Jonathan Wilson is a (non-native) Californian who makes extraordinary music – not just for himself, he also has some very cool producer credits including critically acclaimed albums with Father John Misty and Karen Elson released in 2017 alone. His own music manages to cherry pick sounds and grooves from the last fifty years of popular music without ever feeling derivative or anything other than contemporary.
His last album Fanfare felt rooted in the acoustic guitar and harmony vocals sound of the 1970s Laurel Canyon sound – to the extent that Jackson Browne, Graham Nash and David Crosby contributed harmony vocals. His new album, Rare Birds, has got much more of a 1980s Peter Gabriel/Talk Talk feel, synthesizers and all. There’s still lush orchestration and great guitar playing of course, and there are plenty of outliers like the delicate Loving You or the early Pink Floyd sound of Miriam Montague. The latter is clearly influenced by the fact that his main gig at the moment is guitarist, vocalist and ‘resident hippie’ on Roger Waters’ Us + Them world tour. He also contributed guitar, keyboards and studio skills to Waters’ recent album is this the life we really want?.
Anyway, NPR have kindly made the entire of Rare Birds available to listen to a couple of weeks before it’s released so it would be rude of you not to listen to it.
And here are streams of Wilson’s own first album plus the Karen Elson and Father John Misty albums from last year.
