Wilco releases full stream of new album, 'The Whole Love'

Curious about the new Wilco album, the first since 2009's 'Wilco (The Album)'? For the next 24 hours you can get a taste of it for free. The release, called "The Whole Love," will be officially unveiled Sept. 27 on the band's new dBpm Records, but the band has graciously put the whole album up for streaming at wilcoweb.com. We'll hold off on judgment, but Wilco fans may want to carve an hour out of their Saturday night/Sunday morning. 

You can listen here. 

The band begins a quick American jaunt on Sept. 13 in Indianapolis; potential highlights of the tour include the two-night Ryman Auditorium stint in Nashville, and the christening of the rehabbed Peabody Opera House in St. Louis, formerly Keil Opera House, which played home to legendary Rolling Stones and Bruce Springsteen shows in years past. Wilco will perform there on Oct. 4, a few miles from their first-ever performance as a band at Cicero's Basement Bar in 1994. 

Oh, and one tip: pay attention to Glenn Kotche on the drums; his work is one of many highlights of "The Whole Love."

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Wilco forms own label, aligns with Silver Lake's Anti- Records

Live: Wilco at the Fox Theatre in Pomona

Live: Jeff Tweedy at the Knitting Factory Hollywood

-- Randall Roberts

Photo: Wilco front man Jeff Tweedy leads their performance at the Fox Theater in Pomona in 2009. Credit: Jake Stevens/Los Angeles Times.

Exclusive: Wilco forms own label, aligns with Silver Lake's Anti- Records

Chicago's rock 'n' roll shape-shifters Wilco have formed their own label,  dBpm Records, whose releases will be distributed and marketed by eclectic Silver Lake independent Anti- Records. A full announcement is expected soon.

"This is an idea we've discussed for years,” Wilco's Jeff Tweedy said via his publicist. “We really like doing things ourselves, so having our own label feels pretty natural to me. And, to be working with Anti- -- a label that was started by a punk rock guy to sell his own records -- seems like a perfect fit for us.” 

Wilco became free agents after its 2009 Nonesuch release, "Wilco (The Album)," and the move marks not only a shift to the independent world for the band, but also quite possibly Anti-'s biggest coup since inking Tom Waits, whose 1999 album,  "Mule Variations," was the label's first release. Anti- is an offshoot of Epitaph Records, the punk label founded by Bad Religion's Brett Gurewitz. 

A timetable has not yet been given for a new album. An Anti- spokeswoman could not be reached for comment early Wednesday afternoon. Wilco spokeswoman Deb Bernardini said the band is currently recording its follow-up to "Wilco (The Album)" in Chicago.

The Wilco camp already has a connection with Anti-. Wilco architect Tweedy produced the most recent album from Chicago soul legend Mavis Staples, "You Are Not Alone," which was released last year on the label. At the time, Pop & Hiss spoke with Tweedy and asked the singer about the possibility of signing with Anti-, an adventurous imprint that's home to rock legends (Roky Erickson), rock weirdos (Waits), rock elegance (Neko Case) and rock mercenaries (Grinderman). 

"I think they’re pretty smart," Tweedy said at the time. "I think they’re music lovers. I really respond to it. It’s very similar to the way I am. It’s a lot more like the way the world exists now than when I was growing up. There are less lines drawn in the sand between genres. Punk rock was a line in the sand for a lot of kids when I was growing up." 

Tweedy had hinted that the band would soon be going the indie route. In the summer of 2010, Tweedy told Billboard that it "seems unlikely that we will be under the umbrella of a major label." Indeed, Wilco is already one of the more self-sufficient working rock bands. The band staged its first-ever festival, Solid Sound, in North Adams, Mass., last year, and will be bringing Solid Sound back to the area for Round 2 in June.

"As we reached the end of our last deal, it felt like it was time for a change, and the one thing we were certain we did NOT want to do was to sign another traditional recording agreement," said manager Tony Margherita via a written statement. "Our discussions with Anti-, coming on the back of a great experience working with them on the Mavis Staples record, led us to thinking we might be able to come up with something quite different from the norm that could potentially be better for us and, frankly, a lot more interesting."

Margherita will oversee the label, based in Easthampton, Mass. The label will release "all future Wilco recordings and more," according to the statement. As for what the "more" entails, details have not yet been unveiled. 

Pat Sansone talks Autumn Defense, Polaroid pictures and Wilco's return to the studio [Update]

Wilco will start writing its next album just in time for Halloween, according to band member Pat Sansone.

"We're taking a couple of weeks off," the multi-instrumentalist, fresh off a plane from Berlin, said. "When I get back toward the end of [the] month, we're getting back together to start working, to start the first writing sessions for the record. We’ve done a little bit of brainstorming, but the real work is going to begin at the end of [the] month."

The upcoming set, the follow-up to 2009's "Wilco (The Album)," will be the Chicago act's eighth studio effort. In the meantime, Sansone has a full plate: On Oct. 7 , he'll celebrate the release of the book "100 Polaroids," a collection of his snapshots from his time with the band, at Paper Chase Press' Eighth Veil space on Sunset Boulevard. He's planning further parties in Chicago and New York, not to mention another album release: The Autumn Defense, his pre-Wilco soft-rock collaboration with Wilco bassist John Stirratt, will drop its fourth album, "Once Around," on Nov. 2.

L.A.'s Anti- has won the respect of Wilco's Jeff Tweedy, whose band just happens to be a free agent

Like asking Yankees chief Joe Girardi if he would be willing to leave New York to manage the Chicago Cubs, peppering a famous musician with inquiries as to where his band may or may not sign is a line of interrogation that's sure to be met with vagaries (warning: this post has them). Yet Wilco's Jeff Tweedy knows the questions will come his way, and understands that speculation could point the daring Chicago pop band to a certain L.A. indie.

On Tuesday, Epitaph's multi-genre imprint Anti- Records will release "You Are Not Alone" from Chicago soul luminary Mavis Staples, a refined collection of gospel-tinged folk and blues that was produced by Tweedy in Wilco's Windy City studio. As detailed in Sunday's Calendar story, Staples is experiencing a late-career rejuvenation. The 71-year-old and 60-year-recording vet is now on her third album from Anti-, and the artist said she's noticed a boost in attention since linking with the respected label, where legends (Roky Erickson) stand alongside the elegant (Neko Case) and the out-and-out weird (Man Man). 

The label's multi-genre approach is not too different from that of Warner Music Group imprint Nonesuch Records, where Wilco has just completed its recording contract. With Tweedy recently telling Billboard that it "seems unlikely that we will be under the umbrella of a major label" for future albums, has his experience working with Anti- on the Staples album put the Silver Lake-based label in the running as a future Wilco home?

Mavis Staples on working with Jeff Tweedy: 'When you hear this, you will get up.'

There would seemingly be little that would catch Mavis Staples by surprise. Yet with Staples now 71 years old, Wilco's Jeff Tweedy found a way to get the soul/gospel veteran to step out of her comfort zone -- literally. 

Staples' career began in earnest in the '50s, and with the Staples Singers she spent her youth on the Southern gospel circuit. Through the family's close association with Martin Luther King Jr., the Staples Singers provided a score for the civil rights era. It's safe to say that in her 60 years of singing, the South Side of Chicago resident has seen plenty. 

Yet she had never before recorded in a Chicago stairwell in below-freezing weather.

Tweedy wanted to capture Staples a cappella and in the cold, putting the boldness and defiance of her richly deep vocals front and center for a rendition of the jubilant gospel cut "Wonderful Savior." Staples, however, was more concerned about the temperature.  

"When he said he wanted to go in the stairwell," Staples recalled, "I said, ‘Are you crazy? It’s 10 below zero! I’m not going out there.’" 

Tweedy didn't relent. Tasked with producing Staples' second studio effort for Silver Lake's Anti- Records, the Sept. 14 release "You Are Not Alone," Staples noted that Tweedy took great pains to give her soulful traditionalism a refreshing spin. In the end, Staples put her full trust in Tweedy.

"He’s very family-orientated, and me too," Staples said. "He talked about his two sons. I liked him from that." 

In other words, she was willing to brave the Chicago winter for Tweedy, who recorded Staples in Wilco's famed Windy City recording studio "The Loft." 

On the landing in the summer: All things Wilco to be explored at Massachusetts fest

When the lineup for the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival was announced earlier this year, there was one festival-ready act that seemed missing from the bill: Chicago's rootsy art-rockers Wilco. But no matter -- turns out Wilco was readying its own festival.

Wilco today unveiled the Solid Sound Festival, set for Aug. 13-15 at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) in the small town of North Adams. Think of it as sort of an All Tomorrow's Parties that's all things Wilco, and Pop & Hiss (this writer, at least) will be among the nerd boys in attendance. 

In addition to a headlining Wilco concert, the weekend will feature performances from the various side projects of its individual band members, including those from Los Angeles' own guitar wizard Nels Cline. Also promised, though a lineup has not yet been announced, will be comedy performances, but one can probably expect Wilco friend Fred Armisen to pay a visit. 

Live: Wilco at the Fox Theater in Pomona

Wilco frontman Jeff Tweedy gave fans a scare Saturday night at the recently refurbished Fox Theater in Pomona when he declared, 12 songs into the band's set, that the Chicago-based act was "approaching the end of an era," and promised more details later.

Those aren't words to be taken lightly for Wilco followers. Depending on who's doing the counting, the group has had as many as six different eras since releasing its country-obsessed 1995 debut, "A.M." Yet its audience has remained loyal through a host of lineup changes, Tweedy and bassist John Stirratt being the only constants in Wilco's career.

While the comment raised concerns about a future without, say, the participation of local guitar slinger Nels Cline or rhythmic contortionist Glenn Kotche, the truth turned out to be nothing so worrisome. After 45 minutes, Tweedy revealed only that multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone was turning 40. 

Welcome to Wilco 2009, where playfulness resides on equal footing with anxiety. The group opened the first of its four sold-out dates in the L.A. area -- the band performs Monday, Tuesday and Thursday at the Wiltern -- with a theme song, the drolly titled "Wilco (The Song)" from the band's seventh studio album of original material, "Wilco (The Album)," due for release June 30.

"Is someone twisting a knife in your back," sang Tweedy in the show opener, a mid-tempo feel-good romp that offers the band as consoling device ("Wilco will love you, baby"). It's a long way from the head-pounding skepticism toward rock 'n' roll in "Misunderstood" from Wilco's 1996 album, "Being There," but a more comfortable Wilco isn't a less daring one.

Summer music preview

This summer offers a couple of significant "first times since": It's the first time since the recession really hit, causing many to pull their belts taut, and the first since a new administration helped feed a renaissance in socially conscious, multicultural arts. Personal caution meets communal hope in many people's everyday lives now, and it affects our leisure choices along with everything else.

Yet the healing power of organized sound remains the same. All over the Southland, old favorites return and emerging sensations debut. New albums and late-career gems hit the Internet (and those remaining retail outlets). People will gather to dance and to sing along to their favorite artists. No one trend captures the mood of mid-2009, unless it's the bliss of having much from which to choose.

The following is a selection of some of the best bets for music-related entertainment in Southern California prior to Labor Day.

Read more Summer music preview

--Ann Powers & Margaret Wappler

Photos: Neko Case, left, Lil Wayne and Wilco. Credits: Jason Creps Getty Images, Associated Press

Former Wilco member Jay Bennett dies*

Multi-instrumentalist and former member of Wilco Jay Bennett died this weekend, according to a post on the website for Undertow Music Collective. He was 45.

A cause of death was unknown. “We are profoundly saddened to report that our friend died in his sleep last night. Jay was a beautiful human being who will be missed,” read the update on Undertow. The company released his 2002 solo album, “Palace at 4 am (Part I).”

Representatives from the label and management firm had not responded to requests for comment as of Sunday evening, but the Chicago Sun-Times reached Bennett’s friend and collaborator Edward Burch. "Early this morning, Jay died in his sleep and an autopsy is being performed," Burch told Jim DeRogatis.

In the late ‘80s, Bennett founded the rock band Titanic Love Affair in Urbana, Ill., which lasted into the mid-‘90s. He was best known for his seven years in adventurous rock act Wilco. Bennett split from the Chicago-based group in 2001, and since his departure had been pursuing a solo career, as well as operating Pieholden Suite Sound – named after a song on Wilco’s 1999 album “Summerteeth” -- in Champaign , Ill. 

Bennett released the solo effort “Whatever Happened I Apologize” via the Web late last year, and reported at that time that he was pursuing "another" master’s degree at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Yet it was Bennett’s time in Wilco that won him the most acclaim.

He had a not-so-amicable split from the band in 2001, which was documented in the 2002 film “I Am Trying to Break Your Heart” and Greg Kot’s book “Wilco: Learning How to Die.” He did, however, play a major role in the band as a writer, producer and musician. The orchestrated pop of “Summerteeth” further stripped Wilco of its country-rock roots, and 2002’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” saw the band move into more atmospheric territory.

First tracks: Wilco album released online, and news on 'Scott Pilgrim,' 'Idol' and more

 

— It doesn't have an official release date until June 30 ("at the latest," reports Wilco's website), but the new album from Wilco is streaming now. The upcoming 11-track "Wilco (The Album)" is available for listening on the band's official site. Pop & Hiss is only four tracks in, so the blog will refrain from offering any sort of opinion here, but the initial reaction is that "Wilco (the Song)" is less silly on record than it was on "The Colbert Report," and the guitar tension in "Bull Black Nova" is pretty riveting stuff. The new album is online in advance of Wilco's summer tour, which launches May 23 and lands in the Los Angeles area for four sold-out dates beginning June 20 at the Fox Theater in Pomona.