LA-based psych band Wand returns to the Bay Area
Songwriter Cory Hanson's rising psychedelic rock outfit Wand visits its stronghold of Bay Area fans this week, playing at the Sebastiani Theatre in Sonoma Friday before heading to the Chapel in San Francisco Saturday night.
Though arguably not quite as prolific as his fellow Los Angeles psych merchants (and former Bay Area residents) Ty Segall and John Dwyer of Osees, Hanson and company have released an impressive string of albums since first coming together in 2013. Guitarist and vocalist Hanson got his start playing in the band Thief with high school friend Chad Ubovich, a future Segall collaborator who leads his own band Meatbodies in addition to playing bass in Segall's power trio Fuzz.
While Ubovich has dismissed Thief as "a pretty boy band...trying to be Radiohead," the experience started Hanson down a steady path of playing music. He would work with another Segall collaborator in Mikal Cronin as well as playing stints with SoCal punk band togetherPangea and Ubovich's band the Meatbodies before striking out on his own. After recording demos of songs that would make up the first Wand album, Hanson convened the first version of the group with art school friends Lee Landey (bass) and Evan Burrows (drums). The band would eventually expand to a quartet with second guitarist Daniel Martens.
Released on Segall's Drag City imprint God? Records in 2014, Ganglion Reef quickly established Wand as a new force on the LA garage-psych scene with its mix of soaring melodies and sludgy guitar riffs. Their first tour opening for Segall found the band warmly embraced by a ready made audience happy to mosh to Hanson's tuneful, fuzzed-out anthems. The band quickly followed with Golem for In the Red Records, which teamed Wand with regular producer/engineer for Thee Oh Sees Chris Woodhouse for an even heavier sound, before issuing their third more folk-pop psych effort 1000 Days within the space of just over a year.
While Hanson would take more time for the next Wand album, if anything his productivity increased. In addition to expanding the band to a quintet with guitarist Robert Cody (Martens had left the year prior) and keyboardist/vocalist Sofia Arreguin and touring extensively, Hanson also issued his first solo album -- the delicate acoustic guitar and strings effort The Unborn Capitalist In Limbo that had echoes of Love's Forever Changes and Nick Drake -- and toured as a member of Ty Segall's new band project, the Muggers.
2017 saw the release of Wand's fourth album Plum. The accomplished tunes further distanced the group from its raw, garage-psych beginnings as they embraced an expansive chamber pop approach with more intricate vocal harmonies. During an exhaustive live schedule of shows to promote the album, the band proved it could still deliver the more sophisticated material (and older gems) without skimping on the ferocity that had marked their performances in the early days. A follow-up EP Perfume also showcased the broader sonic palette.
Building on that continued refinement, in 2019 Wand delivered what may be its most experimental collection of songs to date. The sprawling double LP Laughing Matter echoes Radiohead, '90s avant-pop synth group Stereolab and krautrock pioneers Can mixed with Hanson's infectious vocal melodies and the band's kinetic, propulsive energy. The group toured extensively to promote the album, closing out the year with a celebrated run of performances supporting Stereolab.
While the pandemic curtailed band activity, Hanson remained busy, releasing his second solo album Pale Horse Rider on Drag City Records. Turning away from the psychedelic chamber folk of his debut, the album found Hanson exploring a style of cosmic Americana that nods to the work of genre pioneer Gram Parsons and the Flying Burrito Brothers with its wind-swept desert soundscapes and swelling pedal-steel guitar. During the COVID-19 lockdown, Hanson also launched the web series Limited Hangout on YouTube that featured surreal comedic vignettes interspersed with performances of the new songs.
Hanson has been splitting his time between his solo efforts and Wand of late, with the band releasing the sprawling live recording Spiders in the Rain late last year that drew from performances during the 2020 tour to promote Laughing Matter. Meanwhile, Hanson's third solo album Western Cum issued in the spring hews closer to the loud, electric-guitar dominated sound of the songwriter's main band.
Earlier this summer, Wand released its long-awaited sixth album Vertigo. The new quartet line-up of the group featuring Burrows, Cody and new bassist Evan Backer has delivered another woozy dose of psychedelia fleshed out by horn and string arrangements (provided by Backer) that in some ways find Hanson coming full circle with fragile, hypnotic art-rock tunes that could be long lost Radiohead outtakes. Wand returns to the Bay Area on its current West Coast tour promoted by (((folkYEAH!))) to celebrate the latest effort, taking the stage at the Sebastiani Theatre in Sonoma Friday night with experimental guitar legend Fred Frith, a British musician who became a cult hero as a member of the UK avant-rock group Henry Cow and later played with such boundary-pushing acts as Art Bears, Massacre, John Zorn's Naked City and Skeleton Crew. A Bay Area resident, Frith also served as a longtime music professor at Mills College in Oakland and has regularly performed local solo shows featuring his unorthodox playing style. The band plays the Chapel in San Francisco Saturday night with support from Oakland's rising new-wave art-punks Juicebumps, who issued their latest album Jumbo almost a year ago.
(((folkYEAH!))) presents Wand
Friday, Sept. 13, 7 p.m. $35
Sebastiani Theatre
Saturday, Sept. 14, 8 p.m. $25-$28
The Chapel
