Kurt Vile

Kurt Vile is a United Sates artist born in 1980 who has been active since before 2003. He is from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is a former member of the band The War on Drugs. His backing band is named The Violators.

grain of salt
Kurt Vile's approach to the singer/songwriter form is fresh and unprecedented. Some of his pieces can be upwards of eight or nine minutes, which seems Romantic in comparison to the offerings of other songwriters. His lyrics can be pedestrian, but even so, they still manage to carry some mystery. There is an effortlessness in the way he does things. His singing is not virtuosic, but does not aspire to be. There is definitely a carefree element to Kurt Vile's music, which ends up being the most attractive thing about what he does. His music takes me back to high school, or maybe a time when chilling was all you ever wanted to spend your time doing. It's hard to have a bad time listening to his music. Smoke Ring For My Halo and Wakin on a Pretty Daze were both wonderful albums, and there's no doubt in my mind that he'll have some interesting releases yet to come.

In artists like Kurt Vile, it's interesting to see how far the Singer/Songwriter form has come. He takes the form that Neil Young and similar company have given him and (not to overuse the term) Romanticized it, which is to say that he's twisted the form and made it arguably more "epic" than it once was--a form that is less concerned with following tradition and more concerned with venturing forth and establishing new ground.

The quality and production of Vile's music has brought him to Matador, a label with a fairly impressive roster, including Sonic Youth, Interpol, Fucked Up, Perfume Genius, and (a current favorite of mine) NY-based Lemonade, but certainly not limited to these few. All of these artists hold a certain standard and quality in their production, and Kurt Vile doesn't fall short of that.

He presents his music to us with a non-chalance that almost suggests otherwise, though. I mean, it suggests there's nothing special about what he's doing.

good releases

 * Smoke Ring For My Halo, 2011, Matador
 * Wakin on a Pretty Daze, 2013, Matador