Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy has rounded up 30 new songs for his latest solo album, Twilight Override, which will be spread across three different discs upon their Sept. 26 release by the band’s dBpm Records. The tracks “One Tiny Flower,” “Out in the Dark,” “Stray Cats in Spain” and “Enough” are available to sample below.
“When you choose to do creative things, you align yourself with something that other people call God. And when you align yourself with creation, you inherently take a side against destruction,” Tweedy muses. “Youʼre on the side of creation. And that does a lot to quell the impulse to destroy. Creativity eats darkness. Sort of an endless buffet these days — a bottomless basket of rock bottom. Which is, I guess, why Iʼve been making so much stuff lately. That sense of decline is hard to ignore, and it must be at least a part of the shroud Iʼm trying to unwrap. The twilight of an empire seems like a good enough jumping-off point when one is jumping into the abyss.”
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“Twilight sure is a pretty word, though,” he continues. “And the world is full of happy people in former empires, so maybe thatʼs not the only source of this dissonance. Whatever it is out there (or in there) squeezing this ennui into my day, itʼs fucking overwhelming. Itʼs difficult to ignore. Twilight Override is my effort to overwhelm it right back. Here are the songs and sounds and voices and guitars and words that are an effort to let go of some of the heaviness and up the wattage on my own light. My effort to engulf this encroaching nighttime (nightmare) of the soul.”
The album was recorded and self-produced by Tweedy at Wilco’s longtime Chicago studio the Loft and sports contributions from his musical children, Spencer and Sammy, plus frequent collaborators James Elkington, Sima Cunningham, Macie Stewart and Liam Kazar. The artist will preview material from it during a Substack livestream at 4pm ET today (July 15).
“Iʼm not trying to imply that I had this all mapped out as a story,” Tweedy admits. “The way that this ended up falling together and being arranged, it does tell a story that I think I wanted to tell. Thatʼs what a process does for me. This is why it sounded right to me in this order, aside from tempos and music.”
Tweedy will support Twilight Override with an extensive fall solo tour, beginning Oct. 8 in Three Oaks, Mi. Beforehand, he’ll play July 27 at the Newport Folk Festival in Rhode Island. Wilco is also on the road through late August, including several dates as part of the Bob Dylan/Willie Nelson co-headlined Outlaw Music Festival.
In related news, Wilco members John Stirratt and Pat Sansone have reactivated their Autumn Defense side project for their first album since 2014. Here and Nowhere will be released Oct. 10 by Yep Roc and will be supported by a nine-date fall tour, starting Oct. 24 in Vienna, Va.
Here is the track list for Twilight Override:
Disc 1
1. One Tiny Flower
2. Caught Up in the Past
3. Parking Lot
4. Forever Never Ends
5. Love Is for Love
6. Mirror
7. Secret Door
8. Betrayed
9. Sign of Life
10. Throwaway Lines
Disc 2
1. KC Rain (No Wonder)
2. Out in the Dark
3. Better Song
4. New Orleans
5. Over My Head (Everything Goes)
6. Western Clear Skies
7. Blank Baby
8. No Oneʼs Moving On
9. Feel Free
Disc 3
1. Lou Reed Was My Babysitter
2. Amar Bharati
3. Wedding Cake
4. Stray Cats in Spain
5. Ainʼt It a Shame
6. Twilight Override
7. Too Real
8. This Is How It Ends
9. Saddest Eyes
10. Cry Baby Cry
11. Enough
To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here.
