A Word & A Wave Nation of Language

• 1 A Word & A Wave 03:52
• 2 This Fractured Mind 05:21
• 3 Wounds of Love 03:19
• 4 Across That Fine Line 05:25
• Total Runtime 17:57

Info for A Word & A Wave

A Way Forward is the follow up to Nation of Language’s debut album, Introduction, Presence (2020). While much of the sounds on the band's previous record garnered comparisons to the synth-punk sound of the 80’s, on this new offering the band delved heavily into the Krautrock pioneers and electronic experimentalists of the 70’s for inspiration in the studio, stretching their boundaries in new and different ways.

Discussing, Devaney added, “‘A Way Forward’ is an exploration of the band’s relationship to the music of the 70s, through the lenses of krautrock and early electronic music. We aimed to more deeply trace the roots of our sound, hoping to learn something from the early influences of our early influences. Experimenting with how they might be reinterpreted in our modern context - looking further backward to find a way forward. We drew a lot from the steady locomotive rhythms of bands like Kraftwerk and Neu!, while also looking to less-propulsive electronic artists like Laurie Spiegel and Cluster. The goal was to have a record that felt like a journey, like being on a train that gets lost in a colorful fog, and then suddenly bursts through into different landscapes. Thematically, some of those landscapes are familiar in their melancholy, but we also wanted to introduce celebration and joy in a way that hadn’t really been present in our previous album. Having these bursts of positivity felt like it gave the emotional low points more resonance, giving a stronger sense of emotional reality to the album overall.”

Recorded during the lockdowns of 2020, production on the record was divided between Abe Seiferth (who worked on Introduction, Presence) and Nick Milhiser of Holy Ghost!

Nation of Language

Nation of Language
The icy, post-punk-inspired synth pop of Nation of Language is the creation of Ian Devaney, who was inspired by the early work of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Taking the project in its own refined, melancholy direction, he and bandmates presented Nation of Language's full-length debut, Introduction, Presence, in 2020.

The seeds of Nation of Language were planted when the label release of a second album by Devaney's one-time high-school band the Static Jacks fell through in 2013, ultimately leaving him back at his parents' in New Jersey. His father played OMD's "Electricity," a song Devaney was familiar with but hadn't heard since he was a schoolkid, in the car one day. Hearing it inspired him to try to write something similar, as an exercise. The resulting track was "Laudanum," which ended up on Nation of Language's eponymous debut EP in 2015.

Over the next few years, a Brooklyn-based Devaney continued to write and release songs for the project's rotating lineup, including 2016's "What Does the Normal Man Feel?" and 2017's "Indignities," both of which were produced by Abe Seiferth (Phonograph, Yeasayer). The latter song featured Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti, who also joined the band on tour as bassist in the second half of 2017. Other members during this period included Michael Sui-Poi and Andrew Santora, both of the Static Jacks, and Devaney's then- fiancée, Aidan Noell, on synths. Following a tour in support of the Wombats, Nation of Language issued the track "Reality" in mid-2018, then went to work on a full-length debut.

The lineup of Devaney, Noell, and Sue-Poi emerged with the Seiferth-produced Introduction, Presence in May of 2020. Moretti contributed drums to two of the tracks, including "Indignities." (Marcy Donelson, AMG)

This album contains no booklet.