Wilco
Ode to Joy

THE REVIEW

Jeff sat down and waited.

Jeff did not take on the color of the wall behind him.
Jeff looked at the stars in the sky, far beyond those on the flag. There was no reason to shave, rather to redefine the antithesis between the world and sensitivity. And Ludwig van Bee had nothing to do with it!
Jeff outlined these measures: dust, earth, bones, stones, and «rain of silent revolts». Longing for a time «when wars had an end».

Jeff is not a walrus. Jeff is a sacred cow. He chews over his poetic sacrifice: the spells of singing, the tactile values of music. So Jeff turned on the lamp in broad daylight, searching above and below the crust of things. Nels Cline and Glenn Kotche were thinking of an album that wouldn't go beyond the next Atom Smasher with ribs and baked beans. Or laughing their heads off over a lousy Flying Cauldron Butterscotch beer. Anyway, far from pop-psych, kraut progressions, wave cubism, electric cavalcades, folksongs that brush the lunar craters. Far from the unpredictable arrangements, a hallmark from "Summerteeth" almost to “The Whole Love”. We are steeped in alt-folk and its inner gaze, working by subtraction: arpeggios, phrasing, strumming, drones, linear rhythms that intensify, deepen, moving and returning to the initial calm. The only law is life.
Marches, ballads, and waltzes are enough to make our fragile strings tremble without hesitation: "We Were Lucky", "Before Us" and "Love Is Everywhere (Beware)".

Jeff comes from an autobiography, Let’s Go (So We Can Get Back), from two solo works, “Warm” and “Warmer,” and from the sparse Schmilco, the tenth from the Chicago band.
Jeff takes it upon himself to mend a world, reconciling the conflict between meaning and sound, between utopia and disillusionment. He reminds us of the musician's craft. That joy is that crevice through which Alice cannot pass directly.

Jeff stood up, set off again, with dreamy feet steeped in dust.