Jason Wilber - Time Traveler (2020)

Slated for release in early 2020, Jason Wilber’s latest record, Time Traveler, plays like a radio signal emanating from some distant outpost. Folk music from the future, with themes at once timeless and timely. Wilber strums stories from space stations and post-apocalyptic bunkers, alongside down to earth parables on the mysteries and truths of life. Wilber has had plenty of time to ponder the day dreams and fantastic journeys that wind up in his songs. For the last 23 years (and counting) he’s logged countless hours gazing out the windows of planes, trains, busses and cars while on the road with country/folk icon John Prine.

“I was 26 when I started playing guitar with John Prine, and I just turned 50 this year. So it’s been my entire adult life,” Wilber says. “At this point, John and his wife Fiona, their boys, the band and crew, they’re all like family to me. I love them all, and I love working with them. When I look at what happens between John and an audience, I can’t deconstruct it for you and explain exactly why it’s so brilliant. But I can tell you that something amazing is happening. There’s something about his music that touches people deeply. It’s a special thing, and it’s been a pleasure and a joy to get to be a part of it for so long.”

In Wilber’s multi-decade journey with Prine, the Grammy-winning singer, songwriter, guitarist and producer has graced stages from the Grand Ole Opry to Austin City Limits, Seth Myers & Conan to Letterman & Colbert. And he’s been a key player in high-profile collaborations with a host of legends including Lucinda Williams, Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Todd Snider, Tom Russell, Miranda Lambert, Susan Tedeschi, Josh Ritter, Kacey Musgraves & more.

“Making records, for me, is a process of discovery,” Wilber says. “Often, the song you thought was gonna be great turns out to be ok, and the one you thought was just ok turns into something amazing. And that’s because of all the collaboration—with the producer, with all the other musicians—and also the unknown, the mystery of what’s gonna unfold when you start working on a song. You can never predict what’s gonna happen. So as you go through the process, you have to keep your ears open for the things that are magic.”

The sessions for Wilber’s latest solo LP, Time Traveler, flowed in a familiar work groove. For the third album in a row (after 2016’s Echoes and 2017’s Reaction Time), Wilber worked with longtime friend, producer and Bloomington, Ind., music-scene compatriot Paul Mahern. The latter made his bones fronting seminal punk band Zero Boys before embarking on a brilliant career producing and engineering records by the likes of Iggy Pop, Neil Young and Willie Nelson, as well as more recent luminaries such as Magnolia Electric Co. and Okkervil River. Wilber has known Mahern for more close to 30 years, and the camaraderie is palpable when you listen to their work together.

“Paul and I have a great work rhythm,” Wilber says. “Making music is of course very spiritual and emotional; it’s a creative, artistic activity, but it’s also the kind of thing where you’ve got to show up every day and get things done. You have to put in the hours and get everything down on tape. Paul and I are very efficient in that way. He has great ideas and insights when it comes to arranging and recording. And I always trust him to be honest in his opinions.”

Simplicity and honesty are key ingredients on Time Traveler. The tracks have a decidedly warm, acoustic, almost ’60’s singer-songwriter feel. Wilber layers guitar, mandolin, and percussion, with subtle vocal harmonies. On several songs Susan Anderson and Shannon Hayden, on violin and cello respectively, weave a beautiful atmosphere under and around Wilber’s vocals and guitars. Mahern’s deft production gives a rich analog depth to the tracks. The final effect is stark but elegant, falling somewhere on a spectrum between Peter Rowan’s Dust Bowl Children and a less melancholy Nick Drake.

The opening track “Time Traveler” sets the context for the album. With the rest of the songs dipping in and out at various points in time and space. “Spider” feels the most traditional, which make sense as it’s based on the traditional spiritual song, “Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down”. But the “Spider” lyrics speak to 21st century concerns. The spider and the web being metaphors for Big Brother and the internet. At one point in the song Wilber calls on a deified Mother Maybelle Carter to intervene on his behalf, using the power of her iconic autoharp, “If you’re watching over me, please kill this awful beast. Mother Maybelle strum your golden strings.”

“Poet’s Life” shifts gears with a funky rhythm guitar style that Wilber says he learned from former bandmate, and long time Prine-pal, Pat McLaughlin. “Pat has a great funky way of playing acoustic rhythm guitar. I was definitely channelling that on Poet’s Life.” says Wilber. “Poet’s Life” speaks to the shaky ground between melancholy and mania that many artists inhabit, “Somedays I can’t get up, somedays I can’t quit. May be some kind of genius, may be an idiot.” The song is a bit of a nod to another friend of Wilber’s; Kurt Vile. “I had Kurt’s lyrical style in mind when I was writing Poet’s Life for sure, but also his personality. Kurt is like John Prine in that his personal eccentricity comes through in his music in a really great authentic way. That’s a pretty fantastic and rare thing.”

Another Time Traveler highlight is “The Disappearance of Bigfoot,” a hypnotic, fingerpicked tale which seems to be a cautionary comment on mankind’s relationship with nature. The song tells of Bigfoot’s near miss encounter with Little Foot, who is “almost bald with tiny feet, that’ll kill the bear and just leave the meat.” A creature that Bigfoot (who is female by the way), regards as surely fictional, “That Little Foot’s just a backwoods myth. Something to scare baby squirrels with. There ain’t no creature could be so dumb and selfish.”

The latest addition to an ever-deepening catalog that includes Lost In Your Hometown (1998), Behind the Midway (2000), King For A Day (2004), Lazy Afternoon (2006), Ghost of Summers Past (2009), Secret Window (2014) Echoes (2016), and Reaction Time (2017), Time Traveler is Wilber’s 9th solo record, and sure to be considered one of his finest.

“I saw a great exhibit in Seattle a few years back,” says Wilber, considering his feelings on the new album and his career going forward. “It was this famous Japanese woodblock artist, Katsushika Hokusai, who’d done a series of prints, many of them of a great wave, and some had Mt. Fuji in the background. He’d been an artist his whole life, and he did that series when he was in his 80s, and that became the work he was known best for. I just think that’s fantastic—that you can be an artist your whole life, and end up doing your best work in your 80s.”