Hot Sun Cool Shroud EP

Wilco has been many things in their 30-year career, but they've never been an EP band. Where other acts use the format as a testing ground for new ideas, Wilco have always done their wildest experiments on their studio albums, and Jeff Tweedy has historically favored the LP and the lengthy live set as a forum to work out big ideas and worry for deep uncertainties. . Their EPs have almost always been promotional tools, whether it's their short iTunes live set or the bonus CDs they've attached to proper albums. Even in 2003 More like the moon started as a promo for its Australian release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot before it gets a standalone release. They've broken down spaces for live cuts and scraps rather than significant statements in their own right.

Hot Sun Cool Shroud seemingly serves a similar purpose: Wilco culled tracks from recent sessions and is releasing the EP to coincide with this year's Solid Sound festival, where concertgoers will get their first digs at exclusive vinyl before it's released more widely later this year. But this feels like the first time the band has crafted an EP as a cohesive statement with the intent, if not the weight, of a full-length LP. There is a purposefulness here that was not present even today More like the moon, an embrace of the possibilities of the shorter form. They use the medium surprisingly well, establishing and then working on a 'summer-after-dark' (to use Tweedy's description) atmosphere. It doesn't mean much to say Hot sun it's the best EP Wilco has ever made, because there isn't much competition. It's more to say that it feels complete, like a haiku.

Opener “Hot Sun” practically melts with heat, guitar notes bending and warping as Tweedy sings about the physical pleasure of sunlight hitting the skin. With that feeling comes a nagging doubt, possibly about climate change: “Shouldn't I be doing something?” he asks himself. “What can I do? What can I do?” These two opposite emotions are found in the song as equals, not just as things to be experienced, but to be written about. “What's the word I want?” Tweedy sings, as if worried that he might not fully convey either the joy or the fear. Few artists can break the fourth wall of a song so eloquently without sounding too clever.

With a general theme of summer, Hot sun it's structured in two acts, each 10-inch side with an instrumental underpinning two vocal-centric pieces. In this setting Wilco sound more focused, the songs tighter in their melodies and more deliberate in their arrangements, even when those arrangements seem designed to be disorderly The instrumentalists move with their own logic—especially “Livid,” a collision of mindless post-punk guitars reminiscent. A Ghost Is Born—but every song makes room for a little noise, a little chaos. Even the relatively boring “Say You Love Me” packs a heat as they deliver a rousing, soothing, aching chorus that will no doubt sound great on Mass Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Especially for a short EP, there are a lot of different Wilcos Hot Sun Cool Shroud. There's Wilco the dad rockers on “Hot Sun,” still figuring out their responsibilities to their kids and everyone else. It's Wilco, the noise makers on 'Inside the Bell Bones', hitting the studio. There's Wilco the frayed angst on 'Ice Cream', wondering how anyone could love them. It's Wilco the festival organizer, Wilco the migraine rocker, Wilco the country-rock band, Wilco the ridiculous, Wilco the Wilcos. To that familiar parade, add Wilco the EP band, elevating a modest tracklist into something much bigger than itself and showing how they've kept in touch with all these different Wilcos for so long.