Who can stand against the rising authoritarianism we find ourselves confronted with on a daily basis? Do we step aside and hope for the best or make a concerted effort to better the world around us? For musicians Jay Blumenfield and Tim Quirk, those are easy questions to answer. Under the guise of Wonderlick – so named as an homage to the reclusive rock star Bucky Wunderlich from Don DeLillo’s Great Jones Street – the duo rummage through genres like a stack of old newspapers, finding inspiration in the strangest places and turning these tonal discoveries into resistance art.
The band itself was born out of pop-punk pioneers Too Much Joy, when Blumenfield and Quirk decided to write music together to give fans something to tide them over. But their work as Wonderlick soon became their main avenue for creative expression, and now they’re ready to release their fifth full-length called Wonderlick Goes to War, a collection of songs curated under the direction of producer Dave Trumfio, who was a member of Pulsars and the Mekons and whose credits include work on albums by Wilco and Built to Spill.
Written mostly while the band toured in the summer of 2024, the new album first began to take shape as hey worked their way through a series of intimate house concerts.
“Those house shows were revelatory,” says Quirk. “They’re small by definition – I think the largest one had maybe 50 attendees – but the impact each one had on us, and on the audience, felt massive. So a lot of the songs we wrote on the road wound up exploring that kind of dynamic, where tiny individual choices or actions can wind up having global consequences, for good or for evil.”
On their new single, “Niagara Falls, 1969”, Blumenfield and Quirk craft an ode to the wonders that people can accomplish and the odd surroundings in which those achievements may exist. The song is drawn from the same curious pop lineages which birthed bands like Devo and Sparks, reveling in atmospheres of intelli-pop impulses and tumbling classic rock influences – I’m also looking at you Elvis Costello. As the story of Niagara Falls and its occasional manmade blockages are relayed, the band shift and sway through a series of jangling post-pop movements, digging deep into their inspirations while carving out their own distinctive rhythmic niche.
“After a house show in Lewiston, NY last June, en route to our next one in Youngstown, OH, we made a brief sight-seeing stop at Niagara Falls,” Quirk explains, “where we were astonished to learn that the falls on the American side of the river have been shut off several times by the Army Corps of Engineers – and apparently just as many tourists will come to see no falls at all as come to see the waters rage. Jason Borger’s mellifluous keys, a BBC announcer and multiple layers of harmonies stacked upon one another all help tell the story of what wonders man can accomplish when he puts his mind to it.“
Watch the video below and check out the band’s upcoming tour schedule.
Wonderlick Goes to War is due out August 1 via People Still Suck Music. Follow the band on Facebook.
