Office Culture - Big Time Things
- Format
- Vinyl LP
- Genre
- Rock
- Catalog No.
- LP-NS-157
- Pressing
- Download Card
Brooklyn band Office Culture is made up of four longtime collaborators (and all solo artists in their own right)-lead singer and songwriter Winston Cook-Wilson (vocals/keyboards), Ian Wayne (guitar), Charlie Kaplan (bass), and Pat Kelly (drums). Following the electronic avant-pop experimentation of their debut album I Did the Best I Could, the band's critically acclaimed sophomore LP-2019's A Life of Crime-unveiled a lush, jazz-inflected sound that Pitchfork described as ""sleek music for a cursed place, opulent like a ritzy hotel lounge."" Cook-Wilson's wry and contemplative songs reflect the bandmates' shared points of musical reference, including Nite-Flights-era Scott Walker, mid-'70s Joni Mitchell, Curtis Mayfield, and ECM-label jazz. The FADER wrote: ""Office Culture spends the best moments on [A Life Of Crime] sounding like the most vital lounge-pop act of all time.""Big Time Things-the band's third album and Northern Spy debut-is a more maximalist affair. Written and recorded across the course of three years, it's a meticulously orchestrated and groove-forward record featuring nine of Cook-Wilson's most ambitious compositions to date. Tracks like singles ""Elegance,"" ""Big Time Things,"" and ""Little Reminders"" draw together a disparate collection of influences, integrating soulful vocal harmonies, horns straight out of '70s spiritual jazz, string arrangements informed by modernist classical music, and beats that reflect the band's enduring love of neo-soul and hip-hop.The playful experimentation of the arrangements elevates the melodrama and humor of Cook-Wilson's songs-his most emotionally direct to date-which trace the complexities of our efforts to better ourselves by learning from our worst and least rational behavior, and how we attempt to apply that knowledge to nurturing close personal relationships. The record features a dense cast of supporting players, including Carmen Q. Rothwell, Caitlin Pasko, Alena Spanger (Tiny Hazard), and members of Cuddle Magic / Mmeadows. The album releases 9/30 via Northern Spy.1. Suddenly2. Big Time Things3. Timing4. Things Were Bad5. Line6. Elegance 7. Little Reminders8. A Word9. Rules
- Format
- CD
- Genre
- Rock
Big Time Things is a story of crossed wires and missed connections, sleepless nights and scrapped plans. On the third album from Office Culture, the Brooklyn-based band led by pianist-songwriter Winston Cook-Wilson, the magic is in how every element of their texturally rich, emotionally complex music conjures these same visions. The choruses offer humble pledges (""I only want you to be happy"") and uneasy interruptions (""Stop, I feel nervous""); the band swells and sprawls; the arrangements incorporate strings, horns, and backing vocals, suggesting how each moment casts it's own shadow. Office Culture's most ambitious project is also their most intimate and thematically focused. Where previous albums introduced a vast cityscape of scenery and characters, Big Time Things zooms into each lonely window, so close that it can be difficult to know what exactly we're looking at. In Cook-WIlson's hands, it's not always easy to differentiate love songs from breakup songs, moments of connection from total isolation, forward momentum or a quickening spiral.The music behind his words suggests the full story lies in the blur. Comprising Cook-Wilson alongside drummer Pat Kelly, bassist Charlie Kaplan, and guitarist Ian Wayne, Office Culture have never sounded so dynamic or alive, their music so full of intricate detail and open air. While you can still hear traces of their longtime staples-Joni Mitchell, the Blue Nile, the ECM catalog-Big Time Things expands into new and adventurous territory. Occasionally, it recalls Herbie Hancock's Headhunters band backing Scott Walker in the 1980s; other times, it feels like D'Angelo's Voodoo recast as an opera.1. Suddenly2. Big Time Things3. Timing4. Things Were Bad5. Line6. Elegance 7. Little Reminders8. A Word9. Rules
