Wye Oak recently returned with “AEIOU”, the beautiful first track from the forthcoming No Horizon EP, which they recorded with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Today they’re giving us a second helping of the collaboration in the form of “No Place”. The ever eloquent Jenn Wasner says:
“This song is about the separation between our consciousness and our physical bodies, and how it feels to forget that you even have a body in the first place. Of course, it gets easier and easier to use your body less and less; as we innovate more efficient ways of achieving our temporal goals, we are making them somewhat obsolete. Personally, I’m very pro-body, even as I spent the first half of my life hating and fighting against mine and all of its perceived imperfections. But it’s hard to look around and not at least imagine that we might be some of the last humans on earth to ever enjoy what having a body actually feels like, on a planet that isn’t yet completely inhospitable to us. And that seems like something worth noticing.”
Those are some very thought-provoking ideas outlined in the above quote, and the song “No Place” does not disappoint in further tickling the brain – but doing so without getting too heavy. The Brooklyn Youth Chorus’ presence is more pronounced this time out, and they have an interesting call and response with a robotic voice, while softly arranged synths provide a pastel backdrop. It seems to be a dialogue and contrast between our present physical forms and the future digital forms, and the combination is beautiful – especially as “No Place” reaches its choral and soul-searching finale.
Wye Oak’s new No Horizon EP comes out through Merge on July 31. Follow the band on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
