Kurt Vile

Since 2003 · United States

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Wakin on a Pretty Daze (2013)

Wakin on a Pretty Daze stretches several of its songs well past the length a more conventional record would allow, trusting repetition and Vile's layered, fingerpicked guitar to carry the extra time rather than any buildup toward a climax. "Wakin on a Pretty Day" runs past nine minutes on the strength of a single warm, unhurried riff and a lyric about drifting through an ordinary day without any real event to report. "KV Crimes" shows a slightly more driving side of the same laid-back sensibility. It's a record that makes a genuine formal argument for patience as a songwriting tool in its own right.

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Kurt Vile

Wakin on a Pretty Daze · 2013

Kurt Vile began his career as a member of The War on Drugs before establishing a prolific solo catalog built around fingerpicked and layered electric guitar, a laconic vocal delivery, and lyrics that treat everyday drift and self-doubt with an unhurried, often very funny plainspokenness. His music draws explicitly on Philadelphia forebears like Dinosaur Jr. and on classic rock and folk figures including Neil Young and Bob Dylan, filtered through a hazy, unhurried production style.

Wakin on a Pretty Daze (2013) expanded his songs to unusual lengths, several stretching past nine minutes on the strength of repetition and mood rather than conventional structure, and it established him as one of the more distinctive guitarist-songwriters of his generation. Vile has continued to release records at a steady pace since, maintaining the same unhurried, guitar-heavy aesthetic across a catalog that treats laid-back delivery as compatible with real technical and emotional depth.