A post rock summit, confluence or collab, some might even toss in the supergroup label if they were feeling flippant. Whatever you want to call the artistic meeting of minds that is WE ARE WINTER’S BLUE AND RADIANT CHILDREN (or WAWBARC between friends) it offers up the enticing prospect of new collective music from Mat Ball (BIG|BRAVE) and Efrim Manuel Menuck (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Thee Silver Mt. Zion) together with Jonathan Downs and Patch One (key contributors to the North East US experimental community and in the past both members of Ada).
As usual in the wired world of rock the members of WAWBARC have previous connections. During their nascent stage Matthieu Ball’s main band BIG I BRAVE made an impression on Menuck when they opened for Thee Silver Mt. Zion way back in 2014 and from there regularly landed support slots with Mt. Zion and Godspeed. The kinship continued into the studio with Menuck recording BIG|BRAVE’s second album ‘Au De La’ in 2015. As for Jonathan Downs and Patch One, their illusive leftfield folk group Ada also recorded their self-titled and sadly final collection with Menuk in 2015, travelling from their home base in Portland, Maine to his Montreal studio to do so.
So on one level the news of WAWBARC’s debut album “NO MORE APOCALYPSE FATHER“, due 13th September via Constellation, marks a drawing together of many strands. More significantly though, it promises a resonant artistic encounter between the listener and this fresh grouping’s probing, visceral post rock.
It’s a release which for Menuck strains between today’s conflicted state where often “we watch horror unfolding from afar, unable to do anything concrete to change it.” Listening to the swirling orchestral intensity of the title track, which previews the full “NO MORE APOCALYPSE FATHER” album, you get thrust immediately into the grip of such tension. It’s electric, alt rock on an epic scale, a dark matters drum beat, the mountainous face of mass guitars, the vaulted synth strings and barely constrained feedback chaos. This is the sound of doubt and anguish given voice through a pleading vocal which bites without any unnecessary gothic melodrama,.
Signs are on every level WAWBARC’s first soundscape will be essential.
Order your copy of “NO MORE APOCALYPSE FATHER” by WE ARE WINTER’S BLUE AND RADIANT CHILDREN from your local record store or direct from Constellation Records HERE
