Caught in the Carousel

Wheat

By Alex Green

There's a miraculous groove coursing through Wheat's new album White Ink, Black Ink. Like a wave it rises and falls and swells and crests, but unlike its nautical cousin, it never breaks; it never crashes on the musical beach, dissolves into bubbling fractions and foams its way into silence.

Inexhaustible, pressing and at times even phantom, the groove is always there. And even when it's not, it still is. Presiding over the eleven songs on this Massachusetts band's fifth full-length effort, it's a steady glow, an unrepeating repetition, a glorious metrical pulse that, by album's end, has eclipsed the parameters of beat and rhythm and become, impossibly and thrillingly, a feeling.

The aforementioned groove comes early on, announcing itself in the pulsating "H.O.T.T," a pace-setting pop number that finds singer Scott Levesque admitting, "Half of the time I feel I'm clever/And half of the time I just haven't a clue." With its lyrical ancestry tracing back to Wordsworth's "Resolution And Independence" ("As high as we have mounted in delight/In our dejection do we sink as low") or more recently the Velvet Underground's "Pale Blue Eyes" ("Sometime I feel so happy/Sometimes I feel so sad"), "H.O.T.T." finds and traces the fragile faultline of certainty and doubt, that troubling middle zone that is at once both rickety and steady. It's the place where we're forced to break and repair, stab our heart to pieces then lick the wounds in the dark.

White Ink, Black Ink is about contrasts—but not the titular outcomes of contrasts, like, for example, being in love or being out of love; more about how contrasts feel. Keeping this in mind, throughout the album, the band explores the many trajectories of the conundrums that occur when one feels something even though they were sure they'd feel something else.

"Changes Is" comes bathed in a lustrous fuzz that somersaults into a gigantic chorus; the emotional rallying cry of "Living 2 Die Vs. Dying 2 Live" (a title Prince would surely be jealous of) finds Levesque, amidst layers of loops declaring, "I survive you/You survive me" and on the Pet Sounds-influenced "If Everything Falls Together" he concedes, "I don't wanna put pressure on you to have some fun." Later, "Music Is Drugs" is a big blurry workout fueled by drummer Brendan Harney and buttressed by a bass line that could power a small country; "Mountains" is a techno/folk hustle and "I Want Less" is a blissful indie rock symphony whose refrain reminds us that, "One love is better than a million bucks."

The shimmering mosaic of the aforementioned "I Want Less" is White Ink, Black Ink's piece de resistance. An astounding rhythmic stew that starts with a dreamy blast of psychedelia with Escher like lyrics running over it ("If nothing's there/I don't see a wasted space"), it builds into a taut tapestry of exhilarating sound that threatens to whip over into oblivion, but somehow manages to stay on course. It's also perhaps Levesque's greatest vocal turn yet—is voice reaches into the pop stratosphere and comes out with wrenching, affecting results. "If it's more you want," he sings, "then you're out of luck." He's got to be kidding—what more could anyone want than this?

On the eve of the release of White Ink, Black Ink, Wheat submitted their Consummate Top Ten to CITC.

Top 10 Records Most People Didn't Get (in both ways) - By Wheat

10. Royal Trux—Accelerator
A true rock record—junky, dazed, confused, crazed, under-produced, annoying, beautiful, defiant, anti-structure, angry, doomed from the outset. I'm gonna go and put it on now.

9. Innocence Mission—Birds Of My Neighborhood
Largely acoustic 3 piece, great singer. Amazing songs. Perfect Sunday morning.

8. Spoon—A Series Of Sneaks
The best Spoon record overall. "Metal Detektor" is perfect. Vocal delivery at it's coolest and most hip.

7. Rollerskate Skinny—Horsedrawn Wishes
Weird Irish bunch. Dense, murky little dreams. Like a porn version of Loveless.

6. Rickie Lee Jones—Sermon On Exposition Boulevard
Stream of thought, improvisational magical beauty from one of the greatest female songsmiths of our time! Women stand up—this is wonder and poetry and faith and liquid motion and the sublime, written for us all!

5. Wheat—Everyday I Said A Prayer For Kathy And Made A One Inch Square (seriously)

4. Balloon Guy—The West Coast Shakes
Great semi-weird rock record. Great positive anger is an energy.

3. Miracle Legion—Me And Mr. Ray
You've got to be kidding me—"You're The One Lee" is one of the most beautiful love songs ever written! This was a vinyl only Deal I think, and nobody gave a shit. But, can we get a reissue? Oh, how we throw away beauty like it's nothing. We don't want it—we want the same song! We get what we deserve.

2. Captain Beefheart—Doc At The Radar Station

1. Captain Beefheart—Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller)
Two perfect priceless pop records from the greatest painterly mind that we have ever known. Why do we dwell on Trout Mask?

Discography:
Medeiros
Hope And Adams
Per Second, Per Second, Per Second...Every Second
Everyday I Said A Prayer For Kathy And Made A One Inch Square
White Ink, Black Ink

Internet:
Wheat
Wheat on MySpace
www.therebelgroup.com

White Ink, Black Ink is out now.