and all new again? That's it. Now they are ten and all new again, but in the sample set of the time between they've undergone the complex dimensional restructure, coming out a quartet. So, new-ish, in new ways anyway. 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. 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 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. It's like folk music for children, with synthesizers and other crap. Raw details with a lush velvet backing. Hear the articular evidence granular within the jams as it flows. Wand are funneling energy, pitching space your way -- more like to stand your hair on its toes with every verse-chorus. Pulling on segments of infinity, boiled down and resequenced, they've devised their own dream gear to drive the old moterik into wide open space, in atmospheric reverb, on perma-globular drift."
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LP
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DC 865LP
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LP version. "Wand are back, and they're coming down slowly. With Vertigo, what hath Wand spawned? It's multichromatic, that's for sure, but it's too soon to tell. The way cells are replaced and all new again? That's it. Now they are ten and all new again, but in the sample set of the time between they've undergone the complex dimensional restructure, coming out a quartet. So, new-ish, in new ways anyway. 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. 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 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. It's like folk music for children, with synthesizers and other crap. Raw details with a lush velvet backing. Hear the articular evidence granular within the jams as it flows. Wand are funneling energy, pitching space your way -- more like to stand your hair on its toes with every verse-chorus. Pulling on segments of infinity, boiled down and resequenced, they've devised their own dream gear to drive the old moterik into wide open space, in atmospheric reverb, on perma-globular drift."
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LP
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ITR 276LP
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2023 release. "Back in print on white vinyl. Following up their debut full-length on Ty Segall's God? label, Wand presents their second album, Golem, on In The Red. Recording with Chris Woodhouse at his Hanger studio in Sacramento, Wand summons the dark and heavy power of the riff. Back in September 2013, Wand was quietly dismembered and ritually eaten in the hills near Dodger Stadium. Wand was reborn as 'Wand' -- an obese organ falsely organized as four overjoyous nerds. Four flesh balloons betting on a few aging amplifiers. Rumor has it they listen to Here Come the Warm Jets on loop all day and plot mail fraud. What's more, they allegedly stole Dale Crover's car and sacrificed it to the weather near the Los Angeles County Line. A few things, at least, are certain: Wand hears ghosts. Wand prefers serpents. The Sun is the mother of every fiction. All phenomena will be consumed in alphabetical order, but desire will recirculate ad infinitum. If all else fails, Wand will just devour more hands. Wand is coming your way soon."
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2LP
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DC 744LP
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2023 repress. 2019 release. "Almost two years on from 2017's Plum, Californian scrap polymorphs Wand is prepared to launch their fifth, and newest long-playing record, Laughing Matter. By now, Wand is the shifting but unmistakable collaboration between Sofia Arreguin (keys, vocals), Cory Hanson (guitar, vocals), Robert Cody (guitar), Lee Landey (bass) and Evan Burrows (drums). Laughing Matter is marked by the confidence and exuberance of a band that has lived, feuded, thrived and grown together through years of dedicated jamming, touring and recording, across western and eastern states, continents and mind-sets. In this world that insists we must increasingly rely upon ourselves, Wand listens to each other, and this is the sound. Largely recorded on the infamous southern border of broken, decadent America, Laughing Matter belongs to the after-life. After the dull flood. As rock n roll lurched sideways and fell away, drunkenly lost in a funhouse mirror of . . . recycled Funhouses. With no major label funding, no management or lawyers, no corporate distribution, near zero social media presence and no commercial dealings whatsoever (with only poor, pitiful Drag City to help them carry the flag!), Wand have toured the world a bajillion times in five years and made four varied and compelling records while accumulating a devoted following . . . Swerving between out-of-focus parable, travel diary, pep talk, polemic, love song, and lullaby, Laughing Matter is a tough and tender album, its eyes on a lot of prizes. Where Plum held the tension of its five band members getting on their feet, the songs on Laughing Matter are concentrated and relaxed, even as they search for the right accusations to hurl at cynics and megalomaniacs. The music is distilled and sculpted from an ash heap of collected improvisations, riven with audio-verité; the methods and instrumentation are traditional handmade rock n' roll . . . This music is not revivalism or throwback; Wand is a precision instrument, a band that probes and teases style, genre, trope and anachronism into material, according to a law of motion that is aimed directly toward an uncertain future. Laughing Matter is a record about love in a time of terror, and how to make the best use of the surveillance technology available today . . . The 15 songs on this record face their energy outward, to take with you through a common world that can't suffer its human abusers much longer..."
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LP
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DC 673LP
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2023 repress. "Plum is Wand's fourth LP since the band formed in late 2013 but their first new album in two years. After a whirlwind initial phase of writing, recording, and touring at a frenetic clip, their newest document marks a period of relative patience; a refocusing and a push toward a new democratization of both process and musical surface. In late winter of 2016, the band expanded their core membership of Evan Burrows, Cory Hanson, and Lee Landey to include two new members -- Robbie Cody on guitar and Sofia Arreguin on keys and vocals. From the outset, the new ensemble moved naturally toward a changed working method, as they learned how to listen to each other and trust in this new format. The songwriting process was consciously relocated to the practice space, where for several months, the band spent hours a day freely improvising, while recording as much of the activity as they could manage. Previously, Wand songs had generally been brought to the group setting substantially formed by singer and guitarist Cory Hanson; now seedling songs were harvested from a growing cloudbank of archived material, then fleshed out and negotiated collectively as the band shifted rhythmically between the permissive space of jamming and the obsessive space of critique. This new process demanded more honest communication, more vulnerability, better boundaries, more mercy and persistence during a year that meanwhile delivered a heaping serving of romantic, familial and political heartbreak for everyone involved. They learned more about their instruments and their perceived limitations. Much else fell apart in their personal lives, in their bodies, and the bodies of those near to them. In this way, Plum lengthened like a shadow underneath a dusking Orange; or rather 'Weird Orange,' an affectionate name given to the color of a roulette-chosen, tour-rushed batch of Golem vinyl... an idiom, an inside joke, a talisman, a bookmark, a mood ring. And meanwhile all the shifting weather, the wireless signals, the helicopters overhead. Weird orange softened, darkened delicately, and rouged itself to a Plum. The music of Plum focuses teeming, dense, at times wildly multichromatic sounds into Wand's most deliberate statement to date, with a long evening's shadow of loss and longing hovering above the proceedings. Plum delicately locates the band's tangent of escape from the warm and comfortable shallows of genre anachronism, an eyes-closed, mouth-open leap toward a more free-associative and contemporary logic of pastiche that more honestly reflects the ravenous musical omnivorousness of the five people who wrote and played it."
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2LP
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DC 785LP
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Double LP version. "Since 2014, Wand have made five albums (and an EP) in the studio and a living playing on the road. Business/pleasure: the two sides of their (multiverticed, decagon) coin, flipping in the strobe light of ongoing self-actualization. And yet, by doing both at the same time -- making a record of them playing live -- they've now made their best one yet. How do you get Spiders In the Rain? Start by going all the way back to January 2020. Do you remember? Wand do. They'd been touring Laughing Matter for ten months. They'd done the coast, spanned the country, crossed the water twice, came back home and kept on going . . . driving, flying, occasionally floating (or maybe just thinking they were?), always on to the next town. They did all kinds of shows -- clubs, ballrooms, festival gigs with no roof overhead -- the songs expanding and contracting according to the dimensions of each day. Seventy-nine shows, and everything that was involved -- the miles that ran beneath them, the different places and people everywhere, the music as it breathed, making everyone change every night -- alchemized the band, and they drove deeper into their far horizon than they'd ever previously gone. The essential truth of the live vibe -- that it's always better when everybody's here -- was clear, so they booked a few shows more in Cali, from L.A. up to Marin. They brought along light and projections from The Mad Alchemist Liquid Light Show and Mike Kreibel and Zac Hernandez too, to tape everything -- to get the big-deck energy out of performances in S.F. and L.A., but also to draw it out of the margins in Sacramento, Novato and Big Sur. It all happened, too. Everyone brought their experience -- the kids in the audience and the folks behind the boards, all along with Wand, where it meant something different for everybody in the van. Packaged sumptuously with artwork from Sam Klickner, Spiders In the Rain is an arc of natural beauty and man-made abstraction inside and out, on an epic scale. Wand are orchestra and machine on Spiders In the Rain, one with the audience, able to get inside any dimension of their sound, whether its songs from their second album or their last one. It almost felt okay that they couldn't play any more shows immediately after, until it didn't again. But the change was made: when they started up again doing shows in December of 2021, the energy moved just as fluidly through the room and the band."
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CD
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DC 785CD
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"Since 2014, Wand have made five albums (and an EP) in the studio and a living playing on the road. Business/pleasure: the two sides of their (multiverticed, decagon) coin, flipping in the strobe light of ongoing self-actualization. And yet, by doing both at the same time -- making a record of them playing live -- they've now made their best one yet. How do you get Spiders In the Rain? Start by going all the way back to January 2020. Do you remember? Wand do. They'd been touring Laughing Matter for ten months. They'd done the coast, spanned the country, crossed the water twice, came back home and kept on going . . . driving, flying, occasionally floating (or maybe just thinking they were?), always on to the next town. They did all kinds of shows -- clubs, ballrooms, festival gigs with no roof overhead -- the songs expanding and contracting according to the dimensions of each day. Seventy-nine shows, and everything that was involved -- the miles that ran beneath them, the different places and people everywhere, the music as it breathed, making everyone change every night -- alchemized the band, and they drove deeper into their far horizon than they'd ever previously gone. The essential truth of the live vibe -- that it's always better when everybody's here -- was clear, so they booked a few shows more in Cali, from L.A. up to Marin. They brought along light and projections from The Mad Alchemist Liquid Light Show and Mike Kreibel and Zac Hernandez too, to tape everything -- to get the big-deck energy out of performances in S.F. and L.A., but also to draw it out of the margins in Sacramento, Novato and Big Sur. It all happened, too. Everyone brought their experience -- the kids in the audience and the folks behind the boards, all along with Wand, where it meant something different for everybody in the van. Packaged sumptuously with artwork from Sam Klickner, Spiders In the Rain is an arc of natural beauty and man-made abstraction inside and out, on an epic scale. Wand are orchestra and machine on Spiders In the Rain, one with the audience, able to get inside any dimension of their sound, whether its songs from their second album or their last one. It almost felt okay that they couldn't play any more shows immediately after, until it didn't again. But the change was made: when they started up again doing shows in December of 2021, the energy moved just as fluidly through the room and the band."
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LP
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GODRECORDS 009
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2014 release. "With the release of Wand's Ganglion Reef, GOD? continues to highlight the expansive sounds of new music currently altering minds from east of west to west of east. Recently, Jack Name, David Novick and White Fence were called upon for long players to travel into the hear t of the flaming orb of un-/non/(ultimate)-realities (they're out there)...and now, from GOD?'s hand-lips to your head-hand, Wand! The fluctuating gravity of their sound achieves total Wand-hood by jamming senses, sounds and vibes through the circuits -- and like magic: plays of light and dark (and heavy!) for today's (and tomorrow's) mind-ears. From beneath the glassine surface dost emerge: Ganglion Reef."
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CD
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E#100K
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"To quickly address the elephant in the room -- certainly, collections of demos, outtakes and home recordings are mostly bogus, but obviously you're reading this, so obviously I've somehow been coerced into releasing this batch of tunes, and you've bought it or stolen it or borrowed it or gotten a promo or whatever, so let's cut to the chase. In my defense, all of the cuts contained herein are 'songs' in the traditional western sense -- my experiments in 'surf harmonica' and 'doom zydeco' will not be chronicled here, deep and plentiful as those archives may be. Everything here was recorded by me on either a Roland BR-8 digital 8-track or it's flashier, more cosmopolitan cousin, the BR- 1600, with incalculable assistance from Jexie Lynn, who accompanies me on many of these songs and who's encouragement and creativity allowed many of them to be. Most of the recordings were done at my then-home in beautiful Knoxville, TN between October 2002 and January of 2007, just prior to the retirement of the Wooden Wand name. You've already pardoned the narcissism, now pardon the cliché: I stand behind these songs as snapshots and enjoy them despite their many flaws. I hope you do, too." -- The Wand
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viewing 1 To 12 of 12 items
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