EXTENDED PLAY
Wilco Hot Sun Cool Shroud EP
GIVEN HIS writing skills, Jeff Tweedy makes a decent reviewer of his own new Wilco EP. Hot Sun Cool Shroud, he notes, “starts off pretty hot, like heat during the day, has some instrumentals on it that are a little agitated and uncomfortable and ends with a cooling breeze.” A coda of sorts to 2023’s Cousin LP, of the six tracks only brackish thrummer Hot Sun has been worked on by Cousin’s producer, Cate Le Bon. But while the other five began life prior to Cousin, they’ve been finished here with a similar brittle, experimental spirit to that encouraged by Le Bon. Livid is an immediate eyebrow-raiser – 70 seconds of squalling instrumental hardcore with laser-gun FX. But it’s the subtly-burnished chamber ballads, Ice Cream and Say You Love Me, the latter evolving into a kind of restrained glam singalong, that satisfy most as low-key Wilco classics – anything but afterthoughts.