"Best Company" by WLDFLWRS
Review
Good news fans of Wes Finch, Katherine Abbott, Jack Blackman & Jono Wright: their debut single under the collective name of WLDFLWRS, "Best Company", a trail blazer for their EP, is out on 6th December. The EP itself drops on 22nd December and comes in a limited edition green vinyl form in addition to the digital one. (The pre-order link is thus: https://wldflwrs1.bandcamp.com/album/wildflowers-ep).
For latecomers, although all four are well known in their own rights (and have all previously featured in this magazine & on "Hot Music Live Presents" in a variety of guises), they have also long been the supportive musical foundation for Stratford's Street Arts Project (founded and organised by Doug Armstrong & Jackie Lines), providing mentoring and support for members of the project to express themselves through original compositions.
This led them to work together as the core of a large ensemble for a charity concert, re-enacting The Band's "The Last Waltz" to raise funds for the project, leading in turn to touring that show & finally to writing brand new material together.
However before we proceed further, these four artists were far from the only ones facilitating the project sessions, far from the only ones performing "The Last Waltz" and several of the other musicians are on the EP helping out such as Adam Barry and Chris Quirk who play keyboards & drums respectively on "Best Company"
They have gone for a song which could very fairly be filed under "Americana" (though that is a really broad definition these days) and which Jack produced and George Shilling mixed & mastered.
An ode to the small, intimate pleasures of one's own space, the song offers a delicious counterpoint to its mode of creation which owes so much to likeminded yet mutually respectful musicians working collectively: irony, paradox or creative dynamic? As it happens, the seed for the song was a chorus Jono had, the first verse developed lyrically collectively & then he completed those while the group again collaborated on the remaining part of the music. We know of great solo songwriters, great partnerships and we've heard also "a camel is a horse designed by committee" but in this instance with that element of respect & capacity to pool ideas & produce something greater than the sum of the constituent parts, the quartet proved that some committees can work.
Although all of them have considerable experience with vocal harmonies (either with others or themselves), stepping up to four parts and making good use of each must represent an artistic development. I wonder if the genesis of the band & working up those Band arrangements helped them explore the possibilities?
Equally (and I don't know at the time of writing if the other EP tracks "WILDFLOWERS", "MXD MSSGE", "Waiting On You", "Heavy Weather" and "Sky/Ground" fit the same style or not) it's plausible that the Americana approach comes from the same inspiration (you can hear banjo in there as well as a prominent slide guitar solo). The overall feel too is akin to some of Robbie Robertson's work: less of the mythological & more of the exploration of the timeless philosophies of life.
As with the composition, WLDFLWRS neatly evade the performance traps inherent when groups like this combine. Audiences who know the work of each will understandably have expectations of hearing each showcased within the track: this is the Achilles Heel of all supergroups and although jazz collectives might find the space for a series of solo spots, in other genres it just produces bloated tracks stretched out artificially, too often with participants working competitively rather than sacrificing their ego to the unfortunate song itself. You know what I'm going to say next don't you? These musicians serve the song not themselves. Their voices work together and although there are the succinct instrumental solos, thankfully they fit the track & we don't get everyone gratuitously providing one regardless of need.
It's unusual for traditional wildflowers to bloom at this time of the year, but WLDFLWRS are bucking that convention and seems will be thriving through even the midwinter.
