Winged Wheel

Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth and a thousand other projects) and Whitney Johnson (Matchess, Circuit des Yeux) are merely the standout names in a line-up full of musicians used to moving between no-wave avant-gardism, restless post-punk and murky garage sounds; alongside the two of them we find Cory Plump (Spray Paint), Matthew J. Rolin (Powers/Rolin Duo), Lonnie Slack (Water Damages), and Fred Thomas (Idle Ray, Tyvek). There's every reason to call this a "supergroup", but Winged Wheel is no mere stopgap project to fill spare time – quite the opposite. Over the span of five or six years the line-up has steadily expanded, growing ever more eclectic, honing a sound that today can move in multiple directions at once, a sound in constant metamorphosis, and the American outfit has released three albums at a strict two-year pace.

Each of the musicians involved lives in a different city, which is why everything begins through long-distance file exchanges. The result is captured on "No Island", the debut album released in 2022. The outcome was satisfying enough that Winged Wheel decided to continue their journey by meeting in person for subsequent recording sessions, which produced "Big Hotel", the second record, released in 2024, an engaging fusion of energetic kosmische rock and psychedelic jams.

At that point the band embarked on a proper tour and, after a string of shows across the American Midwest, in spring 2025 settled into a studio on the outskirts of Chicago to record what would become "Desert So Green", their third album and their best yet. Just as adept at handling the placidly dark atmospheres of "Beautiful Holy Jewel Home" (a disturbed post-punk, played with open wounds) as the noise pathways of "Canvas 8", the post-rock of "Canvas 11" as the jagged alt-rock of "Speed Table" and "I See Poseurs Every Day", the Indian-tinged psychedelia of "The Suite Goes Day" as the slowcore catharsis of "More Frog Poems", which bleeds nocturnal melancholy, crossing a sedated Sonic Youth with an ecstatic Yo La Tengo.