Ascendant Chicago band, Whitney have announced their debut album, Light Upon the Lake, due out June 3rd on Secretly Canadian. This follows on the heels of recent inescapable single “No Woman” and a much talked about SXSW trip. Listen to the band’s new single ‘Golden Days’ here.
Light Upon The Lake marks the culmination of a short, but incredibly intense, creative period for the band. To say that Whitney is more than the sum of its parts would be a criminal understatement. Formed from the core of guitarist Max Kakacek(ex-Smith Westerns) and singing drummer Julien Ehrlich (ex-Unknown Mortal Orchestra), the band itself is something bigger, something visionary, something neither of them could have accomplished alone.
These ten songs on Light Upon the Lake sound like they could have been written at any time in the last fifty years. Ehrlich and Kakacek emerge as imaginative and insightful songwriting partners, impressive in their scope and restraint as they mold classic rock lyricism into new and personal shapes without sound revivalist or retro. “I’m searching for those golden days,” sings Ehrlich, with a subtle ripple of something that sounds like hope, on the track “Golden Days,” available for streaming today and accompanied by a self-made video.
“Ehrlich and Kakacek successfully eke out what is depressingly victorious and ultimately pyrrhic about abandoning the homestead for the mirage of greener pastures.” – Pitchfork
“[Whitney]’s friendship and songwriting partnership is coming into its prime.” – The Verge
“The beautiful arrangement of exultant horns, rhythmic twangy guitar layers, and subtle percussion smoothly soothes.” – Stereogum
In exorcising their demons they conjured something else, something much more benign—a third presence, another personality in the music, which they gave the name Whitney. They left it singular to emphasize its isolation and loneliness. Says Kakacek, “We were both writing as this one character, and whenever we were stuck, we’d ask, ‘What would Whitney do in this situation?’ We personified the band name into this person, and that helped a lot. We wrote the record as though one person were playing everything. We purposefully didn’t add a lot of parts and didn’t bother making everything perfect, because the character we had in mind wouldn’t do that.”
In those imperfections lies the music’s humanity. Whilst they demoed and toured the new songs, they became more aware of the perfect imperfections of the songs, and needing to strike the right balance, they eventually made the trek out to California, where they recorded with Foxygen frontman and longtime friend, Jonathan Rado. They slept in tents in Rado’s backyard, ate the same breakfast every morning at the same diner in the remote, desolate and completely un-rock n roll San Fernando Valley, whilst they dreamt of Laurel Canyon, or maybe The Band’s hideout in Malibu, or Neil Young’s ranch in Topanga Canyon.
Light Upon The Lake
Tracklist:
1. No Woman / 2. The Falls / 3. Golden Days / 4. Dave’s Song / 5. Light Upon The Lake / 6. No Matter Where We Go / 7. On My Own / 8. Red Moon / 9. Polly / 10. Follow
Whitney – Light Upon The Lake is out Friday 3rd June on Secretly Canadian and Rhythmethod
Pre-order the album now on iTunes or from your favourite store!
Listen to ‘Golden Days‘ on Soundcloud
Watch the official video for ‘Golden Days‘
Follow the band’s adventures via Tumblr here!
