Magic Wand (KLP161)
Little Wings is a diverse musical palette Kyle Field uses to
paint stories with sound. The personnel in Little Wings has always been
in flux, through the Wonder (The Wonder City, Wonderue [KLP134], Discover Worlds of Wonder [KLP154]) and Light Green Leaves [KLP139] trilogies and last
years Harvest Joy album. Says Kyle, “Magic Wand is
about trusting to get it right the first time (pointing your magic wand
with total faith and projection and focus, sending light in this way). Magic Wand
attempts a refined high realism, lyrically and musically, that I have
never attempted with the voice.” He adds, “I am drawing a lot”, as
evidenced by the cover illustrations for Magic Wand, an extension
of the work in Kyle’s latest gallery show. With this album Kyle worked
with producer Calvin Johnson at Dub Narcotic studio in Olympia, Wa.,
recruiting a wide variety of other artists (musical and visual: Phil
Elverum, Lee Baggett, Genevieve Elverum, Miggy Littleton and others) who
come and go throughout the week Magic Wand is recorded. They
stay for days and nights, or for just one song. This results in the
Child Artist deep inside Kyle emerging, picking up his pen again with
his original devotion and purpose. In his hands “Magic Wand” becomes a
synonym for pen (writing and drawing), microphone, peace pipe,
cigarette, an actual magicians wand, crystal shard, etc. This is the
sixth album from Kyle Field funneling his wood grain/crystal shards
through the latest wave of Big Sur revivalism.
“Let those who bristle at the uniquely American brand of sincerity started ostensibly by Walt Whitman and handed from man to man right on up to Jonathan Richman and Jeffrey Lebowski (you think he’s fictional, but he’s not) and David Berman beware. For it is this kind of sincerity – a breezy acceptance of the world in all its damaged glory but still possessing secret wonders in the simplest falling leaves or teary kisses – that embraces all that it is to live should you choose to accept it. The tribe of awestruck Wonderment can now count freaky-ass stoner boy Kyle Field and his Little Wings as one of their silently but steadily growing crew, and on the soulful and deeply strange Light Green Leaves, you can feel him winning one for the whole team. Conceived as a trilogy concept album in which each format (LP, cassette, CD) bears different readings of the same gang of songs (give or take one or two exclusives), each song is a meditation on hibernation, each one a paean to autumn. Field, it must be admitted, has a buttery but clipped voice and plucks out his songs on an old nylon stringed guitar, but his concern never seems precious or, more important, self conscious. Light Green Leaves is the kind of unaffected punk/folk music which K has made secret history before, and it is so beautiful yet disaffected that someone could (and probably will) level the claim that the whole thing is an act, that no one has any right to fly into the scary autumns of their childhood and come back with something this artful yet homespun.” - Philadelphia Weekly
“Let those who bristle at the uniquely American brand of sincerity started ostensibly by Walt Whitman and handed from man to man right on up to Jonathan Richman and Jeffrey Lebowski (you think he’s fictional, but he’s not) and David Berman beware. For it is this kind of sincerity – a breezy acceptance of the world in all its damaged glory but still possessing secret wonders in the simplest falling leaves or teary kisses – that embraces all that it is to live should you choose to accept it. The tribe of awestruck Wonderment can now count freaky-ass stoner boy Kyle Field and his Little Wings as one of their silently but steadily growing crew, and on the soulful and deeply strange Light Green Leaves, you can feel him winning one for the whole team. Conceived as a trilogy concept album in which each format (LP, cassette, CD) bears different readings of the same gang of songs (give or take one or two exclusives), each song is a meditation on hibernation, each one a paean to autumn. Field, it must be admitted, has a buttery but clipped voice and plucks out his songs on an old nylon stringed guitar, but his concern never seems precious or, more important, self conscious. Light Green Leaves is the kind of unaffected punk/folk music which K has made secret history before, and it is so beautiful yet disaffected that someone could (and probably will) level the claim that the whole thing is an act, that no one has any right to fly into the scary autumns of their childhood and come back with something this artful yet homespun.” - Philadelphia Weekly
Little Wings
Magic Wand (KLP161)
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