Asheville, NC · country-gaze

Wednesday

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Asheville's country-gaze storytellers — lap steel, feedback, and busted-truck poetry, narrating the South's weird corners in high fidelity.

Wednesday formed in Asheville, North Carolina in 2017 as a solo project of Karly Hartzman, who took up guitar after watching Mitski's Tiny Desk concert on NPR. Multi-instrumentalist Daniel Gorham joined soon after, and the pair recorded the band's debut, yep definitely, released in 2018. The band's name was drawn from the British group The Sundays.

After Gorham left, Hartzman rebuilt the band from musicians around Asheville, arriving at a five-piece with MJ Lenderman on guitar, Xandy Chelmis on pedal steel, Alan Miller on drums and, later, Ethan Baechtold on bass. Lenderman had met Hartzman in 2017 and stayed with the band for years while also releasing his own solo records.

The group pairs the volume and smeared guitar textures of shoegaze with lap steel, country phrasing and detailed, place-specific storytelling, a combination often described as country-gaze. Hartzman's lyrics tend toward small, concrete detail, brand names, roadside scenes, overheard misfortune, delivered in a plainspoken drawl over arrangements that swing between quiet and overwhelming.

A second album, I Was Trying to Describe You to Someone, appeared in 2020, followed by Twin Plagues in 2021, the first to feature Lenderman as a full member. A 2022 covers record, Mowing the Leaves Instead of Piling 'em Up, preceded a move from Orindal Records to Dead Oceans, where Rat Saw God arrived in 2023 to wide acclaim and brought the band a larger audience.

Bassist Margo Schultz, who painted Rat Saw God's cover, left after that album and was replaced by Ethan Baechtold ahead of heavier touring. A sixth album, Bleeds, followed in 2025, with Lenderman stepping back from touring around its release and Jake "Spyder" Pugh joining for the accompanying shows.

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country-gaze