Wolverton - Paper Kisses (2020)

October 6, 2020, is the release date for Wolverton’s second full-length, full band album, Paper Kisses. With fifteen songs, the album is representative of live sets the band has played for the past couple of years. Produced and recorded live by Joe Reyes, with additional instruments by the band, BJ Cole and Kim Mackenzie.

“Cosmic American Music,” a term with two meanings, is the celestial perspective of the American musical tradition, a synthesis of Folk, Blues, Country and Rock, and it is also cosmic in a more ineffable way—it understands America, its mysteries, wonders, tragedies, and ghosts.

Wolverton’s music easily resides in Cosmic American Music like blades of grass floating down a river. On their second album, Paper Kisses, Wolverton crafts an elusive synergy of opposites. These songs are nostalgic but arch, serene but gently confounding—they snake and zag until one is happily lost in a canyon at sunset.

Echoes abound on this album: you can hear the pastoral lilt of early 70s Grateful Dead, the breezy chamber folk melodies of Fairport Convention, one song even seamlessly splices in sections of Prince’s When Doves Cry. It all seems in its right place. “Train is coming around the bend.” Hop on and let it take you past the vanishing point of the horizon.

--- Neil Fauerso