Sun Cru

SC11 - 2024

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Wes Tirey is a musician based in Asheville, North Carolina. In urgent and ongoing response to the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene, and through the end of 2024, all proceeds from the sale of his new record, Wes Tirey Sings Selected Works of Billy the Kid, will be donated to BeLoved Asheville, as well as to the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund. Please consider supporting folks in NC. It would be much appreciated if you order through Bandcamp to help us keep things orderly here at Sun Cru. Thanks in advance.

 

"We still can’t seem to agree on 'the Kid.' Was he deserving of our sympathy? An iconoclastic rascal bucking the system on behalf of you and me? Or rather a ruthless opportunist whose outsized ego demanded such accommodation as only the West could provide. While folklorists and historians debate over how to faithfully reassemble the shards of that mirror, some — Michael Ondaatje namely — prefer the shivered banquet peppering the dust like buckshot.

"The Collected Works of Billy the Kid — Ondaatje's experimental novel of 1970 — reflects in poem, prose, and photographs such fragments passed down and disfigured through our collective memory and desire. And now these left-handed poems have reached the left-handed guitar of songwriter Wes Tirey, whose unadorned treatment of Ondaatje’s work adds even greater dimension to the antihero of our fevered dreams.

"How does it begin, Wes? Fittingly, with an inventory of the dead. From that sum, a cherry-picked succession of pointillistic poems reveal little of the complete picture lest you step back. Tirey’s world-weary voice is a grit and gravel foil for affecting six-string legerdemain. He lopes and canters across Ondaatje’s mercurial landscape like a cloud across the sun. A little rain and the brilliance that follows.

"There is cinema in this music: Leonard Cohen announcing McCabe’s entrance to the town of Presbyterian Church, say — but time has obfuscated character and setting and so, unsure, we project back onto the mirror in search of detail. Wes, content, approaches without such need. What he sees there in the dust is beautiful and violent. And like Ondaatje, he revels in that sublimity without further need for answers. Best let the pieces lie for us seekers searching in the dust for clues."

— Blaine Todd

"There's a special dynamic about Wes Tirey Sings Selected Works of Billy the Kid. In one bold gesture, this album features songs, spoken word, and instrumentals. The sonic textures seem transported from another era. Any song here could be planted right in the middle of the Harry Smith Anthology and no one would bat an eye. Or if they did, their ears would also perk with joy. How to categorize this? Lost cowboy psych folk, maybe. Concrete cowboy poetry with a tinge of old weird Americana. Ominous lo fi 70s Western soundtrack. Wes Tirey knows his way around these parts. The histories and characters. The raw materials of poetry and how to tell a story. All of which is probably why he was drawn to Michael Ondaatje's book in the first place. And to give Ondaatje's language this specific musical treatment, in our humble opinion, is visionary. We are honored to present this strange and beautiful melding of arts."

— Josh Collins / Sun Cru

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This is splendid Sand Gold 160 gram vinyl, a limited edition of 250. It spins at 45 RPM for maximum fidelity, preserving the distinct "past era" sound achieved by Wes Tirey when recording directly to tape. The vinyl jacket is full-color 24 pt. high-quality SBS board, and the great Nathaniel Russell did the album artwork, including the hand lettering on the jacket and center labels.

Words by Michael Ondaatje
from the novel in verse
The Collected Works of Billy the Kid

Arranged, performed and recorded by Wes Tirey
Transferred from tape by R Jobes
Mastered by Andrew Weathers at Wind Tide, Littlefield, Texas
Artwork and layout by Nathaniel Russell
Vinyl manufacturing by Smashed Plastic
All music copyright Wes Tirey 2024