Zion, by Wilder Maker

Zion

by Wilder Maker

supported by

Jowan Mead this record is full of life and sweltering arrangements and i can personally attest that it brought me closer to god Favorite track: Women Dancing Immortal.

Φιλιππος ΙΙ Love the stylistic changes they go through on every release - always something familiar along with something new. Great mixes and songwriting, the blend of voices and instruments. Awesome stuff. One of my favorite groups to listen to these days. Favorite track: Women Dancing Immortal.

Jeremy / HI54LOFI Wilder Maker make really good songs and if you're not already on board, now's a good time to do so before everyone notices how late you are to coming around.

Nick Green Oh my! Love the swagger and the stomp... roll on the album's release

	/

Streaming + Download

Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

Purchasable with gift card

$10 USD or more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Pre-orders include limited edition hand-made linocut prints by Gabriel Birnbaum

Includes unlimited streaming of Zion via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 3 days

Purchasable with gift card

$14 USD or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Pre-orders include limited edition hand-made linocut prints by Gabriel Birnbaum

Includes unlimited streaming of Zion via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

ships out within 3 days

Purchasable with gift card

$19 USD or more

1.	Closer To God 06:09	buy track
2.	Impossible Summer 05:27	buy track
3.	Women Dancing Immortal 09:46	buy track
4.	Drunk Driver 05:04	buy track
5.	Gonna Get My Money 04:18	buy track
6.	Multiplied 03:44	buy track
7.	Cocaine Man 07:46	buy track

about

James Joyce once said that if all of Dublin was destroyed, they ought to be able to rebuild it brick by brick just from reading his novels. Wilder Maker’s Zion is the first chapter in a musical novel that makes the same claim for Brooklyn, NY. Written by guitarist / saxophonist / singer Gabriel Birnbaum and brought to life with long time collaborators Katie Von Schleicher, Nick Jost (Baroness), Adam Brisbin (Sam Evian, Jolie Holland) and Sean Mullins, Zion is a kaleidoscopic snapshot of years hustling for a break in New York City: waking up at 5 am to pour coffee for the brownstone-owning elite, waiting for a drug dealer on a city bench outside a blurry house party, moving catastrophically from apartment to apartment in the garbage scented heat, glimpsing euphoria through the ritual of taking your place among the anonymous crowd at a music festival, having your heart shattered in front of an audience at a bar, drunkenly contemplating bodega window displays, circling ever closer to something that could either be perfection or the drain, depending on the day.

Last year’s Saddle Creek single "New Streets" showcased the band in their poppiest Fleetwood-Mac-channeling mode, breezy summer jams for driving with the windows down, and it got them noticed by NPR, SPIN and Stereogum, but Zion hugely expands their palate of tools. Its influences run from classic 70’s Dylan to blown out free jazz saxophone, from Dr. John’s swampy psychedelia to Ethiopian sounds picked up from Birnbaum’s many years as a member of Debo Band, with hints of Coltrane’s classic quartet and nods to The Velvet Undergound. Zion is an omnivorous record. Its wide-ranging influences have been hinted at throughout Wilder Maker’s adventurous catalogue of self-released material but never explored so fully, or with this kind of wild energy and unclassifiable groove. This is a record to dance to, to cry to, to sing along to, maybe all three at once.

Lead vocals are traded casually back and forth by Birnbaum and Von Schleicher, who sing the kind of natural kinship you only get from almost a decade of working together, with Mullins and Jost forming a perfectly locked in core for them to float over, handling the odd-meter twists and turns of “Cocaine Man” and the backbeat strut of “Closer to God” with the same easy skill. Inspired as much by books by Rachel Kushner, Karl Ove Knausgaard, and Frank Stanford, the lyrics examine both dramatic and mundane moments, finding a way to infuse the everyday with as much meaning as the extraordinary, to find a metaphor in sun-bleached soda labels, tentative teenage dancers and halal carts.

Releases July 13, 2018

credits

released July 13, 2018

Wilder Maker is:
Gabriel Birnbaum
Adam Brisbin
Nick Jost
Sean Mullins
Katie Von Schleicher

Engineered by Sam Griffin Owens at Figure 8 Recording, Brooklyn, NY, and by Wilder Maker at home
Mixed by Eli Crews at Figure 8 Recording
Mastered by Heba Kadry at Timeless Mastering
All songs by Gabriel Birnbaum (So Cruel and Oh So Bright, ASCAP)
Front and back cover photos by Keegan Grandbois
Sleeve photographs by Gabriel Birnbaum & Ellen Askonas
Layout by Katie Von Schleicher & Gabriel Birnbaum

license

about

Wilder Maker New York

photo by Ebru Yildiz

contact: wildermaker at gmail

shows

Dec 14

C'mon Everybody

Brooklyn, NY

contact / help

Contact Wilder Maker

Streaming and
Download help

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like Wilder Maker, you may also like:

Not Alone
by Gabriel Birnbaum

supported by 16 fans who also own “Zion”

Love the unpredictability of wilder maker but... this is so focused and beautiful Nick Green
go to album
Shitty Hits
by Katie Von Schleicher

supported by 10 fans who also own “Zion”

Somehow, the despair in this album is familiar to no end, despite not necessarily having gone through it yourself. reyjmur
go to album
Punisher
by Phoebe Bridgers

supported by 10 fans who also own “Zion”

Most certainly a future classic. fatalataf
go to album
Corduroy In Italy
by Romantic States

Upbeat minimalist rock from this surprisingly powerful Baltimore duo. Bandcamp New & Notable May 11, 2017
go to album
Dispatch
by Folios

Charmingly rickety lo-fi guitar pop songs that combine an ear for hooks with a no-frills approach. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 9, 2021
go to album
The Gate
by American Trappist

This Philadelphia act is a revelation: barnstorming songs that thunder and howl, full of tension and manic energy. Bandcamp New & Notable May 22, 2020
go to album
Capacity
by Big Thief

supported by 9 fans who also own “Zion”

"objects" let me feel like im laying down playing my guitar, head inflated with bliss; so much emotion in this record I will never live without it. adrianne's guitar playing / singing + the whole band's instrumentation is resplendent and captures some of the rawest emotions in my life. lacie
go to album