Kurt Vile’s latest single, Like Exploding Stones, from his forthcoming album, Watch Me Move, is a woozy, introspective trip.
Vile has announced his major-label debut, Watch My Moves, due for release on April 15. Fans have waited over 3 years for this full-length and the lead single, Like Exploding Stones, comes dripping in the acclaimed songwriter’s laid back yet fried-out style.
Like Exploding Stones is casually psychedelic like an acid-trip hangover. It moseys mid-tempo across pedal steel, hazy synthesiser, and introspections on anxiety – “pain ricocheting in my brain like exploding stones” Vile sings in his trademark nasal voice.
It sits at just over 7-minutes long, but the track is too comfortable and ensconcing, like daydreaming on a waterbed. Vile sings, “woo” and “yeah” in falsetto, which on paper could seem trite, but comes across as an exercise in self-soothing: “and guitars feedin’ back now, feedback massaging my cranium”.
Vile is taking his listener on a woozy trip into his own lucidity, like an autobiography in real-time, “thoughts become pictures, become movies in my mind, welcome to the KV horror drive-in movie marathon… and this is just the way I’m makin’ a living, every day in my mind and in real life too”.
Watch My Moves is set to be a natural expansion on the Vile’s already impressive catalogue and songwriting skills. Vile’s acclaimed discography expresses his mastery of melody, structure, and lyricism:
“It’s about songwriting. It’s about lyrics. It’s about being the master of all domains in the music,” Vile said. “I’m always thinking about catchy music, even though it’s fried, or sizzled, out. It’s my own version of a classic thing – it’s moving forward and backward at the same time.”
The music video, which features Sun Ra Arkestra’s James Stewart, is a misty, psychotomimetic adventure between woods and roller-skating rinks.
The album, Watch My Moves, comes recorded from Vile’s newly created home studio in Mount Airy, Philadelphia. Vile produced it himself alongside long-time collaborator Rob Schnapf, who’s previously worked with greats the likes of Elliott Smith and Richard Thompson.
“When Waylon Jennings became an outlaw country artist, he liked to record at Hillbilly Central, which was Tompall Glaser’s studio”, Vile explains. “OKV Central is my version of that in Mount Airy. I’ve come into my own here, and at the same time I’m getting back to my home-recording roots.”
Watch the video for Like Exploding Stones below:
