Wild Nothing

Jack Tatum, formerly of Jack and the Whale and Facepaint, began making his shimmery, synth-washed indie pop recordings under the name Wild Nothing in the summer of 2009. Emerging at a time when a handful of C-86-esque groups (e.g. Crystal Stilts, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart) were in vogue, Tatum's project garnered a bit of buzz with a synthy, glimmering cover of Kate Bush's "Cloudbusting." Captured Tracks picked up Wild Nothing soon after the project's first demos came out, and it wasn't long before Tatum recruited bassist Jeff Haley, guitarist Nathan Goodman, and drummer Max Brooks to round out the group's live sound. Wild Nothing's first single, Summer Holiday, was released on Captured Tracks before 2009 came to a close. The band's debut full-length, Gemini, was released in the spring of 2010 and garnered Wild Nothing all kinds of critical acclaim. After releasing a follow-up EP, Golden Haze, near the end of 2010, Captured Tracks reissued Gemini in February of 2011 with the addition of Tatum's cover of Kate Bush's "Cloudbusting." For his next record, Tatum worked with producer Nicolas Vernhes at his Rare Book Room Studios. The result was 2012's album Nocturne. Another stop-gap EP arrived in 2013 in the form of the stylistically scattered Empty Estate EP. ~ Margaret Reges, Rovi