Producer Jonathan Wilson concentrates on his own meticulous pop
Jonathan Wilson — playing in Vancouver as part of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival — is best known for his producing credits, but in 2017 released his third album, Rare Birds.
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Jonathan Wilson
When: June 22, 9 p.m.
Where: The Imperial
Tickets: $34 at eventbrite.ca
To many music fans, Jonathan Wilson is best known for his producing credits. Lana Del Rey, Father John Misty, and Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters are among those who have benefitted from his keen ear and knob-twiddling (Father John Misty to the tune of a Grammy Award nomination for the 2016 album Pure Comedy). As a result, Wilson’s own music has taken a back seat. That’s changing.
“There was a time when I was extremely motivated by the recording side, and I would jump at the chance to get into the recording studio,” he said.
“These days I have to weigh the options of the potential of the project versus making something for myself. Basically, I’ve spent way too long producing for others.”
Wilson spent much of 2017 and last year working with Roger Waters, producing his album Is This The Life You Really Want? and touring as a guitarist/vocalist with Waters on his Us + Them Tour. In the midst of all that, Wilson released his third album, Rare Birds.
All Music called the record “dizzying in ambition, dazzling in execution,” while the album prompted NPR to call him “an utterly original and irreverent thinker who’s evolving with blinding speed.” Rare Birds diverges from ‘70s-Laurel Canyon-inflected work such as his second album Fanfare (2013) and goes for a more elaborate ‘80s production sound.
For his initial Rare Birds tour, Wilson included song-specific visual projections inspired by his time with Waters and a full band. His recent shows, and the tour that brings him to Vancouver as part of the Vancouver International Jazz Festival, however, are “completely solo,” he said — just him, a guitar and a piano.
“It’s been exciting, and something I’ve not done until now.”
Some songs on Rare Birds don’t lend themselves to such a minimalist setting, he admits.
“A song like Miriam Montague, I don’t think it would even be possible to play that,” he said, mentioning a slab of Beatlesesque pop and a centrepiece of the record.
“Surprisingly some of the big, thousand-track, maximalist overproduced songs actually started on just a simple acoustic. To bring them back to that is not that much of a stretch.”
Following his summer tour, Wilson will continue to work on an album that he started in Nashville. He’s also in the process of relocating his Echo Park, CA, recording studio to Topanga Canyon.
Wilson is not a fast songwriter, he says.
“I will digest and change around and gestate on songs for a long long time. I’m definitely not a super-fast one as far as that’s concerned. Rarely do I sit down with a notebook and come back with something fast.”
There’s a meditation process that he likes to employ, if time allows. And there’s “a long, arduous, editing soul-searching angst that usually takes place with songs where they get cut and dropped on the floor, and I’ll ixnay someone I’ve paid a lot of money to play on songs. Those are all skills you hone by being unattached, which means producing someone else. That’s something I’ve been extremely fortunate to be able to do.” He became even more in demand following the Grammy nom for Pure Comedy, he says.
He’s still interested in opportunities to work with others, and recently played drums with Florence Welch of UK pop band Florence and the Machine. But, “I just feel a little bit behind the curve on my own albums,” he said. “So I’m putting the ‘be back in 5 minutes’ sign on the studio door.”
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