Listen Up: WILD CHILD “BACK & FORTH”

(Press Release) Austin’s Wild Child are excited to share two new singles from their their forthcoming record, Expectations, out February 9th on Dualtone Records. “Sinking Ship” and “Back & Forth” were produced by Max Frost and Delta Spirit’s Matthew Logan Vasquez respectively, and make their debut via Consequence of Sound’s Origins feature. Kelsey Wilson describes solace found in a Shel Silverstein book and the use of a recorded heartbeat for “Sinking Ship”, and Alexander Beggins explores the pair’s creative process behind “Back & Forth”, for which they drew inspiration from songs by Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin (read more). This February, Wild Child will play a string of record release shows across Texas before embarking upon a massive North American tour throughout March, April, and early May. All upcoming dates are listed below.

In addition to recording with Vasquez and Frost, the Austin, Texas-based band traveled far and wide in order to work with multiple producers (and accomplished musicians in their own right) on Expectations including; Chris Walla (formerly Death Cab For Cutie), Chris Boosahda (Shakey Graves), Scott McMicken (Dr. Dog), and Adrian Quesada (Grupo Fantasma).

For seven years now the Austin-based ensemble Wild Child has carried its infectious melodies across the international music scene, charting viral hits and wrapping their arms around a diverse and dedicated fan base. But earlier this year when the band set out to make their fourth studio album, they found they had their hands full: After half a decade of maturation, the group had grown beyond its traditional writing and recording process.

“We had too many ideas for how we wanted to make this record” says Kelsey Wilson, the group’s lead vocalist and violinist. She shrugs. “So we said, ‘Why not just do all of them?’”

The group realized this offered an exciting opportunity to make a kind of record bands rarely get right: To take a new, multispectral approach to writing and recording that went beyond simply trying to engineer success. The band made a list of their favorite musicians who were also great producers in their own right — choosing ones they thought would shine a new and unique light on specific compositions — and then Wild Child set about chasing their album from studio to studio all over the world, never saying no to an idea.

The result — the band’s fourth album, Expectations — is Wild Child’s most creative, colorful and intellectually engaging album to date.

Now a seven-piece pop mini-orchestra (Wilson on violin and vocals; Alexander Beggins on ukulele and vocals; Sadie Wolfe on cello; Matt Bradshaw on keyboards, trumpet, and harmonica; Tom Myers on drums; Cody Ackors on guitar and trombone; and Tyler Osmond on bass), Wild Child formed in 2010 when the group’s core duo of Wilson and Beggins wrote and released their first album, Pillow Talk.

Wild Child shaped their last record, Fools, in the shadows of more than one failed love, and Expectations, as the title suggests, is a continuation of that personal experience into an awakening. Wilson and Beggins, whose voices fit each other as naturally as any family act, pushed their boundaries as writers, drawing freely from the stories they’ve lived as well as the artists around the world that have inspired their growth. Their rate of output over that last year got them thinking differently about producing, focusing on one track at a time. “We’ve always focused on the record as a whole. We wanted to think about each track as it’s own piece- but somehow it all fits together,” Wilson says of the approach.

That route took them around the world — from Chris Walla’s studio in Tromsø, Norway, where the Northern Lights are the brightest in the world, to a home-built warehouse studio on the outskirts of Philadelphia, where Scott McMicken picked up the bass and “joined the band for a week,” arranging harmonies and sharing living and recording space. Back in Wimberley, Texas, Matthew Logan Vasquez set up a makeshift studio in Kelsey Wilson’s beloved childhood home — abandoned since the floods of 2015 — where they found the muses were eager to resurface. The group also tapped the talents of frequent tour mate Chris Boosahda, Atlantic Records recording artist Max Frost, and Grammy-winning producer Adrian Quesada.

The result is a theater of possibilities, with arrangements that reflect the range of tastes of the producers, from scruffy lo-fi tape hiss, to smoothed out precision-cut electronic pop sounds.  And the more you listen to Expectations, the more the many worlds of this project begin to cohere around you. After all, one of the great joys of traveling the world is discovering surprising connections: A skyscraper in Barcelona reminds you of a spire in the Utah desert; the Northern Lights in the Norwegian sky look like an oil slick on the Philadelphia pavement. Expectations, an album which can by turns be bitter, wistful, angry, and flirtatious, is rich with these surprising rhymes across the record.

wildchildsounds.com
facebook.com/wildchildsounds

dualtone.com

Upcoming Tour Dates:
FEBRUARY
07 - Dallas, TX @ Trees (Dallas Expectations Release Show)
08 - Houston, TX @ Walter’s Downtown (Houston Expectations Release Show)
09 - San Antonio, TX @ Paper Tiger (San Antonio Expectations Release Show)
10 - Austin, TX @ Empire Control Room and Garage (Austin Expectations Release Show)

MARCH
10 - Savannah, GA @ Savannah Stopover
11 - Charleston, SC @ Pour House
15 - Birmingham, AL @ Saturn
16 - Atlanta, GA @ Vinyl
17 - Asheville, NC @ Orange Peel
18 - Durham, NC @ Motorco
20 - Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
21 - Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer
22 - Charlottesville, VA @ Jefferson
23 - Pittsburgh, PA @ Rex Theatre
24 - Ithaca, NY @ The Haunt
25 - Buffalo, NY @ Buffalo Iron Works
27 - Brooklyn, NY @ Warsaw
28 - Fairfield, CT @ The Warehouse
29 - Cambridge, MA @ Sinclair
30 - Portland, ME @ Port City
31 - Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground

APRIL
03 - Holyoke, MA @ Gateway City Arts
04 - Montreal, QC @ Theatre Fairmont
05 - Toronto, ON @ Velvet
06 - Ferndale, MI @ Parliament Room at Otus Supply
07 - Grand Rapids, MI @ Pyramid Scheme
08 - Columbus, OH @ A&R
10 - Louisville, KY @ Zanzabar
11 - Nashville, TN @ Mercy Lounge
13 - Minneapolis, MN @ Cedar
14 - Madison, WI @ High Noon Saloon
15 - Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall
17 - University City, MO @ Blueberry Hill Duck Room
18 - Columbia, MO @ Rose Music Hall
19 - Lawrence, KS @ Bottleneck
20 - Omaha, NE @ Slowdown
21 - Denver, CO @ Bluebird
23 - Salt Lake City, UT @ Kilby Court
24 - Missoula, MT @ Top Hat
26 - Vancouver, BC @ Fox
27 - Seattle, WA @ Crocodile
28 - Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
29 - Eugene, OR @ Wow Hall
30 - Bend, OR @ Volcanic Theatre Pub

MAY
02 - San Francisco, CA @ Chapel
03 - Los Angeles, CA @ Teragram Ballroom
05 - San Diego, CA @ Casbah
07 - Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent
08 - Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf