Will Johnson - Wire Mountain [LP]

Wire Mountain is Will Johnson's 6th solo album and sits atop a back catalog that includes Centro-matic, South San Gabriel, Marie/Lepanto, and Molina Johnson. When he's not writing and recording his own projects he's often contributing to others, like co-producing Austin Lucas' Immortal Americans, or playing drums in Strand of Oaks. Wire Mountain is Johnson's second album recorded with Britton Beisenherz at his Austin studio Ramble Creek Recording and together they further develop new palettes and textures for Johnson's songs, this time enlisting fellow Austinites Thor Harris (of Swans and Thor & Friends) and minimalist folk-duo Little Mazarn to help shape and define them. Britton also plays on the album, along with Austin legend Jon Dee Graham. "Cornelius" begins with a squall of feedback before giving way to acoustic guitars and an anthemic chorus that plunges into a dizzying electric guitar solo. "A Solitary Slip" is fragile folk, a lilting lullaby of finger-picked guitar, plucked banjo, and single piano notes with Little Mazarn's Lindsey Verrill mirroring Johnson's words. The last track is a hopeful instrumental, a calm before the next thing. "(You Were) Just Barely You."