aaamusic | On 13, Sep 2011

In preparation of their debut EP Wasted Youth Blues, Pitchfork was kind enough to premiere The Morning Clouds‘ “A Walk Home“. The EP drops October 11th, pre-order for the album lies HERE.

The Morning Clouds bio:

Life has a funny way of coming around full circle when you least expect it. Take, for example, Josh Wambeke and The Morning Clouds. He spent the better part of the previous decade as half of Phineas Gage’s psychedelic songwriting axis then leading Fell through shoegaze and space-rock realms. After trampling to the farthest reaches of the cosmos and center of the mind, he found himself straying back into the realms of late-night solo songwriting that marked some of his earliest forays into home four-tracking.

As easily as Wambeke slipped back into the one-man explorations of classic pop, he’s worlds away from his days as a budding home recorder. To start, this time around he had his own local recording studio – which has quietly been making a name for itself among Denver rock circles – at his disposal. He also had a decade to hone his craft. Those luxuries immediately made themselves apparent. Instead of drifting around in his other acts’ densely crafted soundscapes, Wambeke curls up comfortably in his bedroom, dipping into the same well of inspiration that guided everyone from The Ronettes to The Ramones to The Jesus And Mary Chain through the years.

Wambeke slinks into a record-collector pop aesthetic on Wasted Youth. There’s still enough cosmic dust left over from Fell’s travels to the edge of the universe to coat The Morning Clouds’ songs and cast an ethereal shimmer over that comfortably familiar classic pop framework. Just like the Ramones roughed it up with punk and JAMC’s C86 aesthetic yanked it into the new wave, Wasted Youth filters the sound through Wambeke’s spaced-out sensibilities.

Wambeke casually floated a couple early tracks – “A Walk Home” and “The Wrong Things” – to a handful of friends and Fell supporters in late 2010. To his surprise, the response was overwhelmingly positive. These were the sort of tracks that needed a proper release, and he got to work. He coined a band name, crawled back to the studio and fleshed out the rest of Wasted Youth Blues. A band was formed, practices began and shows were booked. Once little more than a lark for a musician playing around in the studio, The Morning Clouds was on its way.

Written, performed and recorded entirely by Wambeke, Wasted Youth isn’t so much a departure for the songwriter, but a return to his roots, touching up the pop performances that formed the basis for his earliest solo dabbling. Sometimes, when you’re as prolific as Wambeke, moving forward his bands isn’t enough: You have you stop and reflect on your past.