Tabs Out | Wiggly – If I give you a cherry, the least you could do is spit the pit back into my bowl so's I can suck on it later, and you don't have to poke me in the eye with the stem

Wiggly – If I give you a cherry, the least you could do is spit the pit back into my bowl so’s I can suck on it later, and you don’t have to poke me in the eye with the stem

8.3.21 by Matty McPherson

The New Jersey based Cavern Brew Records holds an open demo policy that has rewarded itself with a blind bag of lo-fi in all its pop, field recording, and unclassifiable forms! Of most recent note is their release of the Kansas City lo-fi chameleon Wiggly with an album title THAT long and cover filled with THAT much negative space. It all screams “Joy Void 2k15,” and indeed the hissy murmured vocals of everyday imagery would almost make it so! For Wiggly is a one-man machine making songs the color of dusk and dawn, somewhere between basement pop and open sky folk.

Wiggly’s one-man process to put these songs to tape involved a smattering of instruments and adverbage usage ( “electric guitared, bass guitared, harmonicad, floor tomed, tambourined, synthesizered, keyboarded, kalimbad, and bongo cajoned”). In the process, he’s presented soundscapes that sound like the last 35ish years of 4AD, mending the cavernous folk of Heidi Berry or a Victorialand instrumental (“Over”) with Deerhunter’s astral gaze (“Everlasting Light” and “Keeper’s Sign”) and even a smidgen of Amps’ basement fuzz. Perhaps it strikes you as a mouthful of references. Yet, with every listen, I find another earworm to hold onto or another curveball freakout, like the “Strangeface Rant,” to dissect and untangle, and with the skies so gosh darn blue right now, it’s quite a treat to savor.