Stream: Wand, ‘Plum’

Kevin Bronson on June 28th, 2017

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Wand — the L.A. psychedelic rock explorers helmed by Cory Hanson — got off to a roaring start: Between August of 2014 and September of 2015, they released three-full-lengths, all showcasing varying degrees of heavy, intrepid and completing riveting weirdness. In 2016, the ranks of the band expanded to five; Hanson, bassist Lee Landey and drummer Evan Burrows were joined by guitarist Robbie Cody and keyboardist Sofia Arreguin. And their new album “Plum,” arriving Sept. 22 via Drag City, is a “peek-a-boo inthe a library of improvisation recorded from March to late December 2016,” Hanson says.

The brilliant title track, less heavy than anything Wand has done, is an existential conversation turned fever dream — starting with a repetitive piano line, “Plum” evolves into a conversation between two guitars and, eventually, two layered vocal lines. (Here, the lyric video comes in handy to parse the hope from the cynicism.) “And you can scream / til your face turns to a plum / an old rotten knot of feathers / that used to be wings / and other useless dreams,” Hanson sings over a pretty clamor that suggests the Beatles in their practice space, working on two songs at once. Of the song, Hanson explains: “The song transpires between our collective harmony and individual dissent. It felt like we were each trying to obstruct a clear path in order to discover new space. As a total accident, ‘Plum’ wound up being a miniature blueprint to the musical language we developed together over months of dedicated writing.”

If “Plum” reveals a band on the road to busting out of the same-ol’ psychedelic rock calisthenics, we’re following.