Saw Woods with Real Estate at the beginning of the rainiest weekend ever, of course their 'No Rain' tour, which actually I think refers to their Blind Melon cover jam with Real Estate they are no doubt going to do at the end of each night down to SXSW. I picked up this single at the merch table which I like it a lot better than their live show, which is missing a lot of these subtleties and layers. Live it's harder to pull off what is essentially close intimate recordings. I have a huge respect for what Jeremy Earl has done with Woodsist and it undoubteldly is contributing to his success with Woods, but live it's just not my thing. It meanders, gets way to psyche, and just kind of unremarkable.
The A-Side 'I was Gone' has a bunch of false starts which are nice, the layers are all over the place, tons of different rhythms, and once it gets going it's back to Jeremy's almost comic falsetto..it's like a muppet, I'm into the joke, it's unique..but musically it's getting lazy velvet underground or mv & ee, all kijnds of pointless noodling on guitar, gets faster, slows down again. I appreciate conciseness, you have a viewpoint, something to say, then get to the point. This sounds like guitars in love with making their own sound.
The B-Side (I think the woodsist description in wrong, The B-Side is definitely 'Days gone by' and 'Hang on') starts with an eastern sounding reverb electric, with a tighter pop high harmony vocals on this one, and we're getting somewhere. When they get this live in the livingroom sound with otherworldly angelic vocals, there really isn't anything better. The improv is at a minimum and it's a perfect length to ask yourself exactly what was that.
'Hang on' has a ton of Lucas' vocal manipulations over a heavy tempo drumbeat, I especially love the scream yells with massive tight plate echo, scary...but it doesn't end up with anything memorably melodic, but still an interesting side I didn't catch live. But again they're trying to recreate really intimate moments which come across as a little too hippie for me at the music hall.
Nice single, limited(?) to 1,500 copies....they're optimistic.
WOODS- "I Was Gone"- 7" ep (WOODSIST041)--->OUT NOW! $7.00 postage
paid in the USA
"guess this new woods ep is a more unconscious approach to the written song. A side is a 3 part tape collage/head scratcher called 'Days GoneBy.' B side features new easy breezy psych rock single, 'I was Gone' and the drugged out tribal child, 'Hang On.' its crunchy. take with some honey slides"- Tattoo Marty
limited/ one time only pressing of 1,500 copies
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