If you enjoyed A Jackal’s Wedding, there’s pleasing news on the horizon: Westerman is preparing a complementary release. The newly announced four-track EP Reception draws from the Athens, Greece–based artist’s recording sessions with producer Marta Salogni, yet Westerman emphasizes that these pieces mark a meaningful departure from the principal full-length. Here is his expressive reasoning:
These songs were conceived as part of a larger entity, created during winter on a small island at the heart of Lake Iseo, in a recently acquired building that had no heating, amid a snowfall. There was a proposal to pursue an extended edition of A Jackal’s Wedding. One can hear these tracks as the photographic negatives of the songs on that record, with warmth replaced by cold.
Maybe it’s just because I happened to be reflecting on Brandon Flowers this morning, but the lead single from Reception, “L/C,” brings to mind late-era The Killers in the way it channels Westerman’s usual lineage of Sting and Dire Straits through the nostalgic framework of heartland rock, echoing the mood of The War on Drugs. Westerman’s vocal delivery here is sonically deep, shadowed, and sleek, especially as he navigates themes of love and the unraveling of fictions. Listen below.
TRACKLIST:
01 “Congress”
02 “L/C”
03 “Norman”
04 “Vermuth”
Reception is scheduled for release on 11/6 via Partisan. You can pre-order it here.
