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"On some of the last recordings," Jay Farrar observes, "we got kind of caught in a crossfire between people who — because of the country elements — want to trumpet that aspect and make you the leader of a movement and other people who want to vilify you for the very same thing." Current Son Volt fans won't have any trouble picking up the signal of the band's past on Wide Swing Tremolo, but listeners old and new will be startled by the growth and maturity in songwriter Jay Farrar's work, and the new shapes and subtle shades that bandmates Jim Boquist, Dave Boquist and Mike Heidorn give these songs. From the jagged, hooky opening blast of "Straightface" to the jaunty drum-loop swing of the album closer, "Blind Hope," Wide Swing Tremolo clears new paths for Son Volt, yet leaves the band (as Farrar sings on "Driving the View") "just enough time to revel" in what they've accomplished. The title of the album, says Jay Farrar, "is just a phrase that I came across in an old Gibson catalogue. It was an advertisement for an amplifier from 1962, and that was one of the phrases that it used to describe the tremolo. I thought that it applied."
Jay Farrar says, "Being in the rehearsal space is where we're most comfortable, so it made sense to record there. There were a lot of instruments lying around, so I was able to write with a particular instrumentation or instrument in mind. A lot of times, I would pick up a dulcimer, or just be playing on the electric piano, and then come up with something and expand on that." Jim Boquist concurs: "Being in our own place, from an atmospheric standpoint, really loosened things up." Dave Boquist ascribes some of the new album's harder edge to the rehearsal space as well. "You can play as loud as you want in there," he enthuses. "And you've got a bunch of guitars to choose from." Son Volt also points to the central role played by engineer David Barbe (best known for his work with Bob Mould's pioneering rock combo Sugar) in the recording of Wide Swing Tremolo as another factor in the more relaxed and flowing feel to the sessions. "We were in more of an apprentice role in the recording," Jay Farrar says. "Dave was the guy who knew what he was doing." Mike Heidorn is also unsparing in his praise for Barbe's work. "I couldn't imagine anyone else recording this record," he says. "Sometimes songs would turn into a different beast at midnight. And then, at 1 a.m., we'd have something else. He was completely patient with that process."
"The songs swing a little bit more," notes Dave Boquist. "Mike's getting more into the driver's seat, and becoming the guy who sets the tempo. That helps me, as a lead player, because I can find a pocket to do things in. And it's also an evolution in Jay's songwriting." Son Volt's DIY self-assurance on Wide Swing Tremolo stems from the band's critical and commercial successes in their short three-plus years together. The band's 1995 debut, Trace, was a consensus Top Ten selection on many rock writers' yearly roundups, and the songs "Drown" and "Windfall" gained considerable airplay on both radio and video playlists. Son Volt's 1997 follow-up Straightaways found the band broadening both their sound and their audience with rockers like "Caryatid Easy" and sublime country ballads like "Creosote." Wide Swing Tremolo's audacity and penchant for juxtaposition suggests a return to experimentation on a broader level. As Farrar points out, his music has always been rooted in the place where most rock bands start out — the garage. "For me," Farrar notes, "the inspiration (for Wide Swing Tremolo) came more from a garage-rock perspective. I used to be in bands that did that kind of stuff. It's getting back to that, I guess." Heidorn, who was in those bands with Farrar, agrees. "This record," he quips, "goes back to the basements." The Jajouka space in Millstadt where Wide Swing Tremolo took shape, is a stone's throw from the Belleville garages and basements where Farrar and Heidorn cut their teeth. But what emerged from the new recordings is quite different in tone and tenor from their past work. There are shades of garage punk and country sweetness, but they've become supporting players in a new and more eclectic sonic mix. "We only brought the pedal steel out on one or two songs this time," Heidorn observes. "Straightface," the opening track is a good example of Son Volt's approach. Driven by gritty guitars and a rowdy squawk of a harmonica, "Straightface" goes right after the listener with a blast of literal distortion and metaphorical rage. An ascending guitar progression, propelled by a tremolo box and a barked Farrar vocal patched through an old Telefunken tube mic preamp, gave the track what Dave Boquist calls "a kind of a feedback thwack." On the lanky, loose-limbed rocker "Medicine Hat," Farrar sings that "there will be layers of means to an end" and that "there will be strains that break out of straight time."
The band's willingness to strip songs down to their embryos, or to cut a song down breathless to trail off meekly with a twist of backward tracked acoustic guitar as they do on the high mournful "Carry You Down" is risky. But the process, argues Dave Boquist, encouraged risk. "We took risks that we wouldn't have taken if time was more of a factor," he says. "In an expensive studio, you just don't have as much 'listen back' time." The risks on Wide Swing Tremolo pay off in a more complex texture. It's a texture that sets off the spare acoustic beauty of "Strands" more elegantly, and enhances the chiming guitar rock and close harmonies of "Flow" and "Question." Son Volt's exquisite playing serves as a reliable anchor in this landscape: Jim Boquist's close harmonies on "Driving the View" and prominent slide part on "Medicine Hat," Dave Boquist's lap steel and Farrar's piano filling out the vast spaces of "Strands," Heidorn's rattling maracas driving the chorus of "Question." Such pieces fall into place perfectly on Wide Swing Tremolo. Equally important is that these musical risks are echoed and deepened by the lyrics that Farrar has penned for the new album. Whether Farrar is subverting a litany with novel formulations like, "There will be catch words filled with infection" (as he does on "Medicine Hat") or creating one powerful central metaphor that colors an entire string of associations (the precise effect of the line "I'm going downtown in a dead man's clothes" in "Dead Man's Clothes"), Wide Swing Tremolo reinforces Farrar's stature as one of rock's preeminent lyricists. And while Farrar has never been one to dissect his own work, one can discern certain emotional imperatives in the grooves of Wide Swing Tremolo — an urging to listeners that they carefully guard their optimism, but not become cynical. On songs like "Question," that urging takes on even clearer and less guarded forms. "What it all comes down to," sings Farrar, "is a different set of values / To throw away or mobilize to use." As music and as poetry, Wide Swing Tremolo proves that the third time out — as Farrar sings on "Flow" — is indeed the charm for Son Volt. |
Recorded in short bursts over a few months in 1997 and
1998 in an old lingerie warehouse turned Son Volt rehearsal
space turned studio in Millstadt, Illinois, Wide Swing
Tremolo is the product of a more leisurely pace and greater
openness to experiment by the band members. The impromptu
studio, which the band dubbed "Jajouka" after a
Moroccan town known for its musicians, became the spiritual
center of the album.
You can hear that relaxation and new jauntiness most
clearly in cuts like "Driving the View" and
"Blind Hope." The former song is buoyed by Mike's
insistent but sinuous beat, while the latter track ambles
confidently with shimmering guitars and a faint electric
buzz. These are supple songs, but they never lack backbone.
