Homespun: Nests in Tree EP

Comments (0) By Christian Schaeffer Thursday, Mar 7 2013

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Since releasing his Reverbs trilogy in 2010 and 2011, guitarist and vocalist Mikey Wehling has shed some of his lo-fi funk leanings for a little more basement R&B flavor. The groove is still very much in the heart of these recordings, but preset drum machines and Casio breakdowns are slicked over with full-sounding electric pianos and tonewheel organs, and his backing band the Reverbs (on this recording, LeClare Stevenson on keys and bass, aided by Adult Fur's Ryan McNeely on programming and backing vocals) helps fill in the blanks. Despite Wehling's fixation on the term, there's less reverb to mask the vocals this time around, and they come across clearly and confidently on a track such as "Ohh, Ohh," complete with some capable falsetto. The drum programming takes a few steps toward modernity this time as well — the familiar clicks and pops are still present, but they're layered with a synthy squelch that splits the difference between Wehling's retro fetishism and McNeely's more hip-hop inclined beats. McNeely, for his part, mostly holds back and lets Wehling and his smooth, jazz-inflected grooves steer the course. Those chops come through on the title track's extended guitar solo, which orients itself somewhere between George Benson's Breezin' and Steely Dan's Countdown to Ecstasy. It's a thin but fertile piece of sonic real estate, and Wehling and company mine it for all its worth.