Wandering Oak presents YHWH Nailgun

The quartet of Zack Borzone (vox), Jack Tobias (synth), Sam Pickard (drums), and Saguiv Rosenstock (guitar) display an innate ability to translate a primitive spirit into a modern form. Born during the lockdown as an experimental project between Borzone and Pickard in Philadelphia, the group expanded as the two moved to New York, adding Tobias for their debut self-titled EP, which was produced by Rosenstock, who was then integrated into the band. That first collection is one of self-discovery, of finding the tools necessary to make songs within the band’s own ecosystem. They honed in on their own world and their collaborative, close-knit writing process, discovering the essential structures and feelings that make YHWH Nailgun.

Milkweed describe their sound as slacker-trad, which is both true and somehow insufficient. For three years Milkweed have refined a formula – taking existing source material (a folklore journal, a book on Welsh myths, another on bronze age human remains and most recently Thomas Kinsella’s masterfully stark translation of the Táin Bó Cúailnge), cutting up the words and feeding them through a woodchipper of lo-fi production and experimental folk music.

On the face of it their musical concerns are transatlantic – they follow the rich creative line that runs between British traditional music and the songs and tunes of the eastern United States. In reality their scope is global, and rooted in deep time, with influences from prehistory bleeding into a troubled and troubling modern era. As a result their music doesn’t sit easily anywhere, but ricochets between bewitching folk music and disconcerting hauntological experimentation.