Spunk Discography
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Biography
SpunkRecords are proud to presentWye Oak’s third album, Civilian: a kind of 21st-century folk music, imbued with dense shoegaze guitars, nearly melodic rhythms, and impeccable splashes of electronic colour. It is deeply and yet transparently layered; listen to how all the different parts mesh on ‘The Alter’. There are fleeting glimpses of outside influences—the Cocteau Twins here, Sonic Youth there, moments of Crazy Horse or Fleetwood Mac—but Civilian manages the tantalizing feat of sounding familiar yet impossible to pin down.
Jenn wrote the songs over the summer of 2010, when she was going through a difficult time. Don’t bother asking her about it—she won’t tell you, but if you’ve listened to the album, then she already has. “This album was completely a lifeline for me,” Jenn says. “I don’t know how I would have
made it through without it. It’s pretty much all I did that summer—sit in my little room and write songs.” She came up with bleakly powerful confessions about the loneliness and uncertainty of change and the songwriting is subtly radical. Listen carefully and you’ll realize that only one of the songs has a chorus, recalling something Mike Watt once said about the Minutemen’s music: “We don’t write songs, we write rivers.” Without leaning on conventional structure, the songs beguile with fascinating chords and melodies, Jenn’s voice and riveting lyrics, mesmerizing rhythms, and an intoxicating aural landscape.
While their debut album If Children was about the bonds of family, and its follow-up, The Knot was about bonds with everyone else,Civilianis about bonds breaking and powerful energies being released. “This is the most emotionally direct set of songs that I’ve heard Jenn write,” Andy says. “I think she’s a little uncomfortable with that, but it sure is nice for anyone who listens to them.”
