It’s clear that after Wye Oak’s released its latest album, The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs, the media really ‘got it.’ An album about salad days, ambition and aging was described by NPR as “a lament about lost youth…but also a rallying cry of sorts to not waste time.” Pitchfork accurately described the record as “terrifying and liberating at the same time, a sea change toward a new horizon.”
Wye Oak released a video for the album’s namesake song last Thursday, shot in New Mexico’s White Sands National Monument. Despite the expansive and rolling plains of the the White Sands, much of Dan Huiting’s video features portrait shots of the artists’ faces that blue the magnificent views. The video flits between these portrait scenes and shots of the desert. Towards the end, two inscrutable people—likely Andy Stack and Jenn Wasner—are copied and pasted while walking across the desert, until their two bodies become a caravan of people. The effect is strange, they lag and freeze as if being watched with a bad internet connection, but the image is cool.
The band said a few words about their experience.
“We went to the desert. It might seem hot, but it was actually cold. What is the point of all this? You’ll never outrun yourself. The past is always at your heels.”
Perhaps these duplicated versions of themselves represent their past selves. Ernest Hemingway wrote in The Old Man and the Sea that “true nobility is being superior to your former self.” Including duplicates of themselves, walking together in a line, might be comment on how we shed former versions of ourselves as we grow and improve, like snakes and their scales.
Wye Oak will performed at New York City’s Symphony Space last Friday and will continue their tour on April 6th, starting in Iowa City. Tour dates below.
Wye Oak on tour:
Feb 16 New York, NY – Symphony Space (Shriek suite with William Brittelle & Metropolis Ensemble)
Apr 06 Iowa City, IA – Mission Creek Festival
Apr 20 Amsterdam, NL – Paradiso Noord
Apr 21 Rotterdam, NL – Motel Mozaique Festival
Apr 22 Luxembourg, LU – De Gudde Wellen
Apr 25 Berlin, DE – BiNuu
Apr 26 Prague, CZ – MeetFactory
Apr 27 Vienna, AT – Fluc
Apr 29 Zurich, CH – Bogen F
May 01 Brussels, BE – Les Nuits Botanique @ Rotonde
May 02 Paris, FR – Le Pop Up
May 03 London, UK – Village Underground
May 04 Manchester, UK – The Deaf Institue
May 05 Liverpool, UK – Liverpool Sound City
May 06 Dublin, IE – Whelan’s
May 09 Asheville, NC – Grey Eagle
May 10 Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle
May 11 Washington, DC – 9:30 Club
May 13 Cambridge, MA – The Sinclair
May 14 Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
May 15 Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Steel
May 17 Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall
May 18 Milwaukee, WI – The Back Room at Colectivo
May 19 St. Paul, MN – Turf Club
May 20 Omaha, NE – The Waiting Roo
May 21 Kansas City, MO – Record Bar
May 23 Denver, CO – Bluebird Theater
May 25 St. Louis, MO – Ready Room
May 26 Louisville, KY – Zanzabar
Jul 11 Salt Lake City, UT – Metro Music Hall
Jul 13 Portland, OR – Revolution Hall
Jul 14 Vancouver, BC – The Biltmore Cabaret
Jul 15 Seattle, WA – Neumos
Jul 17 San Francisco, CA – The Independent
Jul 18 Oakland, CA – Starlin Social Club
Jul 19 Los Angeles, CA – Lodge Room
Jul 20 San Diego, CA – Soda Bar
Jul 21 Phoenix, AZ – The Crescent Ballroom
Jul 23 Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf
Jul 24 El Paso, TX – Lowbrow Palace
Jul 27 Birmingham, AL – Saturn
Photography Credit: Raymond Flotat
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