Anand Wilder signs to Last Gang + shares new single “Delirium Passes”
Former Yeasayer member announces Debut Solo Album I Don’t Know My Words to Be Released In 2022.
Today, Anand Wilder shared “Delirium Passes,” his first release as a solo artist. The former Yeasayer songwriter has also announced plans to release his debut LP I Don’t Know My Words in 2022 via his new label home, Last Gang. The video for “Delirium Passes,” which features Ben Sinclair from HBO’s High Maintenance, is currently streaming via Stereogum who calls it “a rapturous shot of kaleidoscopic psych-folk.”
“This song is about escape versus perseverance,” says Wilder. “The conversation is about the freedom from the responsibility required of familial duty, the perseverance of a long-term relationship, willingness to resolve conflicts peaceably, willingness to compromise… and the delusion that when you move on you’ll become a less chauvinistic man instead of falling into old habits.”
“For the music video, the director Derek Howard and I decided to very loosely adapt a James Joyce short story called “The Boarding House,” which I had nicked the song’s title phrase from. We always knew we wanted to shoot it on 16mm film, with prismatic and double exposure in-camera effects, mixed with silent era vaudeville style acting. We took visual cues from some of our favorite films by Frank Capra, Chaplin, Eisenstein, Guy Maddin, Tarkovsky, Terry Gilliam, and Mehboob Khan. The result is kind of an absurdist slapstick psychedelic fairytale, complete with a Bufo Alvarius Toad induced change of heart, dished out by actor Ben Sinclair, who graciously threw himself into the dual role of abusive butcher father and pusher priest.”
Wilder’s reputation as a talented multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter emerged in the Brooklyn indie rock scene of the late 2000s, where he joined his bandmates in painting on the eclectic palette of synths, strings, and harmonies that defined Yeasayer’s acclaimed psychedelic worldbeat and swerving electro-pop experiments. He was at home writing and fronting big hits like Yeasayer’s “O.N.E.,” and “Wait for the Summer,” but the spirit of community always pervaded his surprising collaborations, from the guest-star-studded recordings of the peculiar rock musical album Break Line (2014) that Wilder composed with college friend Maxwell Kardon, to his occasional production credits for fellow travelers like Suckers and Das Racist.
With I Don’t Know My Words, Wilder turns his multi-instrumentality away from electronica and global genre-hopping toward a more grounded, home-brewed sound. Recording on his own, he played every instrument on the album from plucked cellos and bowed acoustic guitars to oscillating textures of dulcimers and tumbling, song-serving drums.
“After some initial attempts at collaborating with outside musicians, I realized that I needed to have my hands on every aspect of recording my first solo effort,” recounts Wilder. “So much of the pleasure of making this album was reigniting my childhood passion for challenging myself to pick up any instrument.”
Themes of family ties were infused into the album from the outset, as Wilder found himself writing and recording in close quarters with his wife and children throughout COVID lockdown in their New York apartment. Much of the inspiration for the project can be traced to Wilder’s familial roots and his own childhood. “My mom, who was born in India, is a huge music lover,” he writes. “Whatever we were doing, the Beatles, Cat Stevens and Fairport Convention were playing in the house through these homemade speakers my father had wired. The lockdown brought all that back to me, and the music I began making translates that musical mood of my childhood for my family now. I wanted to go back to basics, back to songs. Light on electronics and experimentation, heavy on acoustics and vocals.”
