When talking about their new song or album, you’ll frequently hear artists mention wanting to create “a sense of place.” That can be a literal geographic location or something more emotional — a state of mind, where they are at that point in their life, etc.
For the full-length album coming in just a few weeks from his Old Pup project, Milwaukee’s Will Hansen did some extra credit by injecting the LP with a sense of places, plural. He describes it as “intimate, ethereal recordings captured in living rooms, warehouse hallways and wide-open fields spanning Milwaukee, New Orleans and New Mexico.”
We premiered the title track from Spider Towns last June, and today it’s another selection with a mention of location in its title: “House of Wind.”
While a breeze isn’t advisable construction material, it fits the song’s shapeless and shifting narrative. Hansen goes from owl-tracking in the forest to passing time in a psychiatrist’s office to chess-playing coyotes under a freeway billboard — all leading to the titular structure:
I got lost in the house of wind
Threw up my hands and they danced the jig
The ghosts are eating all my incense sticks
There’s a book of poems smashed between the bricks
Moonlight sneaking thru the attic walls
A burning chandelier’s about to fall
Slide breakfast underneath the door
I heard it’s a bloodbath on the lobby floor
Having read the lyrics before listening to the song, I can say from experience that the musical approach — to paraphrase a great man — really ties the whole “House of Wind” together. Hansen’s pedal steel and languid singing style have a starring role, supported by fellow Milwaukee artist Ellie Jackson’s subtly lovely backing vocals.
It’s a peyote-in-the-desert kind of track that hits the ears just right, and you can listen for yourself anytime using the player at the top of the page or by tuning into 88Nine throughout the day (6:30 and 10:30 a.m.; 2:30, 6:30 and 9:30 p.m.).
"House of Wind" occupies the fourth slot in the track list for Spider Towns, which is out Feb. 28. That's smack dab in the middle of a celebratory tour that starts at The Hideout in Chicago on Feb. 13 before wrapping up with a trio of Wisconsin shows, including March 15 at Cactus Club.
