NEW ALBUM : VANDERWOLF announces new album 'THE GREAT BEWILDERMENT' out 15th March 2024 - Portishead's Adrian Utley guests on guitar

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Vanderwolf portrait © Chiara Meattelli 2024

VANDERWOLF ANNOUNCES NEW ALBUM

‘THE GREAT BEWILDERMENT’

TO BE RELEASED MARCH 15^th 2024 (ON ANOTHER RECORD LABEL)

LEAD SINGLE “SWEEP AWAY THE SHARDS” AVAILABLE NOW

Acclaimed US musician Vanderwolf has announced details of his new album ‘The Great Bewilderment’, to be released March 15^th 2024 on LP, CD & digital formats via Another Record Label.

The first track lifted from the new album, “Sweep Away The Shards” is available now – listen here

The follow-up to Vanderwolf’s 2022 debut ’12 Little Killers’ (“Soul, gospel, theatrical rock and more” **** Mojo), ‘The Great Bewilderment’ is a major rock record full of big emotions and adventurous songs – witness the cinematic despair of “Sweep Away The Shards” (“The tell-tale wounds she’s cauterized, but the nightmares still persist.”)

“This is the story of my beautiful friend who became increasingly untethered to the world we both knew, and my inability to hold on,” explains Max Vanderwolf of the track. “Most of us have known someone who lived enlightened or ethereal, their feet barely touching the ground. While someone who is only tenuously connected to day-to-day practicalities can be enchanting or inspirational, we may also witness as they go frighteningly adrift.”

Whereas ‘12 Little Killers’ was written and recorded during Vanderwolf’s final years in London following the break-up of his semi-legendary band Last Man Standing, ‘The Great Bewilderment’ was mostly written during the pandemic, during which Max relocated from New York to Los Angeles.

“LA can be isolating even in the best of times but coming out here in the midst of the pandemic, and bouncing from rental home to rental home, in a city where I knew very few people made for a strange time,” he recalls. “There’s no town square, high street or local pub in LA. Ultimately the isolation – which we all felt during the pandemic to varying degrees – informed a lot of the writing.’’

To flesh out the new songs, Vanderwolf reached out to an old friend, drummer Angie Scarpa, while a recommendation from John Cale’s guitarist, Dusty Meadows, led to bassist H Chris Roy, joining the band. Initial rehearsals were held outdoors high atop Laurel Canyon. Tim Sonnefeld contributes a variety of guitars, including beautiful crying feedback throughout album centerpiece “Gaza”, which also features a guitar solo from Portishead’s Adrian Utley.

The oldest song on ‘The Great Bewilderment’, it’s been titled “Gaza” since Vanderwolf first wrote its mournful chord progression in 2016 and is an examination of corners of the world where economic and political failure are endless. Given recent events, Vanderwolf considered changing the title, pondering: “The point of the song when I wrote it was that nobody gave a shit about Gaza, now everyone thinks they’re an expert. But the song could’ve just as easily been called Yemen, Haiti or The Democratic Republic Of Congo. It’s not specifically Gaza. It’s about how the complexity and constancy of crisis make it so difficult to intellectually consider places like Gaza. It would’ve been a betrayal to change the title, but I’m fully aware anything you say on the subject is bound to come back and bite you.”

The album title itself is drawn from the mood of writing music during the pandemic, when Vanderwolf’s parallel career of organising concerts and festivals was at a standstill. “I think we’re still in that great bewilderment,” insists Vanderwolf. “With threats to democracy, the division of opinion, plus this latest war on top of the war in Ukraine, and climate crisis becoming acute – there’s a looming sense that there’s nothing we can do. There’s a sense of powerlessness. After 14 years of Tory corruption in an alleged democracy…that is bewildering! That a twice impeached President with 91 indictments against him can be the frontrunner in a presidential election…that is bewildering.”

As a music programmer and concert producer, Max Vanderwolf has worked for some of the worlds’ most celebrated clubs and concert venues. These include New York’s legendary Knitting Factory and London’s internationally renowned Royal Festival Hall, where for nine years he produced the Meltdown Festival, working closely with artists including David Bowie, Patti Smith, Jarvis Cocker, Massive Attack and Ornette Coleman.