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| You could say Wesley Stace is wearing the inspiration for the new Late Style album on his sleeve. Great work Tony Stella! |
Here's the scoop from Omnivore Recordings...
With Late Style, Wesley Stace, the artist formerly known as John Wesley Harding, has done things differently. Having begun to put some new lyrics to music, in his usual way, singing to an acoustic guitar, he realized he was coming up with old solutions, reinventing a wheel he had already made, with chord progressions and melodies that worked as folk and pop songs but were not satisfying his desire for something fresh, something he’d be excited to listen to in 2021. So, he turned to David Nagler, the musical director of his portable variety show, the Cabinet of Wonders, to be the Rodgers to his Hart, the Elton to his Bernie, the Bachrach to his David.
Late Style is influenced by artists like Mose Allison, Carla Bley, Nina Simone, Bob Dorough, Steely Dan, Harry Nilsson, Gil Scott-Heron, The Bee Gees, Tom Lehrer, The Carpenters, and even The Partridge Family, without imitating them, so the songs feel modern and “modern” all at once. You can call them uneasy easy listening—smooth, but oddly shaped, with surprising harmonic changes and rhythmic angles. They have the paradoxical flavor of having been written to be hits without any thought of having hits at all.
Though Wesley had originally imagined a record that “a phenomenally well-rehearsed combo might record in a club, perhaps even in front of an audience,” COVID had other plans. But through the mysterious magic of modern technology, the recording came together out of Philadelphia, where Wesley lives; New York, where David built tracks from keyboards, acoustic guitars and virtual instruments; San Francisco, where Wes’s longtime friend and collaborator Chris von Sneidern (a solo artist and sometime member of the Flamin’ Groovies) added electric guitar, vocals, horns and the drums of Prairie Prince (The Tubes, Todd Rundgren, Jefferson Starship); and Chicago, where Kelly Hogan and Nora O’Connor of the Flat Five added harmonies.
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| Here's Ilya Mirman's portrait photo of Wesley which Tony Stella turned into the Late Style cover. |
Graphic artist Tony Stella – who recently did the book jacket for Quentin Tarantino's novelization of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood – provided the stylish sleeve art for Late Style. Wesley explains how it all came together...
"Many of you have expressed your enthusiasm for, and asked about, the cover painting for LATE STYLE. Here goes! It's by the genius Tony Stella, whose work can be found here: https://www.tony-stella.com. You should definitely take a look around.
"As we were making the album, I realised I needed something effortlessly authentic for the cover, perhaps a painting like those old records we all love. I'd been following Mr Stella on Twitter for some time, and one morning I was lying in bed, checking out my "feed" (as one does before one fully commits to getting out of bed) and I suddenly realised: "Oh My God! This is fully perfect! It can't even go wrong!" And so I tweeted him, and made an inquiry, and guess what: he said yes. Then I had to work out what the image should be, beyond being a portrait of yours truly.
"So, I got in touch with Ilya Mirman, a brilliant photographer who also happens to be the brother of Eugene Mirman, to a) take some nice promo pics but also b) to get the image that we could send to Tony and he'd paint. I therefore went up to the Boston City Winery (who, due to the kind offices of Michael Bishop and Caitlyn Cooke, let us have the run of the place for a morning), met Ilya there, not to mention David Nagler, and took some pics, quite a few of which you'll see on the inside sleeve of the CD and LP.
"I sent Tony four images, and he apparently chose the one I attach here, perhaps combining it with one of the others (and making sure my collar wasn't askew) to get the actual image for the cover as you see it now. I was blown away. It was actually what I'd imagined, without having quite imagined anything at all, except that I loved all of his work without exception. And thanks to Ilya, of course.
"Do yourself a favour and check out his stellar Stella work. And then why not head over here and buy one of the astonishing bundles: https://world-wide-wes.myshopify.com/collections/the-late-style-collection"
You can pre-order Wesley Stace's Late Style right here. Check the track list following the clip of "All The Yous" below.
Wesley Stace – Late Style
Where The Bands Are
Everything All The Time
Your Bright Future
Hey! Director
Come Back Yesterday
All The Yous
The California Fix
Well Done Everyone
The Impossible She
Do Nothing If You Can
Just Sayin’
How You All Work Me
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