Chicago, IL · americana · art-rock

Wilco

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America's great art-rock institution — 'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot' to now, endlessly generous live, Nels Cline solos included.

Wilco formed in Chicago in 1994 after Uncle Tupelo broke apart when co-singer Jay Farrar left over tensions with Jeff Tweedy. Tweedy kept the rest of the band going under a new name, taken from military radio shorthand for "will comply." Bassist John Stirratt has remained at his side ever since, through a lineup that changed often in the group's first decade.

The band started in alt-country, close to Uncle Tupelo's sound, on 1995's A.M., then pushed outward, pulling in pop structure, studio noise and repetition, drawing on artists as different as Bill Fay, the Beatles and Television. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, finished in 2001, was dropped by Reprise Records before Wilco streamed it themselves and sold it to Nonesuch; a documentary, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, captured the process. It remains their best-selling record.

Since 2004 the lineup has stayed the same: Tweedy, Stirratt, guitarist Nels Cline, multi-instrumentalist Pat Sansone, keyboardist Mikael Jorgensen, and drummer Glenn Kotche. Cline's extended, abrasive solos sit against Tweedy's plainspoken songs, giving the band a tension between folk simplicity and noise that has defined its live sound for two decades.

Wilco has released thirteen studio albums, most recently Cousin in 2023, plus a live double album and collaborations with Billy Bragg and with the Minus 5. A Ghost Is Born, from 2004, won two Grammy Awards, including Best Alternative Music Album. Live, the band favors long sets drawn deep into the catalogue, moving between quiet folk arrangements and sustained instrumental stretches.

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