Premiere: Wolf Woodcock, ‘Just Trust Me’

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Wolf Woodcock

Wolf Woodcock is a singer-songwriter, composer and guitarist who, with his own releases and playing in bands such as VS Colour and Racquet, is making compelling music on the fringes of the L.A. indie-rock scene. Woodcock’s last major release was his 2017 EP “Cove,” which showcased his soundscape-ish and distinctly conceptual aesthetic. Call them songs for tripping sophisticates, if you will.

Speaking of tripping, Woodcock is embarking on a mindscrew of a new project: a series of EPs revolving around his dreams, and interpretations thereof. “My dreams go in and out of being extremely vivid and at times verge on being prophetic,” he says, and his forthcoming cassette “Alternate I” (arriving via his own MAXMLN Records) is the start of the journey.

“Just Trust Me,” the second song to emerge from the collection, billows through Woodcock’s own doubts — are his dreams truly revelatory or figments of some alternate reality? “I must’ve wrote some words / big thoughts on why it hurts / to talk,” he sings. The nebulous glow of the song, which was co-produced by Illuminati Hotties’ Sarah Tudzin, gains strength from the queasy strings, performed by Emily Elkin, Sid Samberg and Carly Stuneck.

The song, Woodcock says, is the reply to the previously released single “How?” and part of the conceptual maze the songwriter is building in this series of releases.

Woodcock is exploring “how themes like love, anxiety, trust and uncertainty are affected when put through the lens of a dream,” he says. “I wanted to present these lyrically as if in the afterglow of a vivid dream where one cannot immediately discern what is truth and what is fiction. Embedded writing (where the author is presenting multiple narratives through meticulous typesetting, codes and endnotes) and puzzles found their way into influencing how I wanted folks to interact with the art. I cannot say too much about it yet, but the cassettes will have embedded work and an interactive element to them.”

||| Stream: “Just Trust Me”

||| Also: Stream “How?”

||| Live: Wolf Woodcock performs Sunday night at Civic Center Studios along with Hotbrothers, Birote the Musical and Rocket9. Info.

||| Previously: “Terrible”