WANG WEN‘s music narrates stories of their inward journey, sometimes gentle and joyful, sometimes bitter and mournful. Sweet Home, Go! is the band’s forthcoming ninth studio album. Composed over the past three years and completed in early January under the supervision of producers Wouter and Lode Vlaminck, the new experience of working with external and European producers forged a fine balance between the creative yearning to explore new threads, contradictions, conflicts, and the producers’ desire for clarity. The resulting tracks – including an a cappella number recorded in an abandoned factory – sees WANG WEN continuing their seventeen-year-long journey to understand themselves and the outside world through sound and texture. In advance of its release, Scene Point Blank magazine is offering up the lush sounds of Sweet Home, Go! in its entirety. Listen below.
Sweet Home, Go! will be released via Pelagic Records in Europe on September 30th followed by a US street date of October 28th. For CD preorders go HERE. For 2xLP preorders go HERE.
The packaging of Sweet Home, Go! is equally alluring boasting two different inner sleeves (printed on the inside and outside) showing through the die cut hole of an outer box sleeve, printed on special fabric paper and creating a total of four different front cover impressions, depending on which sleeve and which side is up. An additional 30×30 cm art book comes with the vinyl edition. This kind of attention to detail is indicative of a band that take outstanding care not only about their music, but also about the visual and haptic aspects of their art. WANG WEN professes a holistic approach to art, focused (but not solely limited) on their extraordinary music. A fitting listen for fans of Mogwai, Radiohead, PG.Lost, Sigur Rós, Explosions In The Sky, This Will Destroy You, Cult Of Luna, and Godspeed You! Black Emperor.
In an extensive investigation of the record, China’s CityWeekend reflects, “It feels like there has been a spring tensioned on the bow of time in the past several years. The rapidly lapsing time gets people excited, but also chokes them. Decades as a counting unit are outdated. Life as we experience it is fast, and sliding out of control … Is Sweet Home, Go! about surpassing the gulf of time? Yes, but a different kind of gulf. Music is always light and heavy, but it should never just be a quick energy fix or a mood enhancer…. what if the powerful flow of music could stop time and shoot us out of this cold abyss into the heavenly skies above, then drop us to our deaths. This is what the Dalian-based bandWANG WEN says about their ninth studio album… It’s grand, thoughtful, with sounds from everything in the world. Life is not immortal but sound can be. WANG WEN came up with the idea, were flexible with their creation process, and came out with a record that captures life and makes it eternal with their music.” Echoes And Dust notes, “The Chinese experimental post-rockers have created a seven-track album that lulls, emotes, and soothes. In the world of WANG WEN, that which on the surface appears to be simple, is often a multi-layered, complex construction designed to take the listener on quite the journey.” Adds A Closer Listen, “The songs take their time to get to where they’re going. Three land in the quarter-hour range, three in the ten-minute range, and one (the sole vocal track, an a cappella coda) only two minutes. And yet, both separately and together, they arrive in a place that might be called home, or even better, sweet home. The destination is never in question, only the time it takes to arrive. Sometimes there’s a rest break, sometimes fuel stop, sometimes a detour, but the album continues to move forward, toward comfort: familiar beds, comfortable couches, leftovers in the fridge. An hour after the album begins, the glockenspiel and flute finally arrive, but they don’t seem late; instead, they appear just in time.”
Issues the band:
“Over the last few years, it feels like time has been spinning out of control. As time speeds by, it makes people feel an indescribable excitement but also a feeling of suffocation. Just as we become used to the ways of today, things change in a flash. The Internet has seemingly brought people closer together, but in fact, is has plunged us into the many deep cracks of space and time.”
