WZT Hearts

Photo by Jefferson Jackson Steele

Threads Rope Spell Making Your Bones Format:  LP, 180 gram vinyl Limited edition of 500. BUY

Wzt Hearts. It’s pronounced “Wet Hearts” but spelled “WZT Hearts”. Got it? Maybe it’s something in the Baltimore city water, maybe it looks good on paper. Whatever the reason, when these guys perform they harness sonic (and psychic) energy like nobody’s business.“

Threads Rope Spell Making Your Bones” is WZT Hearts’ second full length of improvised electronic psych-rock. In preparing the album, the band recorded hours of music and whittled it down to present you with the crème de la crème. At times reminiscent of the digital sparkle of European sound sculptors like Fennesz, but also harking back to the energy of Krautrock and its psychedelic progeny, WZT Hearts have created their own unique sound that blends the organic and synthetic, digital and analog, difficult and easy, and other musical dichotomies yet to be defined.

MIKE HALETA – circuit bent guitar pedals, laptop, guitar, tapes
JEFF DONALDSON – commodore 64, bi-tone guitar, mixer
JASON URICK – laptop
SHAUN FLYNN – drums, vocals

Heat Chief 12″ LP, 500 copies, 100 on white vinyl. June 2006 BUY

“The world is our sound source and Jimmy Buffett sells us our microphones,” says Mike Haleta, the self-described “commuting member” (he now resides in New Jersey) of Baltimore quartet Wzt Hearts. It’s a strange comment, but also telling. The music of Wzt (pronounced Wet) Hearts is definitely wide open, alternately conjuring images of noise gristle, free-jazz wallop, psychedelic expansiveness, and the intellectual curiosity of modern composition. Formed in early 2004 at the behest of former Cutter/Hammer drummer Shaun Flynn, Wzt Hearts have played extensively throughout Baltimore, often supporting such high-profile names as Pita, Gang Gang Dance, Lungfish, Animal Collective, Zbigniew Karkowski, and Sightings to name a few. But with the release of their debut album “Heat Chief,” Wzt Hearts are eager to carve out their own niche.

Comprised of Flynn on drums, multi-instumentalists Michael Haleta and Jeff Donaldson (both formerly of French Mistake), and Jason Urick on laptop, Wzt Hearts have been playing together for two years now. Produced by Rob Girardi at Big Crunch Studio in Catonsville, “Heat Chief” was recorded live with no overdubs. True to form, the four members of Wzt Hearts simply showed up, plugged in, and cranked it out for a few hours, editing and mixing down the best parts of their session. All live, the album captures the extremities of the band’s sound, from in-depth explorations of scraggly distortion to drone mentalism to guitar sunbursts.

With two extended takes followed by two shorter, more ambient takes, Wzt Hearts’ debut shows a quartet exploring the limits of its sound. Although Wzt Hearts are not specifically beholden to the winsome lysergics of the Animal Collective, the monolithic roar of Wolf Eyes, or the cerebral academic tabletop guitar experimentalism of AMM member Keith Rowe (with whom Haleta is also a regular collaborator), the album effortlessly segues from harsh digital dissonance to spare guitar ripples and sweet melodic ambience.

The lack of traditional song structures and penchant for experimentation, however, doesn’t mean the band aims for a difficult, confrontational aesthetic. “We really are working to create something beautiful and not trite,” Urick maintains. “I, for one, am not into the idea of being abstract for the sake of itself. In my head we are making pretty accessible music.” Accessible or not, it’s clear after one listen that Wzt Hearts have staked their claim as a band to be watched.