Attica!

About

Attica! is the 5th album from Cincinnati’s Wussy, and the first to be released in the UK following the 2012 compilation Buckeye. These 11 new tracks were recorded at John Curley’s (Afghan Whigs) Ultrasuede Studios, and mastered by Dave Davis at QCA, both of Cincinnati, Ohio. 2012 marked the first excursion outside of the US for Wussy’s Chuck Cleaver and Lisa Walker, and Attica! is partly drawn from their experiences. Former Ass Ponys guitarist John Erhardt joins the band as a fifth member on pedal steel, and the album as a whole sees Wussy incorporate new instrumentation including piano, organ, harmonium, synth, mellotron and e-bow. This, together with guests on Cello & Theremin, adds a greater range and depth to their sound. Former Homestead Records boss & fan Ken Katkin says “In Lisa Walker, Chuck had joined forces with the next generation's contender for poet laureate of middle-America's working class.” Musically it’s incredibly catchy fuzzed out drone rock but it’s the duo’s song writing that really shines. Teenage Wasteland opens the album, an ode to heroes of Lisa’s youth, The Who: ”That band changed many lives of farm and rust belt kids here in America who closely identified with such a bombastic blue collar band. Very different from Stones and Beatles type bands. Regular guys. A band for the unpopular kids. Kind of a precursor to the ethos that underground bands in the US began to embrace in the 80s.“ “yeah, we heard you Pete, real loud and clear on the last one and we were pulling for you a 1000 times a day it don’t take much to sound like a sleeping prophet when your misery sounds so much like ours so far away, so far away” Track Listing (Words, Music): 1. Teenage Wasteland 2. Rainbows and Butterflies 3. Bug 4. North Sea Girls 5. Acetylene 6. To the Lightning 7. Halloween 8. Gene, I Dream 9. Attica! 10. Home 11. Beautiful Released on CD in UK/Europe by Damnably and CD/Vinyl by Shake It in North America Wussy's Attica! garnered critical acclaim in 2014 and lead to the band being nterviewed by Anthony Mason on CBS This Morning, where they also played ‘Teenage Wasteland‘ ‘Beautiful‘ and ‘Pizza king‘ live. Spin Voted “Teenage Wasteland” #55 in 101 Best Songs of 2014 & “Acetylene” scored #26 on 40 Best Country Songs of 2014. The album also made best of 2014 lists in The Observer, Popmatters, Slate, Pitchfork, AllMusic and Public Radio’s Best In-Studio Performance of 2014 from NPR/KEXP.

via Last.fm