At some point over the last decade, impermanence became Wye Oak’s muse. The duo’s early projects were defined by Jenn Wasner’s guitars, whose eruptions gave their otherwise-dreamy indie rock a volatile edge. There were keyboards, too, but they were mostly limited to whatever drummer Andy Stack could play with his free hand. Since Wasner issued a temporary moratorium on those signature guitars on 2014’s Shriek, however, every album has been, if not quite a reinvention, then a reconsideration of their core sound, a study in how a band can evolve when they refuse the most obvious path forward. Their sound has been digitized and de-digitized, built up and stripped back, with no suggestion that any iteration was anything more than a pit stop.
Until recently, the lone constant of the group had been their two-piece lineup, but even that’s been open to amendment. Before their most recent tour was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic, the duo had expanded to a five-piece, where they performed material not only from Wye Oak but from the respective side projects to which Wasner and Stack have increasingly dedicated more of their time. And on Wye Oak’s new No Horizon EP—which, true to the band’s malleable nature, sounds little like the tantalizing standalone tracks the band has been dropping over the last year or two—they’re joined by a different set of temporary contributors. The EP was recorded with the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, a mammoth choir that lends a shot of instant grandiosity to everything they touch, including recent tracks by The National and Bon Iver.
It’s incredible how the notion of an indie-rock choir has expanded since the mid ’00s, when Saddle Creek artists might invite whoever happened to be near the studio over for what amounted to a campfire sing-along. The Brooklyn Youth Chorus doesn’t do informality. Their arrangements are as ornate and stately as chapel glass, every interweaving vocal meticulously plotted for maximum orchestral impact. They don’t merely augment the songs on No Horizon; they drive them. Opener “AEIOU” dazzles with layer upon layer of kaleidoscopic refractions of voice. On “No Place,” the choir subsumes Wasner’s dusky vocals almost completely; here, she’s just one singer among dozens.
An air of secrecy once shrouded Wye Oak’s records, a fog that loomed over the production like a Do Not Enter sign, but in recent years they’ve let their sound grow more direct and open. On 2011’s Civilian, Wasner’s murmur swallowed key lyrics whole, as if protecting them from the world. Now she has a choir belting them. “When the world is just a concept, everything has hidden meaning,” they chime on “Sky Witness,” a line that’s as perfect a thesis statement for Wasner’s songwriting as any.
For all its wow factor, No Horizon has less replay value than most Wye Oak releases. Because of those choral arrangements, it burns bright but fast—a little bit of coloratura goes a long way, and these songs don’t skimp on it. A full album of this would be overkill, so the EP’s small-plate portion works in its favor. So, too, does the unlikelihood that they’ll ever make another like it. Wye Oak is the rare band that grows less defined with each project, but their capacity for new ideas has yet to fail them.
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