Philadelphia, PA · heartland psych

Kurt Vile & The Violators

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Philly's laconic guitar rambler — hazy, endless-highway rock, songs that amble past the seven-minute mark like it's nothing.

Kurt Vile is a songwriter and guitarist from Philadelphia. He was a founding member of The War on Drugs before leaving to concentrate on his own records, which have appeared through Matador and taken in albums including Smoke Ring for My Halo, Wakin on a Pretty Daze and b'lieve i'm goin down... He also made the collaborative album Lotta Sea Lice with Courtney Barnett.

The Violators are his long-running backing band. Together they play a loose, drawn-out kind of rock built on fingerpicked and layered guitars, steady rhythms and Vile's half-mumbled drawl, with songs that often stretch well past conventional length and lean on repetition and drift rather than sharp structure.

heartland psych