Local Review: Waking Up With Wolves – 124.14 // Transparency

Waking Up With Wolves
124.14 // Transparency

Arborist Records
Street: 03.05
Waking Up With Wolves = Local Natives + Paul Travis + Starry Cat

Patrick Swansborough creates a wistful environment for your mind to creep through with his project, Waking Up With Wolves. This (mostly) acoustic, one-man band is tranquil and gorgeous without ever being dull.

Swansborough has an alternative dreamboat sound to his voice—think Spencer Chamberlain‘s calmer little brother. The vocals, overall, are smooth and well connected. There are enough “oohs” in the world, and they should only be used sparingly, but as a common theme in 124.14 // Transparency, they feel tasteful and possibly just added on to enhance the dream like tonality of the album. The writing style consists of a pattern with a few lines of emotionally raw lyrics followed by a frequent instrumental break which, by  default, caused me to have a moment of floating in space for everything to sink in.

“Seventeen Years pt. 1” is amazing as an opening song—it demonstrates Swansborough’s aptitude for all the right details in all the right places. There is a series of harmonics in the middle of the song that is absolutely breathtaking by being gentle and underused. Adding to the use of slow, simple riffs, the psychedelic ambience becomes too real. “Impaired Hearing” demonstrates a sentimental use of keys and a final dose of energy before124.14 // Transparency ends—a conclusion that was quite a bit different from the rest made me feel as if there is much more in store for Waking Up With Wolves, and I can only hope as much.

This is the kind of music that needs to be played live so that the atmosphere can be experienced in a surrounded sense. This is the kind of music that invokes a trance and will keep you and your attention there for the entire trip. There is nothing short of genius behind Waking up With Wolves. –Xena Jade