Wilco

For the A Ghost Is Born recording, Wilco was Jeff Tweedy, John Stirratt, Leroy Bach, Glenn Kotche, and Mikael Jorgensen; Jim O'Rourke, who mixed the band's previous release Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, co-produced the album with Wilco. Leroy Bach left Wilco at the completion of the sessions and the band announced the addition of two new members: Pat Sansone and Nels Cline. Sansone and Cline toured with Wilco to promote AGIB and that lineup has remained unchanged since 2004. As Tweedy said to Mehr for his new liner note, "Making that record, and then finding this lineup, that was the start of something-of having a band that can play anything. That's why, twenty years later, we're still here and still going. "Wilco first began sessions for what would become A Ghost Is Born in early 2002 at Chicago's Soma E. M. S. , where they had mixed Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Much of the album was tracked live in the studio with O'Rourke and engineer Chris Shaw. They also reunited there with engineer and soon-to-be-bandmate Mikael Jorgensen. At Soma, the band began sketching out music using Tweedy's notebooks of lyrics, poetry, and prose. Mehr notes: "In between more traditional song tracking, the group would engage in a series of conceptual improvisations in the studio. These musical experiments, broadly known as 'Fundamentals'... were part of what Kotche said was 'an attempt to search for a new group identity. To see what we could make this band into. '"In the fall of 2003, the band relocated to New York to finish recording at Sear Sound. "It seemed like the band needed to get out of Chicago, get out of the working mode they'd been in, and only be thinking about making a record," O'Rourke told Mehr. There, playing together in the corner of a large studio, the album began to take it's final shape. Emerging from a period of addiction and rehab, Tweedy discussed how he feels about A Ghost Is Born in retrospect. As he told Mehr, "I was worried the album was going to feel like something dark and not me anymore. But the album was ahead of me as a person. It was the part of me that I was trying to preserve-enthusiastic and furious about the world, as well as open and loving. I reached that in the music, before I could get there emotionally on my own. "

Track List

1. At Least That's What You Said
2. Hell Is Chrome
3. Spiders (Kidsmoke)
4. Muzzle of Bees
5. Hummingbird
6. Handshake Drugs
7. Wishful Thinking
8. Company in My Back
9. I'm a Wheel
10. Theologians
11. Less Than You Think
12. The Late Greats

AAA Cut From The Original Stereo Master Tapes By Kevin Gray
Pressed On 180-Gram Heavyweight Vinyl At Optimal
Heavyweight Glossy Gatefold Jacket
Features New Liner Notes By Bob Mehr

ABOUT THE RHINO HIGH FIDELITY SERIES
Rhino is synonymous with high-quality reissues, setting the standard with award-winning audio releases for the past 45 years. Now we've raised the bar with a premium vinyl series, Rhino High Fidelity. These high-end, limited-edition vinyl reissues of classic albums represent the pinnacle of sound and packaging.

To ensure consistent sonic excellence, Kevin Gray will cut lacquers for all Rhino Hi-Fi releases, and Optimal will press the 180-gram vinyl records. The releases boast high-quality glossy covers and “tip-on” jackets, an old-school aesthetic that evokes the golden age of vinyl.

TRACK LIST:

Side One
"I Must Be High" 
"Casino Queen" 
"Box Full of Letters" 
"Shouldn't Be Ashamed" 
"Pick Up the Change" 
"I Thought I Held You" 
"That's Not the Issue"

Side Two
"It's Just That Simple" 
"Should've Been in Love" 
"Passenger Side" 
"Dash 7"
"Blue Eyed Soul"
"Too Far Apart"

Wilco's first studio album in three years, Sky Blue Sky, has been perhaps the most ardently awaited release of '07. Eager fans had taken to shouting out pleas for information to bandleader Jeff Tweedy during his recent solo acoustic tour, and the web chatter has been virtually deafening. Critic Katie Toms of London's the Observer addressed fan speculation in an advance review, declaring, with unalloyed delight: Boy, was it worth the wait... Simple and soothing, yet rich and rewarding, this is an album you unknowingly yearn for, like a cool hand on a hot forehead. A great album from a band in their prime Sky Blue Sky is as eloquently straightforward as Wilco's last studio recording, the Grammy-winning a Ghost Is Born, was daringly experimental. Tweedy's lyrics deal forthrightly with romantic separation and reconciliation, their bittersweet quality giving way, as the album progresses, to a more uplifting, redemptive mood. Tweedy quite literally banishes the darkness on the penultimate track, the inspiring, gospel-tinged What Light the album's first single and concludes with a deeply affecting, 'til-death-do-us-part lullaby, on and on and On. There are hints of early-seventies Southern California folk-rock sweetness in the harmonies throughout the band-produced Sky Blue Sky, a bluesy Allman Brothers feel to the guitar /keyboard interplay, and plenty of brash guitar solos that take songs like You Are My Face and Shake It Off in thrilling, unexpected directions. This is especially good news for the crowds that will fill the Bonnaroo Festival in Manchester, Tennessee, this June, where the band plays the first U.S. date of it's 2007 world tour in support of Sky Blue Sky. Principal songwriter Tweedy cut these tracks in the band's Chicago studio with members John Stirratt (bass, vocals), Glenn Kotche (drums), Mike Jorgensen (keyboards), Nels Cline (guitars) and Pat Sansone (guitars, keyboards, vocals) all of whom are also becoming notable performers in their own right. A Ghost Is Born co-producer Jim O'Rourke returns as music contributor. The is the double vinyl version. It comes in 180 gram half speed master by Stan Richter. Plating was pressing was done at R.T.I.

Track List

1. Either Way
2. You Are My Face
3. Impossible Germany
4. Sky Blue Sky
5. Side with the Seeds
6. Shake It Off
7. Please Be Patient with Me
8. Hate It Here
9. Leave Me (Like You Found Me)
10. Walken
11. What Light
12. On and on and on
13. [CD-ROM Track]