Wild Nothing is Seasonal Bliss

Captured Tracks have seemingly gone off the deep end recently, releasing more records than they logistically should in such a small span of time - three months. So many, I would have to basically dedicate most of my Primitive Futures column to keep up. That's something I wished I had the time to do, but I'm not going.

In the last batch there was one particular stand-out -- almost as if this breezy 7" had been a summer leftover. Virginia's Wild Nothing do channel all the wonderful shambolic dream-pop that others have recently mined -- Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Memory Tapes, jj) but the measure of this type of nostalgic pining comes in the details, the subtleties, the amount of arm hair raised in a throwback like the wonderful a-side "Summer Holiday." Had this come in the middle of July it may have been lost in the shuffle, as it's somewhat nameless, action-less, veiled in gauze. Here, amongst the deep freeze, those jangled guitars and lush waves of vocal indifference and heartache provide a thaw, a remembrance that sun-filled skies will reign again. But it's not a seasonal thing, you can warp yourself back to that time with any music. Wild Nothing's first breakthrough, and subsequent singles (as well as a cover of Kate Bush's "Cloudbusting") is about transport, transcendence, bliss and love -- things that can easily survive in feet of snow, just depends on the mood of the listener. So maybe this is mood-ring music. It still feels, smells, and sounds, like eternal happiness to me.