Shadwick Wilde Forever Home

Shadwick Wilde Shadwick Wilde is relentless. After passing through San Francisco, Havana, and Amsterdam in his itinerant youth, a relatively stable homebase in Louisville, Kentucky, only spurred the singer-songwriter to fill his time with creative projects. Cutting his teeth as a guitarist for a series of punk and hardcore bands, Shadwick began writing his own songs, debuting his work with the now-out-of-print album Unforgivable Things (2010) and forming the first iteration of the Quiet Hollers. After their first album, 2013's midwestern-rootsy I Am the Morning, Quiet Hollers worked at a staggering pace, releasing a record every two years, producing charming videos, generating effusive press, and tenaciously touring the U.S. and Europe. This whirlwind of activity resulted in their breakthrough self-titled sophomore album; the sprawling and ambitious follow-up, Amen Breaks; and swelling ranks of converts won over by QH's transcendent live shows. This period of breakneck activity is perhaps best represented by the group's video for Pressure, which features the five Hollers being summarily flattened by the professional wrestler Kongo Kong, an apt metaphor for a remorseless music industry. After the better part of a decade, Shadwick tapped out of the exhausting album-tour cycle. Woodshedding in an exceptionally prolific 2019-2020, he amassed three albums of material: a spare solo collection recorded on his Kentucky farm; a set earmarked for Quiet Hollers alumni--2022's excellent Forever Chemicals; and the extraordinary ten songs that comprise his first proper solo album in 12 years, Forever Home. Easy Rider is a fine entry point, its unhurried, sun-dappled tone establishing the album's focus on modest but enduring domestic pleasures. Over comforting finger-picked acoustic figures and spare piano lines, Shadwick assumes the role of a (mostly) steady partner: