Wendy Rae Fowler - Warped (2018)

Long in the works, Wendy Rae Fowler's haunting full-length debut 'Warped' arrives highlighting her masterful penchant for provocative gothic blues-imbued pop and smoky enveloping atmospheres. With an impressive resume working with Queens of The Stone Age, UNKLE, We Fell To Earth, Maya Jane Coles, and Mark Lanegan - the London-based American expat has been quietly sculpting this intuitive, cohesive record, with some songs written far as back as the 90s - seeing many evolving forms since.

The album narrative arcs around the disintegration of relationships, consequences, and mortality - unfurling a galloping, versatile sonic odyssey spanning the outer spheres of heavy-leaning experimental rock, trip-hop, shoegaze, and moody ambience. Fowler remarks "Warped is a story, a journey through mountains and valleys, its an abandoned sunken ship, it’s a stark raving mad lunatic climbing out of a deep, dark, dank hole in the side of the earth, and it is the first warm rays of light on a long awaited spring day. Its agony and ecstasy and everything in-between. It's the sound of life."

Largely produced by Fowler, she returns to a few key collaborators fleshing out arrangements on 'Warped' with Rich File (UNKLE) and Leo Taylor (The Invisible, Floating Points) assisting at times to create the perfect foil for Fowler's powerful, spectral pop wanderings. The smeary guitar tones and Swans-like tribal rhythm of the opening dirge "Hollow" evokes a sense of roughed-up beauty setting the record's tone. The post-modern blues swagger of "This Is Not A Love Song" communicates both a sense of elegant sadness and seething anger. Leo Taylor's infectious drumming drives forward "Lying In The Sun"'s soulful groove, while upbeat breaking rhythms are central to the album's hypnotizing first single "Svengali." The first song she wrote, "Svengali' has evolved miles away from it's beginnings on acoustic guitar alongside Fowler's creative journey, yet retains a sense of urgency and intimacy. Her smoldering cover of Nina Simone's "Plain Gold Ring" is an ambitious undertaking that succeeds transforming it into dynamic art-rock. The Mariachi undertones of "Run" nod to Morricone's desert soundscapes settling well with the quiet tension of "The Sound of My Heart" and "Hollow Ground (Exodus Mix)" further spotlighting 'Warped''s cavernous, cinematic qualities.

Dark and compelling, Fowler's 'Warped' signals glimmers of hope along the brooding journey. These are not songs of happiness, but somehow they make you feel better.

“Songs through a black and white lens...... like a contemporary soundtrack to a Bela Tarr cityscape where southern goth, Ennio Morricone and Siouxie Sioux melt together, the shadow atmospherics of Wendy Rae Fowler and cohorts is brooding and visceral, dark and dreamlike. Highly recommended for insomniacs et al.”
- Mark Lanegan“

Her voice swelled and filled the room, holding the viewers captive until the last note finishes ringing and they burst into whistles and begged for more” - LA Record

"The results are beautiful, inclusive and alienating, at the same time .... coming together on a musical middle ground previously visited by Cocteau Twins, Depeche Mode, Doves, Massive Attack and PJ Harvey" - The Sunday Times.