Facts and Stats: Wilco released EP Hot Sun Cool Shroud on the first day of their 2024 Solid Sound Festival with festival attendees able to purchase a white vinyl pressing in person and make their own cover art using ink stamps designed by artist Kathleen Ryan. Those interested could submit their cover to dBpm Records to have their work featured as the final actualized EP artwork; after reviewing hundreds of submissions, three year old Clementine’s unicorn masterpiece was chosen as the winner.
The six tracks on the EP were taken from the sessions which produced the 2023 album Cousin, produced by Cate Le Bon.
Le Bon produces one track here (“Hot Sun”), with Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy and engineer/producer Tom Schick as producers for the remainders. Tweedy previewed the EP with reference to its “summertime-after-dark kind of feeling. It starts off pretty hot, like heat during the day, has some instrumentals on it that are a little agitated and uncomfortable and ends with a cooling breeze.” He went on to say that there are tracks on Hot Sun Cool Shroud that are “more aggressive and angular than anything we’ve put out in a while, and a song about love melting you like ice cream into a puddle of sugary soup. All the pieces of summer, including the broody cicadas.”
What The Critics Thought: Glide Magazine (Ryan Dillon, 28 June 2024) noted that the “quick yet potent EP has the band leaping from country-inspired balladry to experimental electro-garage rock. For a band that thrives on challenging themselves, Wilco miraculously creates a honed EP from old recordings that feel expansive and purposeful while being built around loose and tossed-away ideas”.
US Rocker (Ava Liversidge, 9 July 2024) said that there was “nothing random about this release”, with the six tracks arranged so that each half of the EP features one instrumental between two lyrical tracks.
Paste Magazine (Matt Mitchell. 1 July 2024) said Hot Sun Cool Shroud is “nothing like Cousin—it’s better. You’re getting a career’s worth of checkpoints in such a small vacuum, and the EP is a deft reminder that this is one of the greatest rock bands of this century that we’re dealing with after all”.
What We Think: A short but enjoyable 14 minute burst of Wilco. The instrumentals – “Livid” and “Inside the Bell Bones” – serve as engaging interludes to the four songs of substance. The latter vary in tone, with the upbeat and catchy “Annihilation” as the standout. The summer conflict of “Hot Sun”, the melted drift of “Ice Cream” and a violin-infused “Say You Love Me” also ensure the EP is a worthwhile enterprise.
Formats: CD, cassette, white vinyl, yellow vinyl, black vinyl, download.
Label: dBpm Records
Release Date: 28 JUN 2024
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