Oh My Rockness ((Kurt Vile))

Sarah McKay

Kurt Vile

WEBSITE FOR KURT VILE

Haunting or happy? Who knows! Philly's Kurt Vile makes hazy lo-fi psych-folk that's perfect for the nights you're feeling rather lazy; club music, this is not. Using guitar pedals, guitar reverb and plenty of amplified guitar distortion (see a theme here?), Vile's music can come across as mostly melancholic. But the mood can just as easily be one of carefree blissfulness. It's kind of like how you feel when you're drifting on an inflatable raft in an empty backyard swimming pool. Are you lonely or incredibly content? It's tough to tell sometimes.

Anyway, Vile's space-dream-denseness reminds some of Animal Collective, Ariel Pink and The Tallest Man on Earth. But he has also has received comparisons to Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. Woah. But when you have strong songs that are slow and layered and perfect for easy cerebral dreaming, you can be compared to just about anyone who doesn't have thunderous riffs in their repertoire.

Oh yeah, when Vile isn't writing songs on his own, he's strumming it up for The War on Drugs (an excellent band).

CDs

Constant Hitmaker (LP, 2009)

Constant Hitmaker (MP3s, 2009)

God Is Saying This To You (12", 2009)

Hunchback (12", 2009)

SHOWLIST

Date

Bands

Venue

Ticket Info

No Shows Listed.

Articles

11.09 Bipolar Bear: best Bear band name EVER (almost).

08.17 Kurt Vile is a man of mixed musical emotions.