Jack Tatum aka Wild Nothing will release his new album, Indigo, on August 31st via Captured Tracks. Prior to that release, he’s offering a new single entitled, “Partners In Motion” today. “Partners In Motion” is a wafty synth-heavy syncopated track that’s very reflective of the 1980’s. You can almost imagine this song soundtracking a moment in a smoky club in a Beverly Hills Cop ripoff.
Recorded at LA’s Sunset Sound and produced by Tatum and Jorge Elbrecht, Indigo is its own cyborg world, utilizing the artful mechanisms of human touch with the precision of technology to create the classic, pristine sound Tatum has been seeking his entire career. After a decade of making music as Wild Nothing, Indigo finds Tatum at his most efficient, calculated, and confident. It’s both a return to the fresh, transcendent sweep of his debut, 2010’s Gemini, and a culmination of heights reached, paths traveled, and lessons learned while creating the follow-ups, Nocturne and Life of Pause.
To make Indigo, Tatum confronted the Man vs. Machine dichotomy by seizing on the surrounding synergy. In his studio, he would write pieces of songs with whatever instruments and programs held his interest on any given day. He built a series of highly detailed demos, intending to record the final package swiftly with a live band in a studio and in a clear, bright, 1980’s-inspired fidelity. “I wanted it to sound like a classic studio record, as close as I could get it there. It just boils down to me wanting to fit into some larger narrative, musically, in terms of these artists I love,” says Tatum. “I think about how my music will age. Ideas of ‘timeless’ are going to be different—so if Indigo is not timeless then it’s at least ‘out of time.’”
