#max kakacek

[trainsongbyvashtibunyan]

happy 33rd birthday max kakacek ❤️ (x)

[reckonrer]

WHITNEY

Whitney is an American band from Chicago, which formed in 2015 and is signed to Secretly Canadian. The band was formed shortly after the breakup of members Max Kakacek and Julien Ehrlich's band Smith Westerns in late 2014.

[thiisby]

Whitney’s Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek photographed by Karl Simone for InsideHook

[sinceileftyoublog]

Live Picks: 7/15

Whitney’s Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek; Photo by Olivia Bee

BY JORDAN MAINZER

Conversations, stand-up, improvised music--you don’t know what’s in store!

Katinka Kleijn & Bill MacKay, Experimental Sound Studio

SILY favorites Katinka Kleijn & Bill MacKay perform an improvised duo set tonight at Experimental Sound Studio as part of their Option series.

In Sight Out: Whitney, Chicago Athletic Association

In advance of their performance at Pitchfork Music Festival this weekend and upcoming album Forever Turned Around, Whitney join Chicago Reader staff writer Leor Galil in conversation as part of Pitchfork’s In Sight Out series.

Marc Maron, Music Box Theatre

In support of his starring role in the recently released film Sword of Trust (dir: Lynn Shelton), Marc Maron will do a Q+A tonight at the Music Box!

Johnny Pemberton, Hideout

Comedian Johnny Pemberton, known for his voice work on Son of Zorn, Adventure Time, and Bob’s Burgers, as well as his live action roles on TV shows Superstore and I Feel Bad and films Action Point and In The Loop, does stand-up tonight at the Hideout.

[thepermanentrainpress]

Gallery: Whitney @ Venue - Vancouver, BC Date: October 26th, 2019 Photographed by: Ray Maichin

[aaronmcmillan]

Whitney - ‘Forever Turn Around’

[kubotty]

音楽のススメ239

本日も、暑さを和らげる系アーティストで、アメリカよりWhitneyをご紹介。

Whitneyは米国シカゴ出身、元Smith WestersnというインディロックバンドのフロントマンであったMaxとJulienが結成したフォークロックバンド。もともとメンバーは4,5人いたっぽいけど、今は2人 +サポートでやってるっぽい。どこか懐かしいフォーキーでLo-Fiなサウンドと癖になる甘酸っぱいメロディが特徴。 2016年に1stアルバム「Light Upon The Lake」をリリース。これがまぁ佳作で各方面から高評価を得て、ついに今月末、3年ぶりに待望の2ndアルバム発売が決定。

先行して数曲配信が始まってますが、今回はその新作から先行シングルの「Valley(My Love」を。まだまだ暑い夏が続くというのに、何かが終わってしまうようなノスタルジックさがどっと押し寄せる、そこはかとない切なさにキュンとしてしまいます。これはもう新作の期待度高すぎでしょうが。それでは夕方の1曲にどうぞ。

Whitney / Valleys (My Love) (Official Video)

[synesthesiatmblr]

ACHTUNG! Photographs of Whitney live in Concert

Shot & Edited by Corgam

Full gallery: www.synes-thesia.com

[930club]

SHOW PREVIEW: Whitney

“Golden Days,” one of the lead singles off Whitney’s debut album, Light Upon the Lake, is one of the most shimmering and sunny songs I’ve ever heard. Actually, the entire album fully embodies summer-y vibes. Fun fact: despite how warm the album sounds, it was surprisingly created during a very cold winter in Chicago by the duo of Julien Ehrlich (former drummer of Unknown Mortal Orchestra) and Max Kakacek (former member of Smith Westerns). Seriously, I’d be surprised if you haven’t heard of this group yet - their debut album absolutely blew up last year and is commonly considered one of the best of last summer. They are amazing! Not to mention the live show they put on, which I can verify will be great due to my experience seeing them at DC9 last year. Especially with the summer and warm weather coming up, I can guarantee that this is a performance you do not want to miss live. Not to mention how fast Whitney is growing, this may be one of the few perfect opportunities around to check them out. But at a minimum, please give Light Upon The Lake one listen-through; you will not regret it!

-Maddie Budreau

Get tickets here for Whitney with Natalie Prass at 9:30 Club on May 20.

[musicollage]

Whitney — Light Upon The Lake. 2016 ; Secretly Canadian.      ~  [ Album Review |   1) Pitchfork  +  2) Loud And Quiet +   3) Consequence of Sound  +  4) Paste Magazine ]

1) Can a duo be a supergroup? Maybe that’s a tongue-in-cheek designation for Whitney, the band composed of former Smith Westerns guitarist Max Kakacek and former Unknown Mortal Orchestra drummer Julien Ehrlich. Both were standout members of their former bands; Kakacek never got his due in Smith Westerns, as singer Cullen Omori’s presence soaked up much of the adulation. Ehlrich, who looked about 11 years old behind the kit with UMO, was a long-limbed beast. Whatever reasons for their previous acts’ dissolution and split, the two have found each other and put together something simple but always invaluable: a great warm weather rock’n’roll record.

It’s hard to talk about Whitney without first talking about Girls, another sweet-and-sour rock duo that both UMO and Smith Westerns spent time on tour opening for. Girls breathed life into earnest folk-rock by writing simple, powerful songs about being in love with life and learning to enjoy the basic things. But they broke up after two albums, and their absence left an empty space that has never been filled. Whitney come closer than any band since.

Light Upon the Lake, their debut LP, is a short collection of short songs; half of them are made up of easygoing guitar flourishes, the other half feature woozy strings and slurred brass. This is the Corona of rock records, as Whitney consistently walk that fine line between identifiable and platitudinal. Take the chorus from most recent single “No Matter Where We Go”: “I can take you out/I wanna drive all around with you with the windows down/And we can run all right.” It’s so generically wistful that it could provoke an eyeroll, but it’s delivered with such gentle earnestness that it’s improbably touching. Light Upon the Lake operates in a universe of endlessly repeatable joy, with a touch of melancholy to keep it interesting. The songs could be about romantic love, but they’re open-ended enough to be whatever you want them to be.

The vocals are a harder sell. Ehrlich, assuming vocal duties here, is on the whinier, Muppet-ier side of things. The overall muffled effect of the recording doesn’t help to crystallize anything, either. It’s like someone’s stopped at a stoplight singing their heart out in their car with the windows up and you hear it from the sidewalk. It works great in terms of expressing earnestness but possibly not in terms of pleasantness. I like it because it feels very true. That said, I wouldn’t hold it against you if you weren’t turned off, at least initially.

Make it past that, though, and you’ll find most songs to be near flawless on a small scale, working the way a great short story does. The crisp edges of these songs betray people who really know how to play their instruments, but instead of flashing that fact, they back up, writing only in vivid, broad, easygoing pop-rock strokes. “Golden Days,” has all the elements of showiness—a guitar solo, extraneous brass, a singalong—but the song stays small and hummable. Low-key perfectionism is perhaps a humbler virtue than seeking the big, dynamic splash. But it has a way of sneaking in past our defenses and lingering longer—before we know, we’ve been singing that song under our breath for the better part of a year.  Whitney might not reinvent anything, but they sound perfect right now, and it’s hard to argue with being in the right place at the right time.

2) The word ‘supergroup’ is a bit of an oxymoron. I mean, Cream were decent but from Slash’s Snakepit to Audioslave it’s a term that conjures up music’s less, let’s say, tasteful moments. Indeed, much as I love ‘The Living Years,’ even I will admit that Mike + The Mechanics’ oeuvre is patchy at best.

Now, however, we have Whitney. A more understated take on the model, they have quietly produced one of the year’s best albums so far. Boasting an embarrassment of indie riches in Julien Ehrlich (an alumnus of both Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Smith Westerns), Max Kakacek (another former Smith Westerner), Ziyad Asrar (Touching Voids), and a sprinkling of production fairy dust from the hands of Jonathan Rado (Foxygen) and Jacob Portrait (UMO), their collective CV is impressive. Like an Arsenal team sheet flapping in the August breeze, they look good on paper. Whitney, however, are more than the sum of their parts.

Taking the folk and country-dappled rock of the likes of Jim Ford and Gram Parsons as their foundations, they have already been labelled as throwbacks. But while ‘Light Upon The Lake’ clearly hankers for another sonic era, this group of twenty-somethings aren’t just nostalgic for the warmth of a bygone sound. No, they have also made it their mission to reprise a wholesomeness of sentiment; a purity of feeling that has long since expired in pop music. The magic is that they manage to do so with earnestness. Their songs never veer into pastiche or stylistic self-consciousness, and never feel like they are constructed merely for the vague purpose of post-irony. And, in any case, who said the past should be allowed to co-opt a sound or an ethos? Contemporary classical composers don’t get slagged because their sound is retro.

A breakup album, its songs are wistful, melancholic sketches of those zoomed-in flashes of relationships that seem somehow to capture the whole; crumpled photo booth prints taken on a scorching summer’s day found at the bottom of a shoebox a couple of Christmases later. ‘Golden Days’, the album’s most immediate hit, for example, is a gorgeous, early Jackson Browne-esque ode to the happier times shared between two humans, written with the magnanimity that only the twin luxuries of time and distance can afford. With a tender George Harrison guitar line that bends and keens, and a rousing coda of trumpets and sing-along ‘na-na-na’ vocals, it’s a brilliantly sunny celebration of the past that strides confidently into the future, whatever it may be.

‘Polly’, meanwhile, is another standout; an affectionate meditation on those quiet moments when you’re visited by the ghost of an old love, just as you thought you were doing alright. Climaxing with a wall of brass, it again manages to be triumphant while casting one fond eye over its shoulder, observing what has been and is no longer. Elsewhere, the title track is a resplendent update on Crosby, Stills, & Nash (another decent supergroup, in fairness), while ‘Dave’s Song’ is a wonderfully bare country number that asks its subject for forgiveness amid wailing guitars and plaintive horns. But I could list every track and rhyme off a whole catalogue of touchstones so let me keep this simple: ‘Light Upon The Lake’ is a beautiful thing. Its melodies are beautiful and its honesty of emotion is beautiful. Make it a part of your life.

3) Bands are born, they live, they make records, they play shows, they break up, they die. Some reunite (most reunite), some don’t. That’s pretty much how it goes. In December, 2014 one band, Smith Westerns out of Chicago, Illinois, met its final end. Front man Cullen Omori went one way, signing a deal with Sub Pop and cutting a solo album, while guitarist Max Kakacek and drummer Julien Ehrlich went another. The latter pair went out and found a whole new group of musicians to play, write, and record with. They named themselves Whitney and quickly found a home on Secretly Canadian. Their debut album, Light Upon the Lake, is as majestic and as ethereal as its title implies.

To make their grand introduction to the world, Whitney chose to lead off with the song “No Woman” — it’s the first track on this album, and the first single that the band released to the masses. They made the right choice. “No Woman” a gorgeous, emotionally evocative tune. Opening with a tender, electric piano that’s punched up with a brusque trumpet part, the song quickly falls into a sparse, acoustic guitar-driven ballad. Ehrlich’s falsetto sounds severely wounded and perplexed as he weaves his tale about leaving on a train to spend some time out in the wide open. For those aware of Whitney’s backstory, it’s hard not to listen to “No Woman” without relating its theme of checking out for a bit to put the past behind you to Kakacek and Ehrilch’s own recent travails in the music industry. “I’ve been going through a change/ I might never be sure,” Ehrlich croons. Of course, it could just as easily be a broken relationship that spurred him on his journey, or fleeing a shit job. Regardless of its impetus, “No Woman” is touching for all the reasons that a song about driving by a bay at midnight can be touching. The imagery, combined with the softened, ‘70s California singer-songwriter vibe is instantly disarming and overwhelming.

The mood takes a lighter turn on “The Falls”, jaunty pop piece featuring a delightfully twangy guitar solo. But the reflective mood can’t be held at bay for too long, returning on “Golden Days”. That said, the vibe of this song is decidedly more upbeat than “No Woman” — think Gram Parson’s brand of country mixed with Stax-like orchestration — but the subject matter is all the same, if the end desire isn’t flipped. Instead of wanting to check out, Ehrlich now laments a relationship gone wrong. It’s a “shame that we can’t get it together now,” he offers, “searching for those golden days.”

Whether he wants to get away or to get everything back together, Ehrlich does an excellent job of wanting throughout the record. Light Upon the Lake inspires self-reflection — no, it insists upon it. Songs like “Dave’s Song” (a melancholic mood-piece defined by a quickly delivered pentatonic digression over a very present and thumping bass line) don’t actually focus on the characters sketched within. Through evocatively delivered lines like “It’s hard to give up, when I don’t wanna be saved” ringing in your ears, you’ll think about your own behavior and the way it may have affected the characters that inhabit your own world. Everything is framed in such relatable terms that the urge to superimpose your own life story onto Whitney’s skeleton is palpable. Their dulcet, vintage tones intoxicate and overwhelm the senses, while the cutting lyrics set the table for a thoroughly emotional listening experience.

4) When Whitney released “No Woman”—the first of two singles off of their debut album Light Upon the Lake—it seemed too good to be their first release. The track was just the right meld of expertly noodly guitar leads, faint falsettos, lullaby piano and bombastic horns. In reality, it’s not truly the band’s first effort.

Max Kakacek and Julien Ehrlich, Whitney’s songwriting duo, have been preparing to release this debut album since shortly after their last band, the Smith Westerns, split in 2014.

The Smith Westerns were kind of the princes of underground-esque indie rock, carrying the mantle of the slurry, dream pop sound made popular in the early 2010s with bands like Beach Fossils and Washed Out. When they broke up, members splintered into two different projects: lead singer Cullen Omori’s solo work, which sounds decidedly more inline with the band’s old stuff, and Whitney. To forge this band, Julien adopted the role of singer and co-songwriter. This was a new role for Julien, who had also previously spent time as drummer for Unknown Mortal Orchestra, but he assumed it confidently.

When writing songs together, Max and Julien developed a persona: Whitney is a lonely guy who drinks too much and lives alone. It was probably a pretty easy idea to embody. Both Max and Julien are quick to admit that the songs for Light Upon the Lake were written in the midst of consecutive breakups. They felt a little bit like Whitney, so they built Light Upon the Lake as a bit of a concept album.

There are some songs, such as the title track, that play as more of a bridge between others. “Light Upon the Lake” is a tranquil pause between the high-energy of wiggly guitar jam “Dave’s Song” and “No Matter Where We Go,” one where the instrumentation really picks up to high-speed, in relation to the rest of the bluesier, reflective piece. In it, Julien’s tape-recorded vocals lay over a thumby bass line as he sings, slightly unconcerned about how much things can change right in front of your eyes—and wonders if he can keep up.

The album echoes like someone on the verge of being over it. “I know how to keep you hung up but I won’t do it again / All I know I wish you were my friend,” sings Julien in “Dave’s Song,” a clear indication that there’s a light at the end of whatever tunnel he’s been trudging through. Then, there are parts, like the jazz-infused horns and hoppy bass line in “On My Own” that make it too bright to be a sad song, despite lyrics like “I can’t sleep alone when you’re on my mind.” The weird thing about labeling this record as a breakup album is that it’s both accurate and—paradoxically—widely off-base.It’s not angsty, or hastily prepared in a few drunken nights off of some fit of red-eyed nostalgia. Sure, literally speaking all of the songs off of Light Upon the Lake conjure up failure to maintain a relationship with a loved one, but how can you relate a new band’s debut record—and one that’s so so fully realized to the point of even having a mission statement in the Whitney, as a man, as a writing prompt and concept—with a break up? If anything, it’s the start of something new.

As listeners, we weren’t there to see Max and Julien parsing through once-shared record collections with their exes. We didn’t see tears. We don’t even know names or faces. Sure, we can relate to the feelings behind the lyrics on songs like “No Woman” and “Golden Days,” because everyone everywhere has been there. We can understand the sparkling hope in the music behind these lyrics, too, because once the dust clears, there is joy in knowing you came out on the other end of heartbreak. But it’s not a breakup album, because we’re just meeting Whitney, and we like them too fucking much to end it.

[trainsongbyvashtibunyan]

hbd maxie 🥳🫶

[iwasntover]

Whitney (Julien Ehrlich and Max Kakacek) by Olivia Bee

[hndrk]

[#40/50 of 2010s] Cullen Omori, “Cinnamon”

Not often you see fault lines as clearly as in the Smith Westerns split. Guitarist Max Kakacek wanted to do something else, and did so in Whitney, while frontman Cullen Omori just wanted more of the same. And he mostly did so on his two solo outings so far — to somewhat mixed results. The songwriting isn't as uniformly strong as with his former band, but at least on his solo debut single he managed to hit the same heights. This is a glorious, glorious track.

***

My Top 50 of the 2010s: See all entries so far here.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Whitney Live Preview: 12/5, Thalia Hall, Chicago

Photo by Olivia Bee

BY JORDAN MAINZER

How on earth would Whitney follow up Light Upon the Lake without being a one-trick pony? They answer that question on their new album Forever Turned Around, and that’s through thematic reflection. Produced by Bradley Cook and Jonathan Rado, the band’s aesthetic changes very little, if at all, save for some increased vocal range from drummer Julian Ehrlich. It’s still got that warm, old-school feel, slowly lurking, strummed ditties with Laurel Canyon piano and chest-puffed-out horns. Yet, this time around, Ehrlich and guitarist Max Kakacek are looking with wide eyes at relationships, both with romantic partners and between themselves. “I can feel you giving up,” Ehrlich sings on the opening track, before clarifying in the next verse, “You’re the only one I love / Even when you’re giving up.” Yes, sometimes a match just works, but that’s often because of bumps in the road.

Indeed, it’s always been clear that the musical camaraderie between Ehrlich and Kakacek is forever strengthening. Forever Turns Around puts that into words. “Well it made no sense at all / Until you came along,” Ehrlich coos on “Used To Be Lonely”. The album isn’t biographical, though. That the people involved in the songs could be romantic partners or the two band members themselves is effective and keeps the album’s themes universal. “You say you’re still a friend of mine / But you’re driftin’ away / Like a cloud hangin’ over the pines,” Ehrlich sings over perfectly wincing slide guitar. 

It’s important to note that Whitney’s not a fatalist band; at its heart is a forever yearning. “There’s fire burning in the trees / Maybe life is the way it seems,” Ehrlich sighs on “Valleys (My Love)”, but follows his dejection with, “There’s got to be another way.” Songs like “Before I Know It” and “My Life Alone” reference the intangible nature of the passage of time--watching it go by is an okay way to live. Perhaps the most effective is “Day & Night”, which starts with a road trip, perhaps one of the many tours Whitney’s been on since their breakout debut. “Now and then, I remember there’s the end in sight / When it hits me, feels good, but strange at the same time,” Ehlrich sings. Sure, it’s one of those stoned-but-wise, somewhat obtuse things you might overhear a Deadhead say. But it also encompasses the paradoxical nature of forever turning around, the only certain thing being uncertainty, finding strength beside it in a special bond.

Album review: 7.6/10

Local punk band The Hecks open.

[thebowerypresents]

Try to Grow a Pair of FREE tickets to tomorrow’s sold-out Whitney show at Brooklyn Steel.

[aaronmcmillan]

Whitney - ‘Light Upon The Lake’