Comprised of members of more than half a dozen other bands, including The Appleseed Cast, Paper Airplanes, and Solagget, The Wonder Revolution is more a collective of individuals who specialize in both audio and visual aspects of art. Having already released two albums, The Forest Meeting and Dots, this year on Air House Records, each record seems to find the collective in a different mood and different structural iteration. Each of these records sound dramatically different from the others, as the band trades out musical roles as easily as changing clothes. By a very conscious effort, these albums sound at times as though completely different bands were in the studio for each one.
Collective member Matt Mundinger had this to say about the group:
“The wonder isn’t just stories about mushrooms and sparkflowers and sky bicycles. The songs, stories and art are tools to get us to think differently about how we live and experience our everyday lives. The listener/viewer uses these tools to help them re-arrive at their natural state of wonder. Once someone is able to return to wonder they’re free to live in a state of continual amazement, discovery, fascination, renewal, awe, exploration, love, personal expression, learning, etc. That’s the ultimate goal.”
For their new album Firefly, the band dug into the well-used works of classic pop icons like The Beatles and The Beach Boys, as well as more recent artists like Grizzly Bear and Beach House, and by incorporating these exterior influences into their own sound instead of just mimicking them, the band develops a singular voice to push away the darkness. The latest single from Firefly, the buzzing, acoustic distortion-laden “Invisible Until,” captures that moment in time when the only thing that matters is discovery–the feeling that everything you see is brand new and that everything is possible. The hushed vocals that open the track entwine with a gently picked acoustic guitar and a slowly rising drum shuffle and eventually twist and condense into searing waves of distortion and orchestral strings. The track feels like the aural realization of the ideas of chance and revelation.
Beats Per Minute is pleased to premiere “Invisible Until,” the latest track from The Wonder Revolution’s newest album Firefly.
The Wonder Revolution
Firefly
(Air House Records)
December 11, 2012
01. Linden Tree
02. Firefly
03. Here We Are
04. Layers of Miracles
05. Cassiopeia
06. Leo
07. Was That A Star
08. The Current
09. A Pond of Diamonds
10. Invisible Until
11. Two Birds (Blue and Orange)
