Wilco’s Nels Cline Debuts Jazz Band on Upcoming Record

[Rolling Stone]

The Nels Cline 4 preview ‘Currents, Constellations’ with funky single, “Imperfect 10”

By Ryan Reed

Wilco guitarist Nels Cline is introducing a new jazz band, the Nels Cline 4. The group’s upcoming debut LP, Currents, Constellations, is out April 13th. The quartet includes guitarist Julian Lage, bassist Scott Colley and drummer Tom Rainey.

The band previewed the album with lead single “Imperfect 10,” a funk strut filled with harmonized electric guitar leads, double-bass thumps and cymbals.

The Nels Cline 4 will mark the LP release with a show at New York City’s (le) poisson rouge on April 16th. Tickets go on sale Friday, March 8 at noon ET. Three of the band’s four members will launch a European tour that month, with bassist Jorge Roeder filling in for Colley.

Cline and Lage previously collaborated as a twin-guitar duo on their 2014 LP, Room. But they always imagined what an expanded line-up would sound like. “Even in the earliest days of the duo we used to say, ‘I wonder what we’d do if we ever had a rhythm section,'” Cline, one of Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists, said in a statement.

The guitarists wound up inviting Colley and Rainey to join them for a residency at New York City venue the Stone, setting the stage for the new record. Cline wrote seven out of the LP’s eight tracks; the other is a cover of jazz pianist Carla Bley’s “Temporarily.”

Cline issued a solo album of big-band jazz, Lovers, in 2016.

Currents, Constellations Track List

1. “Furtive”
2. “Swing Ghost ’59”
3. “Imperfect 10”
4. “As Close As That”
5. “Amenette”
6. “Temporarily”
7. “River Mouth (Parts 1 & 2)”
8. “For Each, A Flower”

The Nels Cline 4 Tour Dates

April 16 – New York, NY @ (le) poisson rouge
April 20 – Geneva, CH @ AMR – Sud des Alpes
April 21 – Oslo, NO @ Nasjonal Jazzscene, Victoria
April 25 – Berlin, DE @ ZigZag Club
April 26 – Madrid, ES @ Sala Clamores
April 27 – Munich, DE @ Unterfahrt Jazzclub
April 28 – Ferrara, IT @ Torrione San Giovanni – Jazz Club Ferrara
April 30 – Istanbul, TU @ Babylon Bomonti Istanbul
May 2 – Kortrijk, BE @ Belgium De Kreun
May 4 – Liége, BE @ La Cité Miroir